The crypto market found itself in a calm consolidation period last week, as the total market capitalization of the crypto sector hardly moved from the $265 billion mark. Despite the subtle ups and downs, most of the top cryptocurrencies recorded little to no price movements, with Bitcoin floating around $9,400 all weekend. The leading cryptocurrency to date found itself in a tight trading corridor, with strong resistance at $9,400 and support in the $9,250 region.
Meanwhile, the volatility index dropped, which made analysts assume that the next big move is on the way. Most of them, however, are reading the volatility drop as a signal for a negative price correction. Interestingly, as of press time Bitcoin is retesting its $9,400 resistance level, which – if it continues, may result in a serious upwards price breakout.
On the other side, despite the crypto market moving sideways, the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is gaining traction, as it hit an all-time high of $1,47 billion locked in DeFi projects. Also, data shows that 3 million ETH tokens, which is around 2.7% of Ethereum’s total supply are being locked in. The number of locked Bitcoins also made a record at the end of last week surpassing 6,800 BTC.
Source: Defi Pulse
One of the underlying causes for DeFi’s all-time high is the Compound platform, which began its token distribution on the Ethereum-based DeFi ecosystem on 15th June. The Compound platform distributed COMP tokens to users who deposited crypto as a collateral, or took loans.
In the meantime, Compound’s total market value peaked at $1 billion, making it the first DeFi unicorn in history. The momentum quickly propelled Compound to $325 per token during last weekend and shifted the company to the top of the DeFi rankings with 37.57% dominance rate.
DeFi holds yet another interesting fact, as the sector now beats the banking world in terms of interest rates on crypto deposits. Also, DeFi possesses additional token reward bonuses for network participants.