The market value of many decentralized financial agreements reached about $1 billion in 2020, and some of them became unicorns in the crypto field. Although the number of unicorn projects in 2020 is comparable to the number of unicorn projects that emerged during the ICO boom in 2017, Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss said in September that the DeFi protocol has more enduring power:
“The DeFi field is already full of vitality and is being used by people. Billions of dollars have been invested in and are making positive returns. This is not an illusion, this is true.
Aave
The platform pays users interest on locked funds in exchange for loans. Aave is a DeFi project with a market value of $1 billion in 2020, but after the exposure of the $6 million flash loan vulnerability, Aave’s value fell, which led to it
Lost its status as a crypto unicorn several times. In August of this year, after Aave obtained the electronic money institution license issued by the British Financial Conduct Authority, Aave’s own token LEND (which has been migrated to the new token AAVE) skyrocketed.
Earlier this month, Aave announced the V2 version. According to reports, the DeFi agreement will improve the use of flash loans and mortgages.
Yearn.finance
In August of this year, YFI’s market value reached 1 billion US dollars, and subsequently hit a record high on September 12. Although many people consider YFI to be one of the top tokens in DeFi, it has not regained its status as a crypto unicorn since September. As of the publication of this article, the market value of YFI is approximately $750 million.
Since the launch of the native token YFI in July, the yield of the DeFi platform Yearn.finance has soared. Yearn.finance, a yield aggregation platform, provides liquidity through smart contracts and provides interest to liquidity providers.
Synthetix
Synthetix is a decentralized exchange built on the Ethereum blockchain through a series of smart contracts. However, Synthetix does not provide transactions between crypto assets such as tokens and stablecoins, but provides transactions between “Synths”, which were created by using another asset as collateral.
The total locked-in value of this DeFi platform exceeded $1 billion in August. Its Synthetix network token, SNX, has risen sharply this year, reaching an all-time high of $7.74 on September 11, which is more than 400% higher than the price at the beginning of 2020.
Harvest Finance
Harvest Finance may be one of the shortest projects to become a crypto unicorn this year. Before hackers attacked Harvest’s liquidity pool and stole $24 million, the total lock-in value of the DeFi protocol was as high as $1 billion. The news of the hacker attack caused the total locked value of the agreement to drop by nearly $500 million within 24 hours.
Harvest Finance works similarly to Year, it is an automatic revenue management system that allows users to earn interest after providing specific crypto assets for lending.
Chainalysis
In addition to the DeFi project, the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis expanded rapidly in 2020. After a $100 million round of financing last month, its total valuation has exceeded $1 billion. The investigative tools developed by the company enable companies, governments and law enforcement agencies to monitor blockchain transactions and track suspicious illegal activities.
Special mention
Other crypto unicorn projects have also appeared in 2020. With Bitcoin (BTC) breaking through USD 28,000 for the first time in history, and Ethereum (ETH) breaking through USD 670 for the first time in two years, 2020 is a very optimistic year for major digital assets and new DeFi projects.
Filecoin is one of the fastest blockchain projects to gain and lose its status as a crypto unicorn this year. After Filecoin launched its mainnet on October 15th, Filecoin’s FIL token skyrocketed by 118%, with a market value of slightly more than $1 billion, and the price plummeted by nearly 80%. It was not until a month later that the market value of FIL returned to its original level, which is currently $1.3 billion.
Polkadot has followed the same trend as Filecoin, and the market value of its DOT token has rapidly grown to more than $5 billion. Polkadot has been a licensed “certificate of authority” network since May, but launched its mainnet in late July. Polkadot does not directly compete with the Ethereum network and allows multiple blockchain networks to exist on its protocol.
