As decentralized finance grows in prominence, a battle of the DEXs is brewing between several of the top protocols like Uniswap (UNI), SushiSwap (SUSHI) and Curve DAO (CRV) as the growing list of platforms vie for investor liquidity and transactions on the network.
In terms of total value locked, DeFi lending platforms currently dominate the space with the top 3 positions currently occupied by Maker (MKR), AAVE, and Compound (COMP).
Decentralized exchanges hold the next three positions with Curve DAO recently surpassing Uniswap to rank fourth in terms of TVL.
An added boost of attention for CRV came on Feb. 8 when it was announced that a Substrate-based version of Curve Finance will soon be implemented on Equilibrium’s Polkadot (DOT) parachain.
The integration is supported by the Web3 Foundation’s Open Grant Program and will bring an added level of interoperability to Curve finance that could boost its TVL as the number of available assets increases with the addition of DOT-based “coins.”
TVL on Curve and the price of its CRV governance token reached a new all-time high on Feb. 9 and data from Defi Pulse shows a steady increase since early January.
When it comes to token value, SushiSwap has experienced the most price growth since Dec. 2020 as its community-focused approach and fee-sharing mechanism have helped increase its popularity amongst the crypto community.
Uniswap has yet to implement a fee-sharing mechanism for its token holders and Curve has been hampered by several noteworthy hacks where manipulation of CRV oracles led to the loss of funds on connected DeFi platforms.
As the DeFi sector continues to expand, it’s likely that the battle between DEXs will continue.
Furthermore, speculation around what Uniswap v3 will entail continues to grow as platforms like Curve unveil integrations that enable interoperability and aim to reduce the costs associated with transactions on the Ethereum network.
Newly launched projects like Reef Finance (REEF), focus on providing cross-chain trading with the addition of centralized exchange liquidity and these platforms could soon bring added competition to the current top contenders in the DeFi sector.