DeFi Booms In Q3 As LEND, YFI, UMA, LINK Posts Outsized Gains Over 100%

DeFi activity saw a massive boom in the third quarter of the year.

This September, several DeFi tokens sustained severe pullbacks along with numerous market corrections. Despite this, these tokens continued to lead the pack. This was according to the latest Q3 report by Coingecko, which further noted that while crypto-assets projected a rather sluggish market movement, DeFi tokens, on the other hand, were quick to rebound.

Aave [LEND]

Dominating the charts among the top five DeFi tokens was Aave’s LEND which noted a major surge of 304% in Q3 while its YTD gains were at a staggering 3177%. This could have been propelled by the recent activation of Aave’s decentralized governance model.

Relatively newer tokens such as YFI and UMA demonstrated gains of 2908% and 2819% YTD respectively. While comparing these tokens with other cryptocurrencies, CoinGecko noted,

“Aave, YFI and UMA made outsized gains in 2020 compared to other
cryptocurrencies. Top-5 cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, XRP, BNB, and BCH)
only made relatively marginal gains in comparison”

Synthetix Network Token [SNX]

Following LEND’s trail was Synthetix Network Token [SNX] which rebounded quickly after the bearish onslaught. The recent KuCoin Hack brought about intensive selling pressure due to the massive amount of SNX tokens stolen. Despite this, on-chain data revealed that the token was incurring growing fundamental strength which in turn could have driven the coin’s price. According to the report, SNX was up by 143% in Q3 and 293% in terms of YTD.

Chainlink [LINK]

Next in the line was Chainlink [LINK], which noted an increase of a whopping 116% in the third quarter of the year as compared to just 28% and 12% in the first and second quarters respectively. At the time of writing, LINK has once again started trading above the $10 psychological level after a brief stint with the bears. This could be attributed to the fact that the token recently hit an ATH in terms of daily active addresses which signaled that Chainlink whales have been busy accumulating more LINK tokens for the last couple of months. Besides, LINK was up by 459% YTD.