Gate Research Institute: CeFi lending declines while DeFi lending surges, PumpSwap sets a new daily volume record.

2025-04-16 09:05:39

Summary

BTC price dropped by 1.54% to 83,782 USDT, ETH price dropped by 1.97% to 1,603.38 USDT.
TRON's revenue in the first quarter reached 760 million USD, a record high.
On-chain DeFi lending has surged, while CeFi loans have decreased by 68% compared to the historical peak in 2022.
PumpSwap trading volume and user activity surged, setting a new daily trading volume record.
Polygon's new product AggLayer will build a "value internet" connecting all chains.
Solana's block computation limit has been raised, and network performance has been upgraded again.

Market Commentary

BTC – BTC price has lost 1.54% over the past 24 hours and is currently quoted at 83,782 USDT. BTC is currently on the lower edge of the range, showing slight signs of rebounding. In terms of moving averages, the short-term moving averages turned downward, indicating short-term pressure. The overall trading volume is weak, and no effective volume signal has been seen. The MACD double line is located below the zero line, and the green column has shortened slightly, but it has not formed a significant golden cross, indicating that although the downward momentum has weakened, the bears have not completely exited the market. If BTC can hold the 82,500 USDT support and rebound with the volume, it is expected to retest the upper edge of the range; A break below this support could open the door to the downside, focusing on the support at the 80,000 USDT line. On the whole, BTC is in a volatile and weak pattern in the short term, and it is necessary to pay attention to the performance of key support levels and changes in volume and energy. 【1】

ETH – The ETH price has dropped by 1.97% over the past 24 hours and is currently quoted at 1,603.38 USDT. ETH has been oscillating in the range of 1,550 to 1,650 USDT in recent days, and is now back above the support level, showing slight signs of rebounding. In terms of trading volume, the overall volume remained low, and there was no obvious sign of a breakthrough in volume. The MACD double line is located below the zero line, the green column has shrunk slightly, and the short-term downward momentum has eased, but it has not formed a golden cross, and the reversal signal is still unclear. If ETH can stabilize above 1,600 USDT in the future, it is expected to challenge the 1,650 USDT pressure level. If it breaks below the 1,550 USDT support again, it may further test the previous low near 1,500 USDT. On the whole, ETH maintains a volatile and weak pattern, and pays attention to the effectiveness of support and whether it can rebound in the short term. 【2】

ETF —— According to data from SoSoValue, on April 15, the total net inflow for Bitcoin spot ETFs in the U.S. was $76.42 million【3】; the net outflow for Ethereum spot ETFs on the same day was $14.18 million. The data is as of April 16, 12:00 PM (UTC+8).【4】
Shanzhai Coins —— Wallets, Payment Solutions, and Consensys Portfolio show strong anti-drawdown properties, changing +1.7%, +1.3%, +0.0% respectively. 【5】
U.S. Stock Market Three Major Indices —— On April 15, the S&P 500 index fell by 0.17%, the Dow Jones index fell by 0.38%, and the Nasdaq index fell by 0.05%.【6】
Spot Gold —— The spot gold price is at $3,280.36 / ounce, up 1.63% for the day. Data as of April 16, 12:00 PM (UTC+8).【7】
Fear and Greed Index —— Fear and Greed Index 29, the market is in a state of panic.【8]

Popular Tokens

According to Gate.io market data【9】, combined with the trading volume and price performance over the past 24 hours, the popular altcoins are as follows.

GFI (Goldfinch) — A daily increase of approximately 57.49%, with a circulating market value of 74.36 million USD.

Goldfinch is a decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol running on the Ethereum blockchain, aimed at providing on-chain funding support for small and medium-sized enterprises in emerging markets. Unlike traditional DeFi protocols, Goldfinch focuses on offering loans to real-world businesses outside the crypto space, promoting the integration of crypto capital with the real world. Its loans are typically backed by off-chain assets as collateral and undergo credit assessments through a "trust through consensus" mechanism, reducing reliance on a single auditing party.

