Binance released its report on decentralized finance applications (a trend most often affiliated with Ethereum) yesterday, highlighting the continued growth of the DeFi ecosystem; according to a Tweet by @CryptoWolf, as Ethereum locked in DeFi continues to rise, the price of the coin will rise in conjunction.
Defi Built on Ethereum
Malta-based crypto-exchange Binance published its third report on decentralized finance (DeFi) applications yesterday, focusing particularly on developments in the DeFi space relating to Ethereum.
The report stated that Ethereum’s spectrum of applications is more extensive than other blockchains, and that most of the decentralized financial ecosystem is, so far, being built on Ethereum.
Supported by the Ethereum network, DeFi utilizes smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps) to execute its functions. Despite several services such as derivatives, decentralized exchanges, payments, and assets that DeFi offers, lending and borrowing is the face of the DeFi ecosystem.
DeFi offers similar services to traditional banks, but instead through a decentralized platform. It relies on four main factors: being permissionless, censorship-resistant, programmable, and transparent.

“While DeFi represents a tiny segment of the crypto-industry, it is one of its most vibrant areas,” the report read.

DeFi by the Numbers
In 2019, there were over 40,000 new DeFi users every month, with August seeing upwards of 60,000 new users. Of these new users, only a fraction were using financial applications, with a majority of the adoption by decentralized exchanges.
Related Reading: DeFi Don’t Care: Ethereum Investing Reaches Record Levels
Financial application adoption did grow steadily over the year, however, from 4,649 new users in January to 25,925 in December.
The report also stated that more than 90% of all on-chain volume for Ethereum-based DApps comes from DeFi-related applications, adding that Ethereum and DeFi have become:

“A two-headed monster, each leading the growth of further development in the other.”

The Ethereum Connection
Ethereum didn’t have as impressive a year as Bitcoin, ending 2019 6% down. But fundamentally the network has continued to improve and a large part of that was due to its connections with DeFi.
With DeFi, besides the fact that most of the applications are built on Ethereum, total ETH locked in DeFi exceeds the total Bitcoin locked in the space by a significantly vast majority.
Despite witnessing a fall in June 2019, the amount of ETH locked in the space has seen exponential growth as it has witnessed a 53.8% increase from January 2019 to December 2019, reaching new All Time Highs (ATHs) almost every other day.
2020 looks promising for Ethereum: as per DeFi Pulse, the total ETH locked in DeFi is currently at an ATH of 3.1M. 
(Source: DeFI Pulse).
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