The decentralized finance (DeFi) market cap fell 74.6% in Q2 2022. Meanwhile, the industry has maintained a relatively steady level of user activity.
According to a quarterly report by CoinGecko, the total market capitalization of the DeFi sector fell from $142 million in Q1 this year to $36 million in Q2.
Analysts believe that the main reasons for the DeFi market’s decline are Terra’s recent collapse and failed attempts to revive LUNA, more frequent ecosystem hacks and the impact of a bearish trend in the crypto market.
Nevertheless, CoinGecko analysts note that the daily number of active users of DeFi services has changed disproportionately to the fall in capitalization. So, the number of active users of DeFi protocols in Q2 was about 30,000 per day, which is only 34.5% lower than in the previous quarter.
Analysts also said that the sector saw several spikes in user activity:
- in May, activity on Curve Finance and Uniswap exchanges increased after the FUD attack on Terra, as users were actively selling LUNA and UST;
- in June, the number of DeFi protocol users increased by 24% for some time following the introduction of withdrawal restrictions by the Celsius crypto platform.
Notably, CoinGecko’s report also stated that NFT market trading declined by 26% in Q2 this year. Despite surges in NFT sector activity, global interest in non-fungible tokens has plummeted. And a recent study by The Block showed that the drop in monthly NFT trading turnover has been 94% since the beginning of the year.
Also, CoinGecko analysts revealed that trading volume on the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges fell 11% in Q2 this year, reaching the $0.9 trillion mark in June 2022. At the same time, tokens of centralized crypto exchanges (CEX) proved to be the most resilient to market fluctuations.
