DeFi Rallies on China Ban as Chinese Turn to Decentralized Projects, Crypto Prices Recover to Pre-ban Levels

Last week, China cracked down on crypto and declared virtual currency-related business activities, including the provision of services by overseas exchanges to Chinese residents through the Internet to be “illegal financial activities.” As we reported, this sent the prices of cryptocurrencies crashing, but that dip was not the one to sell your tokens as historically, it hasn’t turned out well for the sellers. Crypto assets have already started to recover and are now back at the levels before the crackdown-induced sell-off. Bitcoin was trading above $45k when the China ban news struck, and we fell to about $40,750. On Sunday, the market started to recoup these losses and went to $44,400, and on Monday are hovering around $44k. [coin_stats_table symbol="BTC"] Akin to Bitcoin, Ether fell to $2,730 on Friday before climbing to $3,165 on Sunday and is now keeping around $3,100. [coin_stats_table symbol="ETH"] The total crypto market is up more than 7% in the past 24 hours and above $2 trillion. As for exchange tokens that took a big hit, they have recovered as well. After dropping 16%, BNB saw an 8% increase in its value. OKB, which tumbled 42.6% over the period of two days, has rallied 53% since Sunday. Meanwhile, HT fell the hardest by 52%, only to register a 25.5% rise in value.[coin_stats_table symbol="BNB"][coin_stats_table symbol="OKB"][coin_stats_table symbol="HT"] However, the star of this recovery was the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Earlier last week, DeFi’s market cap was around $103 billion, and today, it is at $123.2 billion. The biggest contributor to this strong upward movement includes IDEX (37%), PERP (24%), HEGIC (19%), DYDX (16%), RGT (15%), CRV (14%), UNI (11%), and RAY (10%). https://twitter.com/CoinbaseInsto/status/1442415265577246722 The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has also climbed to $178.4 billion, up from $163 billion early last week and reaching $195.9 billion ATH earlier this month. With China declaring crypto activities illegal, the Chinese are turning to DeFi to access cryptocurrency projects. “All DeFi tokens should be rallying hard on the back of the “China ban” news. And along with it, all of the underlying layer 1 and 2s supporting DeFi. As well as NFTs. Anything that is decentralized literally,” noted Spartan Black of crypto fund The Spartan Group. https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1442039797246148609 Similar sentiments are shared by Mathew Graham, CEO of VC firm Sino Global Capital who said on Twitter, “China crypto is basically one big DeFi education seminar these days.” “In my view the potential for a significant DeFi adoption catalyst is quite considerable,” Graham added.