Ethereum volume hits all-time high as DeFi market cap nears $9 billion

Transaction volume for Ethereum applications surpassed $12 billion in July. DeFi dapps accounted for 92% of all transactions, according to DappRadar.

DeFi tokens are set to reach a combined market cap of $9 billion.

DeFi, or decentralized finance, refers to non-custodial financial applications such as synthetic stocks, decentralized stablecoins, decentralized exchanges and lending protocols.

Some DeFi lending protocols, to encourage loyalty among people earning interest on their platforms, started issuing governance tokens that let users vote on the future of the networks.

These tokens became valuable, giving users an extra reason to stick around. Compound started in late June when it issued COMP. Then other protocols followed; later came Balancer’s BAL, Yearn Finance’s YFI, mStabe’s MTA, Uma Project’s UMA, and others.

Other coins boomed much later. And ETH, the native token of Ethereum, which houses most DeFi protocols, on Sunday hit $411, its highest price in two years.

“2020 continues to be dedicated to the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem,” wrote the DeFi metrics site in its report.