Our 2024 Year Ahead DeFi Report is now available to everyone for FREE! 🔓

As we move along an action-filled 2024, let's reflect on the major DeFi predictions and forecasts our team made back in December! 🧵👇

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Yet, DeFi was far from dead, and quietly began its road to recovery. In a vacuum, the sector performed well in 2023 with many tokens surging over 100% such as $LYRA, $LDO, $MKR, $DYDX, and $SNX.

Among the DeFi tokens, we highlighted Pendle showing aspiration to be the LINK/SPELL of the bear market, rallying over 20x and reviving the forgotten yield stripping niche.

New Use Cases Spark Traction for Interest Rate Derivatives

The report illustrated Pendle's significant contribution to the burgeoning field of interest rate derivatives (IRDs), sparking new interest and use cases in the sector.

Pendle's resurgence was largely driven by ample liquidity from composable LSD tokens and the LSD narrative, spurring organic volume for rate trading.

🔮 Notional volume on Pendle has since surged up to $400M daily (vs. $7M at the time of writing)

LSDs now comprise over 75% of Pendle's TVL (vs. 60% end of 2023).

We forecasted that interest in IRDs would continue to grow, with Pendle as the undisputed leader for the medium term.

🔮 Since the Year Ahead DeFi report was published in December, $PENDLE network value has surged >500%.

The Year Ahead for DeFi 2024 report initially kicked off with a compelling analysis of the Competition Between the Restaking Economy and LSDs.
Ethereum Liquid Staking status was initially as follows:⬇️

Ethereum staking surged in 2023,  with total Staked ETH  jumping from 16M to 28.6M by December (+79%). This accounted for a 23.7% staking rate of the total 120.2M ETH supply. ⬇️

We pointed out that the estimated target of 33.5 million ETH, or 27% of the total ETH supply, would generally be considered optimal for robust network security. 

🔮The current staking rate of the total ETH supply has almost hit this milestone, with around 32M ETH (~26%) staked!

Analysts highlighted restaking as a pivotal innovation for 2024, predicting it as 2024  biggest development  :

Restaking protocols like EigenLayer expand ETH staking to secure infrastructure like bridges or rollups, rehypothecating staked ETH to strengthen third-party networks through Actively Validated Services (AVS).

One Key takeaway: EigenLayer has rapidly gained popularity. At the time, $250M of LSDs were restaked with EigenLayer.

🔮 Since our report was published, @Eigenlayer's TVL surged ~7000% and now sits just shy of $20 billion.

Stakers were also eligible for the airdrop of the native token $EIGEN.

As liquid restaking solidifies its market role, money markets and CDP protocols stand to gain from it the most. 

Liquid restaked ETH yields higher rewards than traditional staking,  allowing these protocols to charge higher borrowing fees

Our DeFi team spotlighted MakerDAO's consistently increasing borrowing rates for ETH over 2023 as LSD yields subsidize the net cost of loans. With liquid restaked ETH increasing yields, our team predicted CDP protocols would capture higher fees. ⬇️

🔮Since then, MakerDAO network value has surged over 150%

Scoping Out @jito_sol

In 2023, Solana’s liquid staking scene initially saw Marinade take the lead.

Still, Jito emerged as a key competitor in Q4, attracting many stakers through the Jito points program, culminating in a significant airdrop event.

🔮 Shortly after our report, $JTO’s network value rallied over 50%.

Beyond that, the full Year Ahead for DeFi 2024 report covers the following key topics ⬇️

🔹 Restaking & Pooled Risks
🔹 Uniswap Liquidity
🔹 ETH App-Specific Rollups
🔹 Rollups Interoperability
🔹 Decentralized Stablecoins
🔹 RWA Design Space
🔹 Wallets Drastic UX Strides
🔹 Payments, Crypto’s Largest and Oldest Challenge
🔹 Surprises & Futuristic Ideas

This was only a glimpse of our team's forecasts and predictions made in The Year Ahead for DeFi 2024 report! 

Sign up with the FREE Delphi Alpha tier now & Read the full deep dive to explore all DeFi trends our team has been on top of! 👇

This was only a glimpse of our team's forecasts and predictions made in The Year Ahead for DeFi 2024 report! 

Sign up with the FREE Delphi Alpha tier now & Read the full deep dive to explore all DeFi trends our team has been on top of! 👇

https://delphi.link/2024DeFi

Macro headwinds, higher rates & a bloodbath of centralized insolvencies in 2022 (culminated by the FTX collapse) extinguished capital from DeFi. The hangover left DeFi licking its wounds through 2023.