For the second time in 2023, the total-value-locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) touched the $50 billion mark on March 22, 2023. It had crossed the $50 billion mark briefly back in the month of February but fell down below it and stayed below for most of March, before touching it again recently. As on March 22, TVL in DeFi touched $50.34 billion but as of writing, it has fallen back down to $49.11 billion on March 23, 2023.

Total-Value-Locked in DeFi swells 17% in the past 10 days!

As is evident from the chart above, in the second week of March, the TVL in DeFi took a hit amid the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank in the United States and the eventual brief depegging incident of the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, USDC. Amid the brief depegging incident, caused by the $3.3 billion worth of USDC reserves that were in the now-defunct Silicon Valley Bank, and at risk of losing those funds. But post the assurance from the FDIC or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that depositors' funds were safe in the bank, USDC has managed to regain its peg and following that, the crypto market has rebounded too, stronger than ever before.

Read more on: USDC Stablecoin Collapse & SVB collapse

The overall crypto market cap had fallen below the $1 trillion mark post the collapse of SVB, to touch near the $900 billion mark but after the resolution, it has rebounded strongly and it is currently well above $1.1 trillion as of writing. Since stablecoins are widely used in all kinds of decentralized finance applications, the brief depegging incident in USDC had put a dent in the world of DeFi as well, as is evident from the chart above.

But since March 12, TVL in DeFi has rebounded nearly 17% from around $42.9 billion to touch $50.3 billion.

Ethereum leads the pack with a 69% dominance in TVL

Ethereum is the biggest decentralized finance platform by far in the crypto industry and nearly has a 69% TVL dominance in the sector. Out of the $49 billion TVL in all of DeFi as of writing, $29 billion is contributed by the Ethereum chain alone.

In terms of TVL by blockchain, Ethereum is followed by Tron at $5.12 billion, BSC at $5.1 billion, Arbitrum at $2 billion, and Polygon at $1.06 billion. Out of the whole list, Arbitrum is probably one of the biggest gainers in the month of March, gaining over 33% in the matter of the past 10 days! This is primarily thanks to the recent announcement of Arbitrum's highly anticipated transition to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and the launch of its own native governance token, ARB which is going to be airdropped to select community members today on March 23.  

Read more: Arbitrum announces $ARB Airdrop and begins Transition to DAO

Some of the biggest DeFi protocols across chains gained significant amounts in the past week including the likes of Lido Finance, Aave, Curve Finance, and Uniswap which gained about 7%, 10%, 12%, and almost 5% respectively in the past week. MakerDAO lost out on a bit this week, but nothing too significant or to be worried about.

Values as on March 23, 2023.

Catch top DeFi News & Updates on Okto Blog!