Ethereum, the largest altcoin by market capitalization and the largest smart contract-capable decentralized finance platform in the crypto industry has had a decently good 2023 so far. It did take a bad hit during the crash of the FTX crypto exchange back in November 2022 but since then has managed to recover strongly from those lows.

As of writing this article, the total-value-locked in DeFi on the Ethereum blockchain is close to $30 billion and is very close to touching and breaking out of a 5-month high! In fact, it has regained almost all the value it had lost during the FTX crash and the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in early March 2023.

Thus, this platform, despite its skyrocketing gas fees and congested network resulting in low throughputs, is still at the top of the pack. So much so, that Ethereum's closest competitor, Tron currently has a TVL of $5.31, and the third on the list is BNB Chain, which is at about $5.02 billion, nearly one-sixth of Ethereum's TVL. This is a huge lead that Ethereum has over the competition in the world of DeFi and it can be expected to continue further.

Now, let’s take a deeper look at some of the decentralized finance-based (DeFi) metrics that you can take a look at to help you take better decisions when investing in this market.

Ethereum’s validator count remains strong and at an all-time-high

This is a chart that represents the trend in the validator count for the Ethereum Beacon Chain, its proof-of-stake (PoS) based consensus mechanism which was launched back in December 2020 and was recently merged with the mainnet on September 15, 2022. Now, on April 12, we are all set to see the Ethereum Shanghai Capella hard fork being implemented on the Ethereum mainnet, which would finally enable unstaking of tokens for the first time since December 2020.

Additional read: Ethereum devs confirm epoch for Shanghai upgrade

So from the chart above, we can see the clear and strong uptrend in the validator count on the Ethereum Beacon Chain, which currently stands at 564,728 validators. This is a good indicator of the strength of the project as a whole and the community's conviction in the project. Thus, this is widely regarded as one of the best leading indicators of the project's dependency.

Read more: Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade

Ethereum TVL in DeFi up 33% since the beginning of 2023!

Ethereum's total-value-locked in DeFi has grown from $22.53 billion at the beginning of the year all the way to nearly $30 billion as of writing this article. This has resulted in ETH's TVL scaling over 30% in Q1 2023.

This further indicates the growing optimism and conviction of the community for the largest altcoin by market capitalization. A sustained increase in this metric typically indicates more and more adoption of the project amongst users and mainstream service providers.  

It is also an encouraging sign that Ethereum's TVL has managed to sustain despite the major shakeups that have come into the market in the past six months, ranging from the FTX crash to the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, which led to USDC temporarily losing its peg to the US dollar.

Lido protocol leads the pack in terms of TVL

Lido, which is currently the largest decentralized finance protocol in the crypto industry has continued to hold on to its lead in the race. Lido has a very strong TVL of $11.23 billion, out of which $11.16 is from the Ethereum blockchain alone, maintaining a solid 33% dominance in the space.

This is a protocol that was launched back in December 2020, alongside the launch of the PoS Beacon Chain to serve as a platform where retail traders could participate in a pool to act as validators on the Ethereum chain without the need of the 32 ETH requirement and being liquid at the same time. This set of features has helped Lido take the lead and maintain it over the past 2 years.

Values as on April 7, 2023.

Read more: Top DeFi Projects 2023