DeFi users buy stocks

Investors are piling into blockchain versions of popular US stocks like Coinbase and Nvidia.

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GM, Tim here.

DeFi users buy stocks

Investors are piling into blockchain versions of popular US stocks like Coinbase and Nvidia.

Since the start of the month, the amount of these so-called tokenised stocks in circulation on public blockchains has jumped 35% to over $10 million — an all-time high.

The most popular onchain stocks and index funds are:

Wall Street firms like BlackRock and State Street are increasingly experimenting with blockchains to speed up asset transfers and increase efficiency. Tokenising stocks is one application.

Still, the tokenised stocks sector is small at just $10 million.

In comparison, the market value of all tokenised assets sits at over $13 billion, with the majority issued representing private credit and US Treasury debt.

But the recent growth of tokenised stocks legitimises the use case, and shows that investors are increasingly comfortable with the idea.

The two main issuers of tokenised stocks are Backed Finance and Swarm Markets. Adoption is poised to grow as these issuers and others broaden their portfolios by introducing additional stocks and index funds for trading.

Aave’s all-time highs

Top lending protocol Aave just hit all-time highs in deposits, revenue, and borrows.

Aave TVL, Revenue and borrows are now at All Time High.

Just Use Aave. pic.twitter.com/n6p4D8yrgJ

Aave TVL, Revenue and borrows are now at All Time High.

Just Use Aave. pic.twitter.com/n6p4D8yrgJ

DeFi users have deposited over $32 billion worth of crypto into the protocol and borrowed $12 billion across the 13 blockchains it is deployed on.

Annualised revenue from lending and borrowing has also topped $97 million, narrowly overtaking top DeFi protocol Lido.

Aave’s success shows that demand for DeFi services is growing even though the value of crypto locked up across all DeFi protocols is still $61 billion below its 2021 high.

Aave’s Ethereum instance remains the most popular, accounting for $27 billion of its total deposits.

As the crypto bull market continues, demand for leverage — and therefore Aave’s services — is likely to grow further.

Stablecoins soar

The number of crypto stablecoins in circulation just hit an all-time high.

There’s now over $190 billion worth of dollar-pegged tokens sloshing around on blockchains, smashing the metric’s previous record of $188 billion set in April 2022.

Tether’s USDT stablecoin accounts for 70% of the market, with rival issuer Circle’s USDC making up just over 20%.

Stablecoins help crypto traders quickly swap in and out of more volatile crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. In countries with poor banking infrastructure or high inflation, dollar-pegged stablecoins have partly replaced local currencies.

Fintech giants PayPal, Robinhood, and Stripe have all entered the stablecoin market in some form.

PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD is now the eighth-largest after it launched in August 2023. Trading app Robinhood is also launching its stablecoin with crypto firms Galaxy Digital and Kraken.

This week in DeFi governance

VOTE: Uniswap DAO supports Tally’s DAO governance enhancements

VOTE: Arbitrum DAO weighs a hackathon continuation programme

VOTE: Lido DAO votes to establish a network expansion committee

Post of the week

Crypto Twitter captures the mood as Ethereum starts to rally.

“looks like ethereum is finally going up, good thing we didn’t sell the bottom” pic.twitter.com/poCo6NdKE5

“looks like ethereum is finally going up, good thing we didn’t sell the bottom” pic.twitter.com/poCo6NdKE5

Got a tip about DeFi? Reach out at tim@dlnews.com.