DeFi Assets Surge While Major Cryptocurrencies Experience Losses

According to Decrypt, several decentralized finance (DeFi) assets experienced a surge on Tuesday, while major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum faced losses. Decentralized lender dYdX, which operates on Ethereum, traded at $3.34, gaining nearly 7% in 24 hours. Over the week, the protocol's native token, ETHDYDX, had increased by 42%, according to CoinGecko data. Maker (MKR) also saw a surge, trading at $1,366, up over 1%, and had reached a high of $1,423 earlier on Tuesday morning Eastern Time. Decentralized exchange PancakeSwap (CAKE) was up nearly 3%, with a price of $2.24. DeFi projects aim to replace traditional financial services, such as borrowing, lending, or banking, but are new, experimental, and prone to hacks, making their coins and tokens volatile. Bitcoin, the largest digital asset by market cap, lost more than 2% of its value and was trading at $36,049. Ethereum was down nearly 3%, priced at $2,041 per coin. Last week, Ethereum saw major gains on news that BlackRock Advisors, a division of the Wall Street giant, was preparing to file an application for an Ethereum ETF. The iShares Ethereum Trust application is BlackRock's first official application for an Ethereum ETF. Meanwhile, other major coins and tokens experienced a rough morning. Solana (SOL), which surged in value last week, traded at just over $56 per coin, up less than 1%. Despite cooling ETF optimism for Bitcoin and Ethereum, Solana has maintained its gains, surging nearly 160% over 30 days.