What is TVL?

TVL is a term commonly associated with Decentralized Finance protocols that stands for the total amount of blockchain-based assets that are deposited in the protocol. It is important to note that this includes all the assets that have been staked, lent, or used to provide liquidity in pools. The yields that these assets provide are not counted in the locked value but only include the assets themselves.

It is also important to note that the TVL of any protocol is constantly changing with the number of assets deposited or withdrawn along with the fluctuating dollar value of all those assets in the cryptocurrency market. Another fact is that as per data from DefiLlama, Ethereum holds the biggest TVL among all chains, nearly half of the entire DeFi volume.

Rising TVL

In 2021-2022 we saw a huge surge in the TVL of a number of projects. However, with the dawn of a new year, it seems that this year will be quite promising for DeFi as we can see a huge surge in TVL for a number of projects.

Waves (WAVES)

Waves are "a community-based stack of decentralized open-source technologies to build scalable, user-friendly apps," as per the official website. The project is extremely fast and allows easy minting of NFTs and construction of DAOs. Moreover, the protocol is eco-friendly with a minimum carbon footprint.

As per their official data, the value of the daily transaction crosses 44.5K and the total transactions completed is 254 million. 73.0% of the supply has been staked, while the average fee per transaction is 0.017 USD, which is quite cheap.

The DefiLlama data shows that the Waves protocol is the 11th biggest protocol by TVL, and the volume was $700 million on Feb 4 and rose to $1. 67 billion at the time of writing. The data from CoinMarketCap shows that the prices have surged 55% in the last seven days.

The major change in TVL can be attributed to the transition of the platform to Waves 2.0. This will introduce a new consensus with Ethereum Virtual Machine Support, cross-chain bridges, new governance models, a bridge between digital worlds, among other things. The biggest Dapp on the Waves chain is Neutrino (NSBT), whose TVL rose 90.45% in 1 one, rising 60% in the last seven days.

Terra (LUNA)

Terra is the biggest protocol by TVL after Ethereum, whose volume surged from $13.4 billion on Feb 1 to $22.8 billion at the time of writing. The top performer on the chain is Anchor protocol, whose volume surged 44.29%.

Terra is a "public blockchain protocol deploying a suite of algorithmic decentralized stablecoins which underpin a thriving ecosystem that brings DeFi to the masses," as per the website.

The reason for LUNA's surge in TVL can be attributed to the fact that there has been a surge in the popularity of the network. Moreover, the developers have continued to burn the supply of the token. As per the data from Smart Stake, the network has burned more than 29 million tokens from the supply. This burning mechanism followed by increased demand for the UST token has caused the burning of the token and increased its prices. Furthermore, LUNA is the second biggest staked token, only surpassed by Solana.

THORChain (RUNE)

THORChain (RUNE) TVL surged from around $130 million by Jan-end to more than $180 million at the time of writing. On the other hand, the RUNE token surged more than 30% in the past seven days while the market remains bearish.

"THORChain aims to decentralize cryptocurrency liquidity via a network of public THORNodes and ecosystem products. Access to its native and cross-chain liquidity is open to any person, product or institution," as per the website.

The reason for the rise in THORChain prices was the integration with Terra (LUNA) and the launch of the mainnet. 

The integration of Terra will bring the UST and LUNA tokens to the RUNE ecosystem and was a major reason why the TVL of THORChain (RUNE) rose. The THORSwap now supports six wallet types for eight blockchains as a cross-chain DEX. Furthermore, the mainnet launch that was delayed might be nearing launch, which caused another hype among the market bulls. 

Solidly (SOLID)

In a recent report from Cryptonary, we outlined the fact that the TVL of Solidly breached the $2 mark in just 24 hours. The data from DefiLlama confirms that after reaching the $2 billion mark, the TVL crashed, and at the time of writing, the volume stands at $1.25 billion. 

This huge crash has set the entire Twitter crypto ablaze as the SOLID token jumped from a low of 2.48 USD to a high of 15.60 USD in the last seven days, but at the time of writing, the price stands at $3. 

The Solidly project saw a huge surge in TVL and adoption, and it seemed that there was no end to its popularity. However, this recent crash was attributed to a number of factors by a Twitter user. The main reason for this huge crash is token inflation, as per the user.

Conclusion

The surge in TVL of these decentralized protocols can be attributed to a number of factors. Each protocol has something that they are aiming to bring into the DeFi industry. However, it can be seen that the most attractive aspects include scalability, lower fees, and cross-chain experience. It is also to be noted that all of the above-mentioned projects have shown promising utility, and when it comes to the crypto market, nothing is for certain. However, it can be said that the time is coming for a further boom in the utility of more scalable, secure, and cheaper networks.