Goldfinch has launched the "Prime" product, allowing non-U.S. users to invest in top global private credit funds such as Apollo, Ares, and Golub through USDC, with a target annual yield of 9% to 12%. Against the backdrop of increasing macroeconomic uncertainty and rising volatility in traditional financial markets, Goldfinch, as a decentralized private credit protocol, demonstrates unique appeal. It offers DeFi users high-yield opportunities with low correlation to traditional finance, attracting significant capital inflows and enhancing the market demand and price of GFI.

GAS (Gas) - Daily increase of approximately 40.63%, circulating market value is 230 million USD.

Neo Smart Economy (GAS) is a distributed network of smart economy built on blockchain technology, which realizes asset digitization through digital identity authentication and automates on-chain asset management relying on a smart contract system. Its unique dual-token economic model includes the governance token NEO and the fuel token GAS: NEO serves as a certificate of network governance rights, allowing holders to participate in voting decisions; GAS acts as a unit of measurement for network resource consumption, supporting the economic operation of core functions such as smart contract execution and digital asset issuance.

Neo Smart Economy launched the ELLIPAL X Card, which now supports the Neo X network and provides users with a simple and secure asset management solution through a physically isolated hardware security architecture. At the same time, community members have deposited approximately 5 million USD worth of NEO into a bond contract (30 days non-transferable), leading to a sharp reduction in the circulating supply of NEO. Since the generation of GAS is directly tied to the holdings of NEO, the reduction of circulating NEO that is not locked will significantly decrease the immediately available GAS (which requires NEO transfer to release), creating a short-term supply squeeze and driving up the price.

OM (MANTRA) — Daily increase of approximately 26.45%, with a circulating market value of 750 million USD.

MANTRA is a Layer 1 blockchain project focused on the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), driving traditional financial assets on-chain through the construction of a vertically integrated ecosystem called OMniverse. Its architecture consists of four core modules: node services, the MANTRA chain, a financial platform, and a DAO governance system, forming a complete solution covering asset issuance, trading, and management.

The MANTRA team urgently launched a buyback and burn plan due to the OM flash crash incident, announcing the repurchase of OM tokens from the secondary market for permanent destruction, alleviating market selling pressure by directly reducing the circulating supply. Meanwhile, Mantra's CEO John proposed to destroy the OM tokens he holds to restore investor confidence after the price plummet. Although the current market capitalization has rebounded to $742 million, it has still shrunk by 95% compared to the peak before the crash. Whether the short-term rebound can continue depends on the scale of the buyback and the post-event analysis report that Mantra will release within the next 24 hours (detailing the events that occurred since early Monday morning). 【13】

Highlight Data

TRON's first-quarter revenue reached 760 million USD, setting a new historical high

TRON continued to show growth in several key indicators in the first quarter of this year. The network's market capitalization increased by 3.5% to reach $22.7 billion, and the platform's revenue also hit a historical high of $760 million. Despite a slight pullback of 6.1% in the price of TRX, the total revenue in USD still maintained growth, indicating that on-chain transaction activity remains strong.

The stablecoin ecosystem of TRON remains its core growth driver. By the end of the first quarter, the market value of stablecoins on TRON reached 66.2 billion USD, an increase of 12.8% compared to the previous quarter, with Tether (USDT) accounting for 65.7 billion USD, representing 99.3% of the share, and daily transfer volume growing to 19 billion USD. It is worth mentioning that currently, 45.9% of the global USDT supply is deployed on the TRON network. In addition, during Q1, TRON launched the USDD 2.0 stablecoin upgrade and formed strategic partnerships with multiple ecosystem partners, including Wintermute, Nansen, Kiln, Tap Protocol, and Eternal AI, expanding its capabilities in liquidity, security, AI, and cross-chain communication.

According to the 2025 roadmap, TRON will continue to promote ecosystem expansion and decentralization, focusing on further developing the USDD 2.0 stablecoin system, introducing user-friendly technologies such as gasless transactions and smart wallets, strengthening collaborations with institutions, and enhancing network security and decentralization through global nodes and super representative mechanisms. In addition, TRON plans to attract more DeFi and Web3 applications to its ecosystem by improving infrastructure and expanding developer tools, consolidating its leading position in stablecoins and cross-chain transactions.

