A game-changing blockchain use-case, the sphere of decentralized financial applications, is going to exceed $1B in terms of amount of money locked in active contracts.
Approaching the first billion
According to the calculations of well-known decentralized finances explorer DeFi Pulse, the total volume of money locked in all DeFi applications is close to $1 billion. In the early hours of February 5, 2020, it was estimated at $920M, but by mid-afternoon it had surged from $950M to $970,8M.
Mostly, this may be attributed to the rally of the Ethereum (ETH) price in recent days, as more than 66% of this sum is stored in Ethereum (ETH). Other significant shares of this amount belong to stablecoins, mainly DAI by MakerDAO.
The sphere of DeFi grew rapidly last month. Since December 31, 2019 it has grown almost 50% in terms of money operated by DeFi applications.
Next big thing or digital forex?
Decentralized finances (also DeFi) is a large class of decenralized applications delivering the services of crypto lending, crypto exchange, assets trading, derivatives trading etc. Globally, applications of this type strive to replace the traditional banking system through its blockchain-based analogues.
The most popular DeFi is the Maker crypto lending ecosystem. With Maker, everyone can open a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP), lock Ethereum (ETH) as collateral and get DAI against that collateral.
By the way, the nature of this type of service is still in doubt for professionals. Recently, Brad Mills, venture investments partner and host of Magic Internet Money podcast, called DeFi 'digital forex'. Erik Voorhees of Shapeshift didn't agree with Mr. Mills.
Alex Dovbnya
Arman Shirinyan
