• Crypto & Funx
• 18 Aug, 2024

Ethereum's role in institutional-grade DeFi applications is on the rise.

Donald Trump's victory means better regulations for the DeFi market that would benefit Ethereum in the long term.

While Ethereum caters to large-scale financial applications, Tron's utility lies in providing cost-effective solution.

After some underperformance over the past two years, Ethereum DeFi total value locked (TVL) has crossed over $80 billion for the first time in two years. This major surge in the DeFi TVL comes following a massive market uptrend pushing the ETH price to more than $3,500 in November. The recent market rally was due to the surge in activity following President Donald Trump’s election victory earlier this month.

Dissecting Ethereum’s decentralized finance () market, Lido, a liquid staking protocol, remains the largest DeFi platform on Ethereum with $32.87 billion in total value locked (TVL). Second comes Aave, a lending protocol with $26.7 billion, and EigenLayer, a restaking solution, at $14.2 billion. Collectively, these three platforms account for the majority of Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem value.

The recent victory of Donald Trump has reignited optimism for a potential bull market in the DeFi sector, which can drive renewed demand for Ethereum (ETH). Moreover, his campaign signaled a shift toward easing regulatory burdens on crypto, potentially creating a more favorable environment for DeFi platforms in the US. This promise has fueled growth in ETH and major DeFi tokens since early November.

Ethereum Regains USDT Dominance

In another major milestone, Ethereum has once again regained dominance in hosting Tether’s USDT stablecoin while overtaking Tron. This happened after a 10% increase in the USDT supply on Ethereum during the last week.

The DeFiLlama shows that the Ethereum blockchain now hosts more than $60.3 billion of Tether USDT supply in comparison to Tron’s $58.1 billion. The supply of USDT on Tron has dropped by 1.5% over the past week, while Ethereum’s USDT supply surged by 9.3%. This shift has allowed Ethereum to reclaim the top spot for USDT dominance, surpassing Tron for the first time since August 2022.

Ethereum overtook Tron for the first position last week on November 21, while extending the lead further on November 23 when Tether minted $2 billion in USDT on the Ethereum blockchain, against $1 billion on Tron.

Courtesy: DeFiLlama

The surge in USDT supply signals a bullish sentiment as stablecoins are crucial for liquidity provision and capital flow throughout the entire crypto ecosystem.

Ethereum has emerged as the primary blockchain for financial institutions tokenizing US dollar-backed real-world assets, while Tron’s low fees and faster transaction speeds have made it a popular choice for stablecoin savings, particularly in high-inflation countries.

ETH Price Action Ahead

The Ethereum (ETH) price has bounced back from the $3,000 level in the last two days. As of press time, the ETH price is trading 4.17% up at $3,457 with a market cap of $416 billion. Moreover, the CME futures open interest for ETH has a new all-time high. This shows that investors continue to remain bullish on ETH’s future outlook.