DeFi Tokens Bleed Out as Crypto Markets Correct

As the world’s premier crypto asset starts its retreat from its highest price for over two years, the blood is spilling from the altcoins, especially those associated with DeFi. Bitcoin has dropped over 5% since its weekend high above $14k, but that is nothing compared to losses registered elsewhere.

Crypto markets are a sea of red this Tuesday morning with double-digit losses over the past 24 hours for a large number of tokens. Price action does not go in a straight line, and pullbacks are a natural part of market cycles. They are in fact quite healthy allowing for re-accumulation and a breather before the next leg up.

DeFi Token Dump

Tokens associated with decentralized finance protocols have been in decline since early September as the DeFi bubble starts to deflate.

Total value locked in the sector has also taken a dip as degen farmers pull their liquidity in order to join the big selloff. From its all-time high of $12.5 billion, TVL has retreated to $11 billion, but it is still comparatively high when compared to plummeting token prices.

Messari crypto has painted the picture today and it is deep in the red for DeFi:

DeFi blood has been shed 🩸🩸🩸 pic.twitter.com/NmWZJBihNi

— Messari (@MessariCrypto) November 3, 2020

Double digit losses over the past day have been suffered by some of the bigger names in DeFi including Curve, Compound, SushiSwap, Aave, Synthetix, Yearn Finance, Balancer, Bancor, Loopring, and Uniswap. The native token for all of these protocols has slumped between 10% and 15% over the past 24 hours.

Hegic is the only DeFi token that has made a significant gain on the day, with Augur’s REP still just in the green as prediction markets heat up before the U.S. election.

Crypto Market Cap Decline

Total crypto market capitalization has dumped $15 billion since the same time yesterday according to Coingecko. The decline has dropped it back below $400 billion again as the selloff intensifies.

Ethereum has taken a big hit with 6% lost as it drops back below $375 despite edging closer to the ETH 2.0 launch, while Ripple’s XRP dumps 4.5% back below $0.23 again. Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Bitcoin SV, Cardano, Tron, and Tezos have all lost around 10% on the day.

There are very few gainers aside from a handful of stablecoins which are trading a little over their pegs at the moment. If BTC drops below $13k, the altcoins are likely to suffer even more.