DeFi boom ensues as Terra crosses $21B in TVL, second only to Ethereum, Avalanche at $12B

The rising cost of using the Ethereum network triggered by network congestion has been a cause of frustration to many cryptocurrency enthusiasts, especially those wanting to explore the DeFi and NFT sectors. Many competing Layer-1 blockchains seized this opportunity to overtake Ethereum’s market share, with varying degrees of success.

A worthy mention among them belongs to the Avalanche network, whose exponential growth over the past few months has been exceptional even for the L1 market. The protocol has seen the highest daily transaction and active wallet growth among L1s over the past 60 days alone.

In terms of total value locked, the network stands second only to Terra, at over $12 billion.

Also looked into Active Wallet growth on each chain too$AVAX has the highest growth$ETH is almost flat$SOL is decreasing

(If anyone has info for $BNB, $MATIC, $FTM, $MOVR active wallet chart, please let me know!) pic.twitter.com/x17Sq1BChe

— Gojo (@Gojo_Crypto) December 25, 2021

AVAX leading the way

One of the driving factors behind Avalanche’s growth could be its high speed, as the network claims to process over 4,500 transactions per second, while Ethereum can support roughly 13 transactions per second. Its total transaction account even crossed the 50 million mark very recently, after experiencing a surge in late August.

Just in time for Christmas…

Avalanche (C-Chain) just crossed 50 million total transactions.

On to the next 50 million! pic.twitter.com/wtBwyH60jK

— Jay Kurahashi-Sofue 🔺 (@jayks) December 25, 2021

Earlier this week, the Bank of America noted in a research report that Avalanche’s ability to securely scale its network makes it a viable alternative to Ethereum.

Alongside this, the Avalanche developers Ava Labs have also been focusing on ecosystem-centric development to drive growth. The smart contract platform announced more than $600 million worth of initiatives recently, including a $230 million raised to aid liquidity in the network’s growing DeFi ecosystem.

According to data by Delphi Digital, development activity on Avalanche’s C-Chain has also grown meaningfully this year, with over 400 developers and 70,000 unique contracts deployed. It noted that much of this growth was accelerated in late July with the arrival of Chainlink‘s price feeds on Avalanche’s mainnet.

The network’s visible growth has also prompted many crypto companies to forge partnerships and offer support. Its native cryptocurrency token AVAX, released just last year, was recently listed by top crypto exchange Kraken and also offered support by crypto asset manager BitGo, indicating interest from both retail and institutional investors.

Terra still ahead in the game

A partnership with “Big Four” accounting firm Deloitte “to build more efficient disaster relief platforms using the Avalanche blockchain” even led to the AVAX token surging to a new all-time high in November.

Overall, the digital asset has grown over 3700% in price over the past year, even entering the crypto top 10 briefly last month. Its primary competitor at the time, Terra, has also experienced similar growth statistics recently, as it overtook both Avalanche’s TVL and token price.

Its native virtual asset LUNA has seen a record 18,459% surge in the last year, leading to its DeFi volume recently crossing the $21 billion mark after growing over 30% in the past month. This has made Terra (LUNA) the largest DeFi ecosystem after Ethereum, as Avalanche remains on the 5th spot.