Lido Finance Leads DeFi Rally as Ethereum Mounts Recovery – Decrypt

DeFi tokens in Lido Finance (LDO), Compound (COMP), and Synthetix (SNX), have posted significant gainsover the past 24 hours, per data from CoinMarketCap.

Lido Finance’s native token, LDO, gained over 16.2% earlier this morning, representing the largest gainer among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, as per data from CoinMarketCap.

The liquid staking platform lets users stake Ethereum and earn a small yield on their holdings. And, unlike staking directly on Ethereum’s beacon chain, Lido stakers receive stETH in return, which can continue to be used throughout the market.

LDO is changing hands at around $1.88 and now enjoys a market capitalization of nearly $587 million. The token’s price is still far off from its all-time high of $18.62.

COMP, the native token powering the lending platform Compound, has also gained 9.58% over the past 24 hours. The DeFi token enjoys a market capitalization of nearly $357 million but has shed 94.52% from its all-time high of $911.20, per data from CoinMarketCap.

Synthetix’s native token SNX has increased by 13.94% over the past 24 hours as well. 

The 57th-largest cryptocurrency SNX has a market capitalization of $762 million and trades at $3.24, down 88.59% from its all-time high of $28.77 recorded in February 2021, per data from CoinMarketCap.

Nearly $42.67 million in short trades were liquidated in the cryptocurrency market over the past bullish day, reports Coinglass.

DeFi tokens rally around Ethereum merge

The primary reasons behind today’s bullish price action are likely the upcoming Ethereum merge and the improved DeFi activity.

Nearly 13.458 million Ethereum has been staked on Ethereum ahead of the network’s upgrade, per data from Dune Analytics.

The total value locked (TVL) across all blockchains has increased by 3.51% over the past 24 hours, according to data from DefiLlama. 

Lido’s TVL is up 8.74% over the same period, too, making it the most significant among the top-10 DeFi applications on Ethereum by TVL, per data from DefiLlama.

Ethereum, the network that powers more than 50% of all DeFi activity, is up nearly 10% over the past 24 hours in hopes of the upcoming consensus transition price.

ETH trades at $1,591 apiece, according to data from CoinMarketCap, undoing its weekly losses with a 30% rise in daily trading volumes.