DeFi-Monitor: Be your own Beeple – an „NFT generator“ for everyone
DeFi has made its way into Elon Musk’s Twitter poetry while a „beeple generator“ now allows anyone to become an NFT artist.
The Binance Smart Chain (BSC) continued to inch Bitcoin Bank closer to DeFi leader Ethereum last week. The value of assets deposited in DeFi applications on BSC (Total Value Locked, TVL) has risen from USD 15.425 billion to USD 17.825 billion within the last seven days.
The TVL growth of over 16 percent can only be explained to a limited extent by the price development of BNB, the primary asset on the Binance Smart Chain: At the time of going to press, Binance Coin is trading at USD 277.3 and has thus „only“ increased by 4.3 percent in a weekly comparison.
The fact that TVL is growing faster than the BNB rate indicates a growing use of BSC-based platforms. The Uniswap clone PancakeSwap still dominates there with a TVL of USD 6.1 billion, closely followed by the crypto-lending protocol Venus, which weighs in at USD 5.96 billion. With the stablecoin exchange Ellipsis Finance, an offshoot of the Ethereum-based Curve Finance, a newcomer has made it past the billion mark right off the bat, landing in fourth place among the largest BSC platforms by TVL.
Ethereum DeFi with TVL losses
Ethereum, with a TVL of over USD 40 billion, is still in a different league to the BSC – and arguably a different sport in terms of decentralisation. Nevertheless, the Ethereum-based DeFi sector recorded slight losses in terms of TVL last week. On 21 March, it was still at around USD 46 billion, but in the course of the week it slipped to USD 38 billion. At the time of going to press (28 March), assets with an equivalent value of 41.172 billion USD are deposited in Ethereum-based DeFi platforms. This means that TVL has slumped by around 10 per cent within a week.
Again, the TVL expressed in dollars is only of limited significance – after all, it depends largely on the price trend of Ether, the central asset in the Ethereum DeFi sector. At the time of going to press, Ether was down 5.4 per cent in seven days. But the number of ETH tokens locked away in DeFi smart contracts is almost unchanged week-on-week at 9.3 million Ether.
So there is no talk of a DeFi exodus in favour of the Binance smart chain yet.
Elon Musk: Don’t Defy DeFi
After Elon Musk had already enraptured the Bitcoin and/or Dogecoin communities with his tweets on several occasions, the Tesla boss has now caused a stir with a DeFi tweet. In an enigmatic tweet, the tech entrepreneur reached into the baton rhyme box. On 25 March, Musk wrote the line „Do Defy DeFi“ – don’t defy DeFi.
Don’t defy DeFi
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2021
That left Tron founder Justin Sun speculating about possible DeFi use cases for Tesla. Sun suggests a Tesla token that rewards Tesla drivers for driving. Opposition to Musk’s tweet, meanwhile, came from bitcoin podcaster Peter McCormack, who made no secret of what he thinks of the sector with „Do Defy DeFi“.
NFT Generator: Be your Own Beeple
Whoever says DeFi must also say NFT these days: the hype about digital collectibles has not yet died down. Among the latest style blossoms is the auction of the teaser video for Uniswap V3, the largest decentralised exchange (DEX) on Ethereum. The tokenised trailer went to its new owner on Friday for 310 ETH (around 533,000 USD).
The absolute NFT record is still held by the digital collage „Everaydays: The First 5000 Days“ by the artist Beeple, which went under the virtual hammer for the equivalent of 69.3 million USD.