Market weakness did not hinder growing interest in stablecoins, Ethereum staking, and DeFi protocols of its competitors. These findings are contained in CoinGecko’s report for the first quarter of 2022 (ForkLog has it on hand).
In January–March, among the top-10 by market capitalization, only Terra stood out with a notable rise (+24.1%). Among the five largest assets, Bitcoin (+1.6%) and Ripple (+3.5%) showed positive dynamics. Ethereum, Binance Coin and Solana recorded losses of 8.2%, 13.5% and 29.1%, respectively.
During the period, the total trading volume on the ten largest CEX and DEX amounted to $3.79 trillion, vs $6.08 trillion in the previous quarter.
Risk-off sentiment manifested in the capitalization of “stablecoins” rising from 3.1% to 61.4%. The fastest-growing was UST from the Terra project. The market leader, USDT (+4.5%), continued to shrink its market share due to the strengthening positions of USDC (+23.5%) and BUSD (+20.8%).
The number of Ethereum-staked coins rose from 8.85 million to 11.03 million. The growth rate accelerated from 13% in October–December to 24.6%.
Analysts cited the Kiln testnet launch, which brought the transition to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm closer. CoinGecko noted that after the merger of the two networks daily ETH issuance could fall from 12,000 ETH to 1,280 ETH.
In the DeFi sector, the volume of assets blocked declined from $206 billion to $177 billion. Ethereum’s share fell from 61% to 54%. Terra managed to strengthen its positions (from 6% to 10%), Fantom (to 4%) and a number of other projects, with the exception of Binance Smart Chain and Solana.
In February–March TVL Terra ecosystem grew more than twofold, reaching almost $29 billion.
For other trends, read in our monthly analytical report.
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