The TVL (total value locked) of DeFi protocol Rari Capital passed $1 billion this week, peaking at an all-time high of $1.225 billion, DeFI Pulse reported. Just two weeks ago, Rari’s TVL was less than half that at $500 million and more than ten times that ($100 million) three months ago.
Founded as recently as July 2020, Rari offers DeFi space participants an automatic yield optimizing strategy to secure the highest possible returns. Some of their liquidity pools, such as USDC and Dai, have attracted attention for their impressive returns – 21.67% resp. 26.43% APY.
Celsius valued at more than $3B
Celsius Network, a crypto lending platform, announced they raised $400 million in equity this week. The funding round was led by equity firm WestCap and Canadian pension fund CDPQ. With this round, Celsius is now valued at more than $3 billion. The lender will use the funds to double the size of its workforce and improve its products and services targeting institutional investors.
Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky discussed the company’s impact on the lending industry with Cointelegraph:
With more than $25 billion in assets and over $850 million in yield paid to over 1.1 million users, Celsius has distributed 10x more yield for the crypto community than any other lender.
Last month, the Texas State Securities Board and New Jersey Bureau of Securities threatened to terminate Celsius’ activity for allegedly selling unregistered securities.
DeFi transaction volume surges in North America
In North America, cryptocurrency transaction volume increased by 1,000% y/y according to data from Chainalysis. The analytics platform attributes this to the buoyant DeFi sector. DeFi transactions amounted to $276 billion, which is equivalent to 37% of the total volume.
According to analytical data, DeFi TVL gained 8.11% this week, reaching an all-time high of $146.89 billion.
David Gogel of decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX commented:
Right now, DeFi is targeted towards crypto insiders. It’s people who have been in the industry for a while and have enough funds to experiment with new assets.
OlympusDAO’s token yields returns of 7,594% APY
OlympusDAO, an algorithm-centric rebase model within the Fuse Protocol’s Tetranode’s Locker, is yielding notable returns, to say the least: an annual percentage yield of 7,594% (seven thousand five hundred and ninety-four percent interest a year). The balance of this token fluctuates depending on changes in supply and token price.