On-chain DeFi lending has surged, while CeFi loans have decreased by 68% from the historical peak in 2022

The overall scale of the cryptocurrency lending market has shrunk by 43% compared to the peak period in 2021, but decentralized finance (DeFi) lending activities have grown significantly, with the total amount borrowed reaching $19.1 billion, an increase of 959% from the bear market low in 2022. The scale of outstanding loans has surpassed CeFi, becoming the dominant force in cryptocurrency lending.

At the same time, the total size of the centralized finance (CeFi) crypto lending market fell to $11.2 billion, down 68% from its all-time peak of $34.8 billion in 2022. Among the existing CeFi lenders, Tether, Galaxy, and Ledn dominate, with the three collectively accounting for about 88.6% of the market share, with Tether having a market share of about 73%.

As CeFi experienced the collapse of major lending institutions such as Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis in 2022, it severely undermined user confidence and caused credibility damage to the entire centralized crypto lending industry. In contrast, DeFi has shown greater stability in the midst of severe market fluctuations, and its open and transparent operation mechanism and model that rely on smart contracts to execute the process effectively reduce the risk caused by human intervention. In addition, DeFi platforms continue to innovate in product design, launching diversified tools such as interest rate derivatives and custodial vaults, which have greatly improved user experience and capital efficiency. As some traditional financial institutions begin to actively participate in the DeFi ecosystem, DeFi is expected to further expand its market share in the future and continue to consolidate its core position in the crypto lending system.

PumpSwap trading volume and user activity surge, with daily trading volume hitting a new high

Recent data shows that the decentralized exchange (DEX) PumpSwap launched by the memecoin issuance platform Pump.Fun processed approximately $2.5 billion in trading volume over the past week, an increase of nearly 40% compared to the previous week. Yesterday, the platform set a new single-day trading volume record of $417.8 million.

The daily active wallet count on the platform continues to rise, reaching nearly 264,500, and user engagement is consistently increasing. Fee revenue is also on the rise, with a single-day income exceeding $1.05 million on April 14 alone, of which $840,000 goes to liquidity providers and $210,000 to the platform protocol. Dune data shows that currently more than 506 wallets on the platform have earned over $1 million, and over 9,000 wallets have earned more than $100,000, reflecting the attractiveness of PumpSwap in terms of user profitability.

The rapid rise of PumpSwap can be attributed to its "frictionless" trading environment for memecoins, significantly lowering the barriers to creating and exchanging tokens, which greatly stimulated market speculation. Leveraging the low fees and high performance of the Solana network, it provided an ideal infrastructure for a large volume of high-frequency trading. The platform's user structure is highly community-oriented and active, further driving the growth of trading volume and platform revenue. Although there is the issue of very low survival rates for memecoins (less than 1%), PumpSwap has become one of the most popular DEX platforms in the current Solana ecosystem, driven by the short-term aggregation effect of speculative capital.

Hot Comments

Polygon's new product AggLayer will build a "value internet" connecting the entire chain

Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, announced the launch of AggLayer, a new product designed to address the fragmentation issues in the blockchain ecosystem. The core vision of AggLayer is to create a unified settlement layer that seamlessly connects multiple Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) blockchains, achieving a true "value internet." Polygon aims to be the connective infrastructure link across the entire Web3 world, enhancing interoperability, transaction speed, and user experience among blockchain networks.【19】

AggLayer's technology is based on mechanisms such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) and "pessimistic proofs", which make them more secure and efficient than traditional cross-chain bridging solutions. It can package multiple cross-chain transactions for processing, while maintaining decentralization, greatly reducing transaction costs and increasing speed. Currently, AggLayer already supports Polygon CDK chains and plans to expand to all EVM-compatible chains. At the same time, Polygon is actively incorporating real-world assets (RWA) into its ecosystem, especially in terms of payment and tokenized assets, and has reached partnerships with fintech giants such as Stripe and Grab to gradually establish a connection between real-world finance and DeFi.

If AggLayer can be successfully promoted and achieve widespread connectivity, it will become a milestone innovation in blockchain infrastructure, breaking the island effect between chains and facilitating the free flow of assets and applications. This will enhance developers' and institutions' confidence in Web3, promoting the deep integration of decentralized finance and the real economy. Polygon will also transform from an Ethereum scaling tool to a core infrastructure provider in the multi-chain era, solidifying its position in the blockchain competitive landscape.

