The decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem has printed its highest Total Value Locked (TVL) today, riding on the back of the resurgence in the broader market. Per data from DeFi Llama, the TVL covering all blockchain protocols is now pegged at $223.23 billion, a massive uplift from the $21.4 billion recorded from January 1 this year. 

Per the DeFi Llama data, decentralized exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum designed for efficient stablecoin trading, Curve Finance, maintains the largest share of the pie with a value of $17.08 in TVL. Lending protocol, Aave ranks next with a total of $17.02 billion, while Maker also comes off with a total value locked of $15.43 billion. The growth of the DeFi ecosystem has largely maintained an upward trajectory, as more investors, including retail and institutional investors, began leveraging the earning options the emerging protocols that make up the ecosystem offers.

DeFi creates the most direct threat to traditional finance as the emergence of lending protocols for instance has lowered the barrier to entry for accessing loans. Many new investors also find it easy to commit their funds into the DeFi ecosystem as these protocols are governed by smart contracts, which makes them non-susceptible to the lapses of human-fueled organizational management.

Future Growth to be Backed by Mainstream Market

There is a more positive outlook in the broader digital currency industry, fueled by the optimism of approval of the first Bitcoin Futures Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in the U.S. Per an earlier Coingape report, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF could be coming as soon as next Monday, October 18, marking an end to the undying anticipation from investors about such a product.

With the advent of the ETF, more funds will be pumped into the entire industry, and there is bound to be a trickle into the DeFi ecosystem. A number of investment managers, including Grayscale, are beginning to provide funds that track the performance of DeFi protocols, opening up additional avenues for more embrace of the DeFi tokens.

Besides the TVL, the tokens of DeFi projects are also seeing an additional boost with all protocols inking a market cap of $137.47 billion according to data from CoinMarketCap.

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