Fantom beats BSC, becoming the third-largest DeFi protocol

Fantom (FTM) surpassed Binance Smart Chain (BSC) over the weekend to become the third-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem by total value locked (TVL), as the value locked on DeFi-focused projects built on Fantom surged 52% in the past week. Ethereum remains the top DeFi protocol by value locked.

On Monday, more than $12.2 billion worth of Fantom (FTM) and other tokens were locked on 129 protocols geared toward Fantom users. That’s just over $94 million locked per project on average, and it’s a 52% increase in the past week and a greater than 170% increase over the past month, the data from analytics tool DeFiLlama showed.

Cross-chain swap Multichain is the biggest protocol by value locked on Fantom, with over $6.97 billion worth of assets in its smart contracts. In second place is the relatively new 0xDAO, which locks over $3.91 billion, while decentralized exchange SpookySwap takes third place with just over $1 billion in locked value.

BSC slipped to the fourth-largest DeFi ecosystem with $11.96 billion in locked value over 294 projects. Terra, which displaced BSC in December to become the second-largest DeFi ecosystem, retains second place with $16.54 billion in locked value. Finally, Ethereum retains the DeFi crown with over $116 billion in locked value over 415 projects, more than any other blockchain.

Tokens of Fantom have emerged as the top performers in recent months as investors bet on the tokens of Layer-1 projects – protocols with their native blockchains, such as Fantom or Solana – as an alternate to Ethereum.

FTM prices rose from $1.30 in mid-December to approach all-time highs of $3.46 earlier this month before tumbling with the broader market in the past week.

In a recent study, crypto exchange Huobi predicted that DeFi and cross-chain interoperability will continue to expand and adapt in 2022, despite a bear market for Bitcoin caused tightening monetary policies by central banks and the market liquidity crunch. At the same time, DAO governance will become a significant driving force of growth for on-chain activity, the study said.