Welcome to my DeFi discovery journey where I learn about DeFi projects and share some knowledge along the way.
These aren't the only DeFi coins under $5 but I had to start somewhere. So what I've done is had a look at the https://defipulse.com/ top 20 tokens by locked USD value. Of these DeFi tokens which ones are still under $5.
Locked USD Value
Current TLV - $40.37B USD
Total locked value or TLV is a an important DeFi metric. I think of it as the pulse of the business. What's the level of participation, awareness, level of liquidity, viability of the business even.
The total value locked in decentralized finance — a measure of the total value of assets committed to a DeFi ecosystem.
The DeFi wars are coming!
It's an exciting time of discovery for so many people, as more and more LP farming options emerge.
But make no mistake there will be massive growth here for a long time to come and DeFi platforms will be competing for your funds! I don't doubt for a second that these companies will aggressively pursue your capital over the coming years.
Just wait until the bear market turns up and the masses are looking for places to park an additional 100+ Billion of USDT. The platform with the best yields wins?
These businesses will have their models tested as they go to war to compete for your business long term.
5 DeFi Tokens Under $5
Are some of these gems with big upside potential? Maybe..maybe not..
CRV(Curve Finance) - $2.62
Ethereum DEXes - A total of $4.25B in locked USD value. Trades on Houbi, Binance, OKEx, Kraken etc.
Curve is an exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum (like Uniswap) designed for (1) extremely efficient stablecoin trading (2) low risk, supplemental fee income for liquidity providers, without an opportunity cost.
Curve allows users (and smart contracts like 1inch, Paraswap, Totle and Dex.ag) to trade between DAI and USDC with a bespoke low slippage, low fee algorithm designed specifically for stablecoins and earn fees. Behind the scenes, the liquidity pool is also supplied to the Compound protocol or yearn.finance where it generates even more income for liquidity providers.
ALPHA(Alpha Homora) - $1.52
Ethereum Lending - With $1.11B in Locked USD value. Trades on Binance, SushiWwap, Uniswap, FTX etc
Alpha Finance Lab is an ecosystem of DeFi products that will interoperate to maximize returns while minimizing risks for users. Alpha products focus on capturing unaddressed demand in DeFi in an innovative and user friendly way.
Alpha Homora, which is on Ethereum, is a protocol for leveraging your position in yield farming pools. ETH lenders can earn high interest on ETH, and yield farmers can get even higher farming APY from taking on leveraged positions on yield farming.
REN(RenVM) - $1.02 - https://renproject.io/
Ethereum Assets - With $1.08B in Locked USD value. Trades on Binance, Houbi, Sishi, Uni, OKEx, Coinbase etc.
RenVM, a permissionless and decentralized virtual machine protocol. A secure network of virtual computers that power interoperability for decentralized applications, enabling cross-chain lending, exchanges, collateralization & more.
RenVM provides one of the only practical interoperability solutions that can scale. It is also the only solution that allows for secret computation over multiple inputs and multiple parties. RenVM is not a product or an application in and of itself, it is a network (and an accompanying SDK) that allows developers to bring cross-chain functionality to their DeFi applications.
BNT(Bancor) - $3.58 - https://app.bancor.network/
Ethereum DEXes - 1570.7M in Locked USD value. Trades on Binance, Coinbase, HitbTC, Houbi etc.
Bancor is a protocol on Ethereum for non-custodial token exchange using pooled liquidity. Like Kyber and Uniswap, Bancor doesn’t use order books, which means users can trade without the need for a counterparty. Bancor employs an algorithmic market-making mechanism through the use of “Smart Tokens,” which ensure liquidity and accurate prices by maintaining a fixed ratio vis-à-vis connected tokens (e.g., ETH) and adjusting their own supply.
After a record-breaking ICO in June 2017, Bancor launched its web interface for decentralized exchange in October 2017. In September 2018, Bancor expanded beyond Ethereum to offer exchange with EOS and POA Network.
LRC(Loopring) - $0.66 - https://loopring.org/
Ethereum DEXes - $222.0M in Locked USD value. Trades on Coinbase, Binance, Houbi, Uni, HitBTC, OKEx stc
zkRollup Exchange and Payment Protocol - Loopring allows anyone to build high-throughput, non-custodial, orderbook-based exchanges on Ethereum by leveraging Zero-Knowledge Proofs.
Loopring 3.0 can settle up to 2,025 trades per second while guaranteeing the same level of security as the underlying Ethereum blockchain. This is made possible by using a construction called zkRollup, and a feature called On-Chain Data Availability, or OCDA. If OCDA is disabled (aka in Validium mode), Loopring throughput becomes as high as 16,400 trades per second, but security reduces to that of the consortium which maintains said data. For context, prior versions of Loopring (and current versions of some other DEX protocols), can settle only 2 or 3 trades per second. With Loopring 3.0, non-custodial exchanges can match the performance of custodial competitors.
Curve & Alpha are the winners here IMO.
Loopring is a protocol that I believe in, and I would like to see this business continue to find success. Feels pretty niche to me, but DEXes should always have a future and high throughput will remain a priority.
Bancor is sort of been there done that for me, as I bought the ICO years ago. It's price isn't much more now today than it was back then, disappointing to say the least.
Curve has an exchange liquidity pool, and it's for stablecoins which I see playing a big part of our crypto future, that's a win!
Alpha is into leveraged yield farming pools, enough said, there's money to be made with this although it may be too high risk for me at this point. I need to learn more about leveraged farming.
RenVM is an interesting one for me. I'm all for decentralized tech, and this is a permissionless virtual machine protocol built for interoperability within DeFi applications. If this protocol becomes widely adopted the sky is the limit.
Not Financial Advise
As always not financial advise, do you own research.
This is part of my research and DeFi discover journey. I want to be aware of the majority of DeFi project in the space, and where the tech is going. These posts help me to do that and hopefully some of this info is helpful for you as well.
Ciao for now,
