The DeFi hype faded in September, dragging prices with it.
Over the last few months, DeFi protocols including Yearn.Finance, Compound, Synthetix, and Chainlink have seen their token prices go through the roof, sparking talk that the long-awaited bull market might be here.
The DeFi boom is built on Ethereum and propelled ETH’s price rise from $100 in March to $470 in August.
However, the DeFi euphoria has been fading in recent weeks, and there is bearishness in the rest of the market too. For the past two weeks, ETH price has been hovering at around $350.
And according to CoinMetrics, 72% of the top 250 crypto assets have declined in price week over week, and that number increases to 93% for the month over month analysis. Looking at Messari’s DeFi chart, across September, most DeFi tokens corrected by anywhere between 15% – 85%, with bZx Network losing 85%, Curve down 78%, Swerve (-76%), Ren (-57%), Balancer (-53%), THORChain (-52%), Synthetix (-34%) and AAVE (-29%).
To better understand what’s going on here, let’s look at a rolling 7-day metric using the ratio of assets making new 30 day highs less a ratio of those making 30 days lows. The chart shows bearish levels not seen since the selloff in March of this year — but thankfully still a long way off the depths of crypto winter in 2018.
While the recent pullback has some traders wondering if the party is over, trend reversals are common in bull markets. During the bull market of 2017, there were numerous price retracements.
For instance, in early 2017, when Bitcoin hit $1,180 for the second time, it triggered a massive sell-off and the top cryptocurrency fell by almost 40%. And of course, that didn’t stop Bitcoin from reaching an all-time high around $20,000 later that year.
In its newsletter this week, DeFiWorld suggested corrections were normal and just part of a larger trend, adding this year reminded them of 2016.
“We move in bubbles and 4-year cycles. While everyone is just thinking about what happens today, this week, or this month, you should zoom out and reflect where we are really heading. The long term trend is clear: It’s upwards.”
