DeFi TVL drops by 10% in August; Ethereum leads with most losses

DappRadar, in a new report, found that the overall total value locked (TVL) within the decentralized finance ecosystem (DeFi) declined by 10.47% in August. The total TVL now stood at $58.4 billion. 

According to the data from DefiLlama, DeFi TVL sat at $250 billion less than eight months ago. With only $58.4 billion, total TVL today stood at its April 2021 level when the DeFi ecosystem began gaining momentum. Furthermore, the total DeFi TVL has dropped by 55% as compared to 2021.

In August, the fall in the DeFi TVL caused the market to lose about $8.7 billion. According to DappRadar, this decline was attributable to the 8 August announcement by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) barring U.S. residents from using Tornado Cash.

However, despite this decline in TVL, DeFi-based activity went up by 3.7% in August. 

Ethereum suffered the most

With a total TVL of $34.69 billion by projects housed within Ethereum [ETH], the network controls 68% of the total market share. However, according to DappRadar, the network’s market share declined by 11% in August and has declined by 56.63% in the last year.

The top DeFi protocols on Ethereum, MakerDAO, Lido Finance, and Uniswap also registered declines in the last month. At press time, MAakerDAO’s TVL stood at $8.37 billion, having declined by 6% in August and by over 25% since August 2021. 

Interestingly, despite the upcoming Merge and leading the campaign for liquid staking of Ethereum, TVL on Lido Finance dropped 7% in August. Also, Uniswap ’s TVL was $5.58 billion as of this writing. It declined by 12% in August. 

DappRadar found further that the TVL of protocols built on BNB Chain declined by 6.44% in August and has so dropped by 75.67% since August 2021. As for Solana [SOL], the attack suffered by the chain at the beginning of the month caused its TVL to drop by 27% in the first four days.

It then proceeded to fall by 6% “for the remainder of the month and is now valued at $2.11 billion, a loss of about $1 billion,” DappRadar found.

In addition, Tron network saw its TVL fall by 2.90% in August, although the same has gone up by about 68% in the last year. Also, while its TVL declined by 17.20% in August, Avalanche’s TVL has risen by almost 11% since August 2021.