DeFi the odds: Total user numbers up 55% in just six weeks

Decentralized finance users steadily increased by 40% during October, despite many DeFi tokens posting heavy losses for the month.

While many decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens suffered heavy losses last month — prompting hastily written obituaries about the DeFi “bubble” — metrics measuring user activity saw sustained sector-wide growth.

According to crypto market data aggregator Dune Analytics, the total number of unique DeFi user-addresses is around 860,000, an increase of roughly 10 times over the past year. Note: that’s a cumulative figure and users might have more than one address.

Despite many DeFi tokens shedding significant value last month, the sector’s user-count increased by nearly 40%, from roughly 555,000 to 775,000, during October.

A further 85,000 users joined DeFi during the first 11 days of November, increasing the number of users by 11% in less than two weeks. In total that means DeFi user numbers have grown 55% from the start of October.

Lending protocol Compound and decentralized exchange (DEX) Dydx were among the DeFi’s strongest gainers, increasing their user bases by 250% and 50% over the past 30 days respectively.

Compound’s absolute growth even exceeded that of leading DEX Uniswap, with the protocols attracting 135,000 and 110,000 new users over the past month each.

The quantity of markets hosted on Uniswap is also quickly expanding, with the number of pairings on the platform increasing 34%, from roughly 16,200 to 21,700, over 30 days.

Dune estimates that nearly 81,000 users interacted with Uniswap over the past week — equal to 9.4% of all unique addresses in engaging with the entire DeFi sector.

Uniswap currently represents 63.6% of daily DEX trade, followed by Curve with 12.2%, SushiSwap with 8.64%, and 0x with 7%. As such, just four exchanges make up more than 91% of total DEX volume.

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