DYdX’s billion-dollar milestone comes amid a challenging period for DeFi, with MakerDAO recently completing its debt auction and dForce suffering a 99.95% loss to hackers.
Decentralized finance — of DeFi — lending protocol dYdX has produced more than $1 billion in loans since launching one year ago.
The milestone was driven by consecutive monthly all-time highs during February and March of more than $250 million and $400 million respectively. Nearly 317,000 transactions have been generated across the lending platform.
The lending platform currently comprises the seventh-largest DeFi protocol with $22.7 million in locked assets according to DeFi Pulse. DYdX represents nearly 3% of all value locked in decentralized finance.
DYdX also notes that its native market has produced more than $530 million in volume over seven months of operating.
DeFi faces significant tests
Despite dYdX’s $1 billion milestone, the nascent DeFI sector has faced several significant tests in recent weeks.
While dYdX saw the value of its assets drop by 30% amid the March 12–13 crypto market implosion — with MarkerDao, the largest DeFi protocol, entered into a debt crisis as loans became uncollateralized.
Despite fears that the crisis could precipitate a possible failure of Maker, the protocol was able to re-collateralize through inflating the supply of Maker (MKR).
Just as Maker’s recovery was being touted as evidence of DeFi’s resilience, China’s largest DeFi protocol dForce lost 99.95% of managed funds in an attack on April 19.
The attack is believed to have exploited a vulnerability in the ERC-777 token standard through targeting tokenized Bitcoin (BTC) protocol imBTC, draining the platform of nearly $25 million.
Chicago firms launch DeFi Alliance
In light of the recent challenges facing the DeFi sector, dYdX co-founded the Chicago DeFi Alliance alongside TD Ameritrade, Cumberland DRW, DV Trading, Arca, CM Digital, VOlt Capital and Compound Finance on April 7.
The alliance will support all-stage startups operating in decentralized finance.
