Funds locked in DeFi surge $1B as analyst tips post-election bull run

Following a six week cooling-off period for the majority of decentralized finance protocols, the DeFi bulls are back in action as total value locked surges to new record highs.

The amount of crypto collateral locked across various DeFi protocols has hit a new all-time high of $12.3 billion according to DeFi Pulse.

In just 48 hours, over one billion dollars has been added to the total USD value, although precise figures vary on other analytics platforms such as Coingecko and Coinmarketcap.

TVL on Coingecko’s tracker reports it to be around $11.6 billion. The increase follows Bitcoin reaching a new 2020 high of $13,200 on October 21, which was prompted by the PayPal crypto payments news.

Coingecko reports the total DeFi market capitalization — as distinct from TVL — for all tokens, including the DeFi-adjacent Chainlink, is at $14.3 billion. That's an increase of $2 billion in the DeFi marketcap over the past 48 hours.

DTC Capital head, Spencer Noon argues that the bull market for decentralized finance will soon enter round two:

Despite a month that saw most tokens fall 50% or more, #DeFi is *still* at ATHs with its most important indicators: - TVL: $12.41B- ERC20 Stablecoins: $14BDon't listen to the degens who burned out. Phase 2 of this #DeFi bull market will make this summer look like nothing.

— Spencer Noon (@spencernoon) October 22, 2020

Noon commented that many yield farmers have simply moved back to BTC after making months of solid gains and he tipped the election as the catalyst for a second DeFi boom:

“The likely inflection point for DeFi Bull Phase 2 is the election, where there are multiple outcomes that would be favorable for risk assets.”

The PayPal news and general upturn in crypto markets has resulted in numerous DeFi coins making solid gains in the past 24 hours including Airswap, Aave, Synthetix, and Curve.

A factor driving TVL is the increase in the prices of DeFi tokens used for staking, including Ethereum, as many of the liquidity pools are ETH based. Over the past 48 hours, Ethereum prices have increased 12% to reach a six week high of $415.

But according to Messari’s DeFi Returns Index, which measures performance of the top 46 DeFi assets, many DeFi tokens are still down over 40% over the past month. The biggest losers include tokens from Meta, bZx, Augur, SushiSwap, Swerve, and Curve.