For a short time last week, decentralized exchange liquidity pool Curve lost its top spot in TVL to Lido, a liquid staking protocol for Ethereum, Solana, Terra, Polygon, and Kusama. Since then, total TVL in DeFi dropped 13%, and Lido took a slightly bigger hit than Curve, effectively returning to its top position. As of this writing, Curve dominance sat at 8%.
Curve had Lido on its heels a few times before this past month, according to data collected by Delphi Digital. Both protocols have been dancing around the $20bn level with a clear downward trend, but while Lido had nearly managed to restore its early April levels, Curve sank below $20bn, and Lido took the lead.
Over the past year, both Lido and Curve saw a steady growth, but Lido's has been more dramatic as users flocked to ETH2 liquid staking in anticipation of the Merge on Ethereum. The protocol now holds 32% of all ETH staked in the ETH2 deposit contract, according to Delphi Digital, which makes Lido the unquestionable market leader as far as liquid staking is concerned, with the runner-up, Stader, coming in at just over $500,000 in TVL.
On the whole, the TVL landscape in DeFi remains volatile as Anchor heads toward another crisis with thinning failsafe reserves, and 4pool gets deployed on Curve.
