TVL has become a quite popular topic these days. What is TVL and why TVL is important? Let's delve into these questions.
What is TVL?
Other than market capitalization, trading volume and total and circulating supply, total value locked (TVL) is one crypto indicator that is popular among DeFi investors to assess the overall value of assets – in United States dollar or any fiat currency – deposited across all DeFi protocols or in a single DeFi project.
DeFi assets include rewards and interest, coming from typical services such as lending, staking and liquidity pools, provided in the form of smart contracts. TVL in staking, for example, is a particularly useful indicator for investors looking to support the DeFi platforms with the highest rewards. It is the total value locked in the DeFi staking protocols and represents the amount of assets deposited by the liquidity providers.
Various elements concur on TVL’s worth other than deposits, withdrawals and the amount a protocol is actually holding. The TVL also changes with the value of the fiat currency or the native token. Some protocols’ deposits may be denominated in the project’s native token, so its TVL varies with its value. If a specific token grows in value, so does the protocol’s TVL, too.
Why does TVL matter in DeFi?
Why TVL is important? The reason is easy to understand. For DeFi platforms to function, they require capital to be deposited as loan collateral or liquidity in trading pools. TVL matters because it indicates the capital’s impact on DeFi applications’ profits and usability for traders and investors.
When the TVL of a DeFi platform rises, it is followed by an increase of liquidity, popularity and usability. These factors contribute to the project’s success. A higher TVL means more capital is locked in DeFi protocols, with participants enjoying more considerable benefits and proceeds. A lower TVL implies lower availability of money, resulting in lower yields.
Which crypto has the highest TVL?
Due to the exceptional growth of DeFi in 2020, the combined TVL of all DeFi protocols increased fast and considerably by the end of 2021. At the beginning of 2020, the combined TVL across all DeFi platforms was around $630 million, according to DefiLlama. In the first quarter of 2022, it had already reached over $172 billion in value. More than half of that was in one protocol, MakerDAO, which remained one of the most prominent protocols together with Curve and Aave. Curve is the crypto with the highest TVL and portion of the market with 9.7% of market share and $17 billion TVL, followed by Lido with a $15.4 billion TVL, Anchor at $12.6 billion and MakerDao at $11.5 billion.
Largest network by DeFi TVL
In 2022, Ethereum appeared as the largest network by DeFi TVL, accounting for over half of the total DeFi volume worldwide. To give some perspective, the Ethereum DeFi network includes just under 500 protocols. It has a TVL of approximately $73 billion, with 64% of the market share, compared with BNB Smart Chain, which is the second-highest TVL at $8.74 billion in value at 7.7% of the market share, Avalanche with $5.21 billion and 4.5% of the market share and Solana with $4.19 billion and 3.68% of the market share.
So, what is TVL and why TVL is important? The article above has shown you.
