DeFi TVL Surpasses $100B as Bitcoin Surges in Market Sentiment

The growing demand for Bitcoin (BTC) is creating a positive sentiment around the crypto industry, driving the total value locked on-chain to surpass $100 billion on March 9.

According to data from DefiLlama, the global total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance protocols reached $100.1 billion, with a trading volume of over $10 billion in the past 24 hours. However, these numbers still fall short of the record high of $189 billion set in November 2021.

The top spot in the charts is currently held by the liquid staking protocol Lido, with $38.7 billion locked on-chain. EigenLayer, a staking ecosystem, and the AAVE protocol follow closely with $11.5 billion in TVL.

This is the first time in almost two years that DeFi TVL has surpassed the $100 billion mark, signaling a return of positive sentiment in the crypto markets since the launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January.

The launch of Bitcoin ETFs has sparked a surge in institutional demand for the cryptocurrency, pushing it to new all-time highs this week, with a peak of $70,000 on March 8. According to BitMEX Research, assets in Bitcoin ETFs reached $28 billion on the same day, excluding Grayscale’s fund, which converted to an ETF from an over-the-counter (OTC) product in January.

On X (formerly Twitter), there are rumors circulating about OTC trading platforms running out of Bitcoin and turning to public exchanges to fulfill client orders. OTC desks typically cater to high-volume traders, such as institutional investors.

Several centralized crypto exchanges, including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit, have experienced outages since Bitcoin crossed $60,000, due to a surge in trading volume. In response, Crypto.com has hired an additional 480 customer representatives to handle the increased demand.

“Due to the high retail interest and fast-moving price action, algorithmic trading firms are significantly increasing the rate of order placements and cancellations to maintain their positions,” explained Cointelegraph’s Ivo Crnkovic-Rubsamen, chief strategy officer and technical lead for trading at dydx exchange.

Bitcoin’s surge drives capital into memecoins

The recent gains of Bitcoin have sparked a surge in the market for memecoins. According to data collected by Bitget Research, memecoin KORRA has experienced a 577% increase in value over the past week, closely followed by Ribbit (RIBBIT) with a 235% surge and PUG AI (PUGAI) soaring by 232% in the same time frame.

Other popular tokens, including Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Pepe (PEPE), have also seen significant gains of 168% and 165%, respectively. As a result, the market capitalization of memecoins currently stands at $61 billion, as reported by Bitget.