Top DeFi Tokens Surge as Bitcoin Takes Aim at $40,000

When Bitcoin moves, so too does the rest of the crypto market. This weekend’s bullish activity has been no different. 

As the leading cryptocurrency eyes the key $40,000 mark following an 11% rise, many other top tokens have followed. The most notable of which have been tokens linked to the growing decentralized finance, or “DeFi” space. This sector essentially replaces many traditional banking services, like lending and borrowing, with lines of code and so-called “smart contracts.”

Of late, the sector is booming. According to DeFi Pulse, a data aggregator for various DeFi protocols, indicates that there is $64.28 billion in funds sloshing around inside the crypto niche. This is nearly a 30% drop too from its high of $90 billion during the May market fervor. 

Today’s uptick has been boosted along by three of the more popular “blue chip” DeFi tokens. 

Aave, a high-interest crypto savings service, today mounted a rise of 16.8% at press time. The protocol is also the most valuable according to DeFi Pulse, holding $11.58 billion. The AAVE token serves as a governance token that allows users to make proposals to change features of the protocol. 

SushiSwap, a decentralized crypto exchange that has just rolled out a clutch of new products, is also up double-digits, posting gains of 15.4% in the past 24 hours. 

The protocol’s latest update announced at ETHcc last week combines many of the popular trading services under one roof. Dubbed “Trident,” the new service draws inspiration from stablecoin exchange Curve Finance, crypto ETF platform Balancer, and the leading decentralized exchange Uniswap. 

Uniswap’s native token, UNI, has also climbed the charts, rising 9.3% in the past 24 hours. Crypto’s most-used decentralized exchange recently began delisting several tokens from its platform, most notably so-called “stock tokens.” The move appears to be a response to a concerted regulatory crackdown on these sorts of products as authorities are clearly defining these products as securities. 

All of the positive moves across the board nonetheless boil down to a resurgent Bitcoin. With 45% of the entire $1.5 trillion crypto market, when the orange coin moves, so too does everything else, including DeFi.