Silicon Valley Bank Implosion Whipped Up Frenzy of DeFi Transactions As Crypto Assets Rebounded: DappRadar

Silicon Valley Bank’s (SVB) high-profile implosion last week whipped up a frenzy of decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions, according to market intelligence platform DappRadar.

DappRadar notes in a new report that DeFi tends to be highly susceptible to market concerns and crashes.

Last weekend, USD Coin (USDC) lost its peg to the US dollar following news that Circle, the stablecoin’s issuer, had $3.3 billion of its $40 billion reserves stuck in the collapsed SVB. The second-largest stablecoin by market cap dropped as low as $0.8788 before reclaiming its peg on Monday.

This rollercoaster had a ripple effect on the DeFi sector, explains DappRadar.

“On 11 March, following the SVB crash and USDC depegging, the DeFi market experienced a significant drop in its TVL, falling by 9.6% from $79.28 billion to $71.61 billion. The news created panic among investors, leading to a considerable sell-off and a decrease in the TVL.

Fortunately, on Monday 13th, USDC reserve deposit held at Silicon Valley Bank was fully available to the public, which helped stabilize the market. This announcement led to a 13% spike in DeFi TVL, reaching $81.15 billion.”

TVL stands for “total value locked,” which represents the total capital held within a blockchain’s smart contracts. TVL is calculated by multiplying the amount of collateral locked into the network by the current value of the assets.

DappRadar notes that the number of unique active wallets interacting with DeFi contracts surged from 421,026 on March 8th to 477,094 on March 11th, a 13% increase. Transaction count increased by 23% from 1,356,483 to 1,668,992.

The decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap (UNI) was behind that activity surge, according to the market intelligence platform.

“Uniswap V3, one of the most popular decentralized exchanges, experienced a significant increase in UAW, surpassing 67,000 on Saturday March 11th, with a volume of $14.4 billion, the highest figure ever registered for V3. The 67,000 UAW were the highest registered on a Uniswap Dapp since summer of 2021.

Moreover, Uniswap V3 avg. transaction size on Saturday was $170,080, almost double than the mean, signaling that Ethereum DeFi whales were highly active during last weekend.”

Generated Image: Midjourney