Chainlink surge drives DeFi market cap to all-time high $13 billion

The market cap of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens has continued to surge—passing the $13 billion mark today with no signs of slowing down. Chainlink (LINK) still takes the lead as the king token, with its price rocketing by nearly 20% in 24 hours to $15.64, according to CoinGecko data. 

At the time of writing, the total market cap of DeFi was over $13.4 billion. That’s an increase of 23.5% since Sunday, when the total market cap of the industry stood at $10.85 billion. 

Compound (COMP), and Maker (MKR), still stand in second and third place respectively, CoinGecko’s top 100 DeFi coins by market cap listing says. Both projects have also had impressive gains in the past 24 hours, with Compound surging by nearly 50%, and Maker by nearly 30%. 

The market cap of Chainlink is fast approaching $6 billion. To put that in perspective, the total market cap of Ethereum, the blockchain that hosts Chainlink’s price oracles for various protocols, is $42.7 billion.

DeFi, a relatively new concept in the crypto world, wants to change the way people have access to financial services by using blockchain technology. 

It has taken the crypto industry by storm as investors are finding out they can make money by locking up resources in pools to earn extra tokens—a process known as yield farming.  

Some have warned that the hype isn’t sustainable and it is really a bubble that could soon burst. 

But for now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be slowing down anytime soon.