Only 11% of registered Bitcoin businesses in El Salvador are operational

Of the 181 Bitcoin service providers registered in El Salvador, only 20 (about 11%) are currently operational. The vast majority of registered businesses fail to meet the operational requirements set out in the Bitcoin Act, including the official digital wallet Chivo, which will be disbanded under an agreement between the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). 【20】

The "Bitcoin Law" requires service providers to maintain anti-money laundering (AML) programs, accurately record the company's asset-liability situation, and develop customized cybersecurity plans based on the nature of the services. Data shows that 89% of registered service providers failed to meet these obligations and were thus classified as non-operational. Nationally supported companies such as Chivo Wallet, Crypto Trading & Investment, and Fintech Américas successfully met the legal standards and continue to operate normally.

El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, with the aim of boosting the economy and attracting cryptocurrency investment. However, the current situation of only a few bitcoin service providers operating normally could undermine market confidence in the country's crypto ecosystem and affect the enthusiasm of investors and businesses to participate. El Salvador signed a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on March 3 to cut some of its Bitcoin-related initiatives, including restricting the use of Bitcoin by public institutions and paying taxes in dollars. Policy adjustments could further affect Bitcoin's adoption rate and market performance in the country.

Solana block computation limit increased, network performance upgraded again

The Solana blockchain has successfully implemented the network upgrade proposal SIMD-0207, increasing the maximum computational unit limit per block to 50 million, an increase of about 4%. This move will enhance Solana's transaction throughput, allowing it to handle more transactions without compromising performance. The proposal was originally put forward by Anza engineer Andrew Fitzgerald in December 2024 and officially went live in April 2025.

Although some community members are concerned that larger blocks may increase the hardware requirements for validating nodes, thereby affecting the level of decentralization, there are also voices advocating for further expanding the block limit to push the network performance to its limits. Solana also plans to raise the block limit to 60 million compute units through the SIMD-0256 proposal and introduce the Firedancer validator client developed by Jump Crypto, which is expected to significantly enhance the network's throughput and security.

Solana is steadily advancing its scalability roadmap, enhancing its position as a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain. Higher transaction processing capacity is expected to attract more decentralized applications and users, boosting network activity and the prosperity of the ecosystem. However, with the continuous evolution of technology, maintaining decentralization and network security while improving performance will be an important goal that Solana needs to continuously balance and optimize.

Integration Information

According to RootData, in the past 24 hours, 4 projects have publicly announced funding, with a total amount exceeding ** **15.5 million USD, covering areas such as infrastructure and AI. Here are the specifics of the top two funding amounts: 【22】

**Optimum **—— Optimum has completed a seed round financing of $11 million. This round was led by 1kx, with participation from well-known institutions such as Robot Ventures, MH Ventures, and GSR. Optimum is a Web3 infrastructure project incubated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, aimed at addressing performance bottlenecks in data propagation and storage on blockchain. The project is led by Muriel Médard and employs her invention of Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) technology to provide a high-performance decentralized memory layer for blockchain.

The financing will be used primarily to transform RLNC technology from academic research to commercial applications and build the "memory layer" infrastructure of Web3. By introducing RLNC, Optimum aims to provide blockchain networks with more efficient data storage and access solutions, solve the problems of inefficiencies and poor scalability in the current Web3 architecture, promote the development of decentralized applications, and improve the performance and user experience of the entire Web3 ecosystem. 【23】

**Rekord AG **—— Rekord AG has completed a $4.5 million seed funding round and reached agreements with two strategic partners to promote its platform in the German and Austrian markets. Rekord AG is a construction technology startup based in Switzerland, focusing on optimizing processes in the construction industry through digital means. The company has developed a platform aimed at improving the efficiency and sustainability of construction projects.

This financing will primarily be used to accelerate product development for its construction technology platform, expand market coverage, and strengthen integration with industry partners. It aims to promote the digital transformation of the construction industry, enhancing construction efficiency and sustainability. Meanwhile, Rekord AG plans to use the new funds to expand the team size, optimize technical solutions, and expand business in other regional markets.

Airdrop Opportunity

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Reference Material:

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DEFI9.65%

PUMPSWAP-24.08%

BTC0.12%

ETH-0.06%

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Last edited on 2025-04-23 03:01:13

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