According to the research data analysed and published by Comprar Acciones, August saw the highest amount of funding during the quarter, a total of $367.48 million. Comparatively, the July total was $299.42 million, while in September, the figure was $230.83 million.

The most popular deal types in the three-month period were early-stage and seed deals, accounting for 42 per cent of total funding. There were 60 seed and 59 early-stage deals all in all.  For early-stage deals, the average value was $7 million, totaling $272 million, equivalent to 30 per cent of the total. On the other, seed deals averaged $2.1 million and accounted for 12 per cent of total deals in the period.

According to a report by Outlier Ventures, crypto funding in the month of August 2020 reached $280 million. It thus accounted for over two-thirds of the aforementioned funding total during that month. There were a total of 24 deals, with median funding of $2.9 million across five verticals. Decentralised finance (DeFi) and Fintech was the leading vertical accounting for 62 per cent of all deals.

$9bn flows into Ethereum

In line with that, Q3 2020 also saw a remarkable acceleration in capital inflow into the industry, thanks primarily to yield farming movement and the DeFi hype. According to CoinGecko, $9.15 billion flowed into Ethereum courtesy of its thriving DeFi scene. This was its largest inflow of capital on record since its inception. As a result of the accelerated capital inflow, Tether (USDT) grew its market cap by an impressive $5.9 billion in Q3 2020. This translated to a 61 per cent increase quarter-over-quarter (QoQ). US Digital Coin (USDC) saw an increase of $1.5 billion on its market cap, posting a 157 per cent QoQ increase.

Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) saw the highest growth in market cap, which was at 1,766 per cent, following an increase of $946 million. DAI also grew a remarkable 598 per cent, equivalent to $775 million.

DeFi and yield farming also boosted trading volumes for decentralised exchanges (DEX). Between July and September, trading volume on the top 10 DEX grew a whopping 700 per cent year-over-year (YoY). It went from $3.8 billion to $30.4 billion.

On average, DEX trading volume grew by 197 per cent month-on-month throughout the period. In contrast, centralised exchange (CEX) volume grew by a mere 35 per cent month-on-month.

Uniswap and Curve were the dominant DEX platforms during the period, accounting for 80 per cent of the market share. Uniswap’s market share grew from 47 per cent in July to 63 per cent in September. In the same duration, Curve saw its market share drop from 24 per cent to 17 per cent. Sushiswap joined the ranks in September and managed to capture an 8 per cent market share.

Overall, trading volume for both types of exchanges during the quarter shot up by 88 per cent, an increase of $155 billion. The total trading volume in July amounted to $175.7 billion. From this amount, DEX trading volume was $3.8 billion.

In August, total trading volume nearly doubled to $327.2 billion, with DEX volume amounting to $12.3 billion. Though growth slowed down in September, DEX volume more than doubled to $30.4 billion from the $330.6 billion total.

DeFi token LEND grows

Bitcoin’s inability to reap from the DeFi boom caused it to lose a 6.6 per cent market share during Q3 2020. By the end of the quarter, the king of crypto had a 62.3 per cent market share.

Comparatively, Ethereum’s share surged by 2.3 per cent to reach 12.7 per cent. On the other hand, Tether’s share grew by 0.9 per cent to 4.8 per cent.

All in all, DeFi tokens outperformed the market from Q1 to Q3 2020, only slowing down during the September market pullback. A comparison of these tokens to the top five cryptocurrencies by market cap puts their massive growth in perspective.

At the end of Q3 2020, Bitcoin and Ethereum price return was 50 per cent YTD. For Ripple, the figure was 25 per cent, 113 per cent for Binance Coin and 11 per cent for Bitcoin Cash.

In comparison, LEND return was 3,177 per cent for the same duration, while for YFI (Yearn.Finance), it was 2,908 per cent. UMA was another impressive performer with 2,819 per cent growth in the period.

However, in September, the DeFi market pulled back and most tokens suffered