As Bitcoin (BTC) kept rallying, so have Ethereum (ETH) and some major decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, followed by a lot of congestion on the Ethereum blockchain network, the OKCoin team confirmed.
The crypto exchange noted in its crypto market report that if you’ve been keeping up with the DeFi space over the past few weeks, then you’ll know that the price action has been “mostly slow,” especially compared with the surging BTC price.
OKCoin pointed out in its report:
“On many days throughout December 2020, top DeFi coins such as Compound’s COMP and Yearn.finance’s YFI were in many cases down against both Bitcoin and the U.S. dollar on many days.”
They confirmed that during this past week, these speculative DeFi tokens began to rise. After Bitcoin (BTC) reached $34,000 this last weekend, then pulled back a bit to consolidate, Ethereum began surging higher. As noted by OKCoin, this corresponded with “a strong rally in many Ethereum-based altcoins, which trade against Ethereum on decentralized exchange platforms.”
The report added:
“DeFi appears to be back in vogue after ETH’s breakout past $1,000. Many DeFi tokens are moving toward all-time highs, or in some cases, are even setting all-time highs far above those seen in the summer. This re-rating in the decentralized finance space comes as the fundamentals of the [sector] have continued to improve. Builders in the crypto space were unfazed by the malaise in DeFi price action throughout October, November, and December.”
DeFi tokens have surged recently, especially after Ethereum surpassed the critical $1,000 resistance level, the report confirmed. Crypto tokens like the Synthetix Network Token (SNX) reached new all-time highs against the US dollar, the report added. It also mentioned that on Tuesday morning (January 5, 2021), the Yearn.Finance (YFI) token surged 50% due to “strong fundamental news.” DeFi, in general, also gained “fundamental strength this past week with the total value locked in this space rising to $20 billion and beyond,” the report noted.
This past weekend, Ethereum “underwent a decisive surge” past the key $1,000 mark and is currently trading at over $1,300 at the time of writing (getting closer to its high of around $1,420), the report confirmed. It added that ETH “moved from $800 to $1,100 in the span of 24 hours,” according to OKCoin market data.
The exchange claims:
“This rally had a strong effect on the decentralized finance market. After Ethereum surged past $1,000, DeFi tokens started to gap higher, moving past resistance levels with ease. Among the tokens that benefited from this rally include Synthetix Network Token (SNX), Uniswap (UNI), Aave (AAVE), and most recently Yearn.finance (YFI).”
Notably, most of these so-called DeFi coins are “actually underperforming Ethereum over the past seven days.” The recent decentralized finance market rally has “only persisted for a few days, hence this trend,” the report noted.
The report added:
“Loopring, a decentralized payment second-layer solution, saw its native LRC token gain over 100% over the past seven days. Another second-layer solution called xDAI, whose native token is STAKE, also saw an uptick in adoption this past week. Further, Optimism, an Ethereum development team, confirmed that the soft launch of Optimistic Ethereum is set to take place on January 15th. Optimistic Ethereum is based on a technology called rollups … [and] is one of the most hyped-up scaling solutions due to the fact that the team is working closely with Synthetix, a decentralized synthetic asset platform, and Uniswap.”