Total Value Locked in DeFi Sector Hits Record $13.6B
The U.S. dollar value of the cryptocurrency liquidity locked up in decentralized finance is surging, buoyed by big gains for some lesser known projects.
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 10:30 a.m. UTC
![lock](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/TjXAxkIBao9bpc_T9UU29mWM82A=/567x378/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/V2DOKUHVFFGNDGBB3BWPS7DREI.jpg)
The U.S. dollar value of the cryptocurrency liquidity locked up in all decentralized finance (DeFi) projects has hit another record.
- At around 08:00 UTC on Thursday, the total value locked (TVL), as provided by analytics website DeFi Pulse, reached a new lifetime high of $13.62 billion.
![TVL for all DeFi projects](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/S6WHw3jl0tz7p1OR9-nmAVL2Kwc=/560x282/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/LHBWLHGJWVFIPACKX2OAXVDOKA.png)
- Harvest Finance, the decentralized platform that lets users automatically “farm” assets from other DeFi platforms, is helping the charge with its TVL almost doubling over 24 hours.
- The 84% boost to Harvest's TVL, in U.S. dollar terms, saw it jump from $473.5 million to over $890 million, just shy of its record TVL at $1.09 billion seen on Oct. 23. It currently ranks sixth among other DeFi projects.
- Lesser-known projects, DFI Money and ForTube also saw big hikes in locked liquidity, with 24-hour gains of over 45% and 36%, respectively.
- "People have been fascinated by high-yield, risk-free strategies," said Ki Young Ju, CEO at analytics firm CryptoQuant. "For conservative investors, staking on DeFi projects is a better strategy than holding or utilizing other risk-free strategies like arbitrage on exchanges."
- The DeFi sector has been on a tear this year, after hitting $1 billion TVL in February, the sector currently holds 13 times greater value.
- The last all-time high of around $12.5 billion was hit in late October, preceding a temporary $1 billion slump before rising sharply again to Thursday's record.