The market’s weakness did not prevent the growth of interest in stablecoins, Ethereum staking and Defi protocols of its competitors. Such conclusions are contained in the CoinGecko report for the first quarter of 2022.
In January-March, only Terra (+24.1%) stood out in the top 10 in terms of capitalization of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin (+1.6%) and Ripple (+3.5%) showed positive dynamics among the five largest assets. Ethereum, Binance Coin and Solana recorded losses of 8.2%, 13.5% and 29.1%, respectively.
During the specified period, the total trading turnover on the ten largest CEXs and DEXs amounted to $3.79 trillion compared to $6.08 trillion in the previous quarter.
The decline in risk appetite was reflected in the increased capitalization of “stable coins” in the range from 3.1% to 61.4%. The growth leader was UST from the Terra project. The market leader, USDT (+4.5%), continued to reduce its market share due to the strengthening of the positions of USDC (+23.5%) and BUSD (+20.8%).
The number of coins involved in staking Ethereum increased from 8.85 million to 11.03 million. The growth rate accelerated from 13% in October-December to 24.6%.
Analysts cited the launch of the Kiln testnet as the reason which brought the transition to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm closer. CoinGecko noted that after the merger of the two networks, the daily emission of ETH could be reduced from 12,000 ETH to 1,280 ETH.
In the DeFi sector, the volume of blocked funds decreased from $206 billion to $177 billion. The share of Ethereum decreased from 61% to 54%. Terra (from 6% to 10%), Fantom (up to 4%), and many other projects managed to strengthen their positions, except Binance Smart Chain and Solana.
Recall that in February-March, the TVL of the Terra ecosystem more than doubled, reaching almost $29 billion.
