YFI, LEND, CRV, UNI Prices Plunge, is it The Death of DeFi?

Tokens related to decentralized finance are getting battered again today with many of the top performing ones in recent months losing double digits over the past week. Analysts are starting to call DeFi a bubble.

The total value locked across the DeFi sector is in decline as the flocks of farmers withdraw their collateral. The TVL number, which has been the standard metric to measure industry health, has declined by 10% since its all-time high around a week ago according to Defipulse.com.

The bigger picture looks much healthier as DeFi TVL has surged 300% over the past three months and there are still five billion dollar plus protocols in terms of collateral value lockup.

Tokens in Pain

It is a similar situation for many of the newly created DeFi tokens though they are dumping far quicker in terms of prices.

Yearn Finance, which just weeks ago was the hottest thing in DeFi, has seen its token prices plunge 70% since its giddy peak of $44k. Today, the YFI token which was once touted as being better than Bitcoin has fallen 14% in 24 hours to $13,500.

YFI is not alone, Aave’s LEND token, which is currently migrating to AAVE, has also slumped 24% over the past week and is down almost 50% from its all-time high.

Curve Finance’s CRV has dropped 43% over the past seven days and is currently a whopping 96% down from the spike it made after launching. The much-hyped Uniswap token, UNI, is not faring much better with a 60% slump since its all-time high and a 32% loss on the week.

The top DeFi tokens are all bleeding out at the moment, as evidenced by Messari’s DeFi returns token index which is a sea of red at the moment.

DeFi is Not Dead Yet

The market for DeFi tokens has resembled that of a vast number of altcoins during the 2017/18 ICO boom when many of them skyrocketed for no other reason but hype and FOMO.

There is little difference in 2020 with FOMO driving flocks of degen farmers who have been yield jumping to chase the next quick buck.

DeFi markets need to correct in order to clear out the scams, fakes, rug pulls, and doppelgangers and as we have seen with crypto ecosystem, only the fittest will survive and come back stronger.