Hello, Geckos!
How was your month of August?
It has been a crazy month not just for us but for the whole crypto industry itself. So many things are happening that we could barely catch a breath! Bitcoin’s price crossed the $12,000 mark from $11,200 while Ethereum moved above $400 from $340.
The DeFi space is definitely all the rage now with new protocols involving yield farming, liquidity mining, or governance announced by various teams at least once a day (or more). Some are bunch of copycats while some are truly innovative - exciting times ahead of us so stay tuned to the scene!
It may be hard to keep up with all that’s happened as the crypto hype engine spins yet again. Don’t worry, that is why we are here with another report catered to keep you up to speed!
Here are our 4 key crypto-highlights for the month of August:
- The market capitalization of the top-30 cryptocurrencies
- The market dominance of the top-7 cryptocurrencies
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi) token performance
- The state of the cryptocurrency exchanges
1. Market capitalization recorded a new yearly high at $343B
In August, Top-30 cryptocurrencies market capitalization recorded yet another 2020-high at $343 billion, breaking its previous record of $319 billion in July.
The top-30 cryptocurrencies also saw a positive growth with 11% increase in their market capitalization and a 18% increase in their trading volume, though it is a relatively lower growth than the previous month.
It is worth noting that despite the new yearly high market capitalization, the trading volume in the month of August remains lower than the first half of the year. This likely suggests that people are HODL-ing and accumulating wealth.
2. Ethereum remained as the largest gainer for market dominance as Bitcoin slips
As for market dominance, Bitcoin (BTC) slipped further by 4.4% to 61.1%. While Ethereum (ETH) remained the largest gainer amongst the top-30 cryptocurrencies with a 1.7% increase to 13.9% dominance.
Chainlink (LINK) and Polkadot (DOT) rose as one of the top-5 cryptocurrencies positions and secured 1.7% and 1.6% market dominance respectively.
LINK’s rise to top-5 is likely a result of the project being involved in many project’s developments and plays an important role in the DeFi ecosystem as a leading oracle protocol.
DOT’s rise was likely fueled by a large following & lots of excitement - it launched its mainnet in May 2020 & redenominated its token by a factor of 100 in August.
3. YFI hit an all-time high at $38,869, outperforming all cryptocurrencies, including the DeFi tokens within less than 2 months since its launch.
Maker (MKR) - who predominantly holds the top spot in the DeFi category, has been completely dwarfed by the recent entrants of the DeFi space. Yearn.Finance (YFI) and UMA (UMA) seemingly came out of nowhere to take the top second and third spot while the Link Marines would be happy to witness Link’s impressive rally over the month of August.
The DeFi space is having a massive shake-up with new innovative projects being launched seemingly on a daily basis. We would not be surprised if the Top 5 spot has new entrants yet again by the end of September.
UMA and YFI recorded the highest month-on-month return with 432% and 749% respectively, outperforming all tokens in all categories.
4. Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) growth outperformed Centralized Exchanges (CEX) by 3X
Yet again, the top-6 DEX month-on-month trading volume grew massively by 247%, outperforming the top-6 CEX that grew by a relatively lower rate at 85%.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) space is quickly gaining traction with fast-paced developments happening around newly launched projects involving liquidity mining, yield farming, governance tokens, and more as the catalyst for traffic and volume growth.
Most notably, DEX’s market share vs. CEX’s grew from 4% to 7% through August, indicating the DEXs are capitalizing on the DeFi movement much more than CEXs are.
This is only a sneak peek - grab your copy of the full report here!
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Erina is CoinGecko’s market research analyst. Current expertise is finance and crypto - DeFi. Previously in research consulting and often did market analysis.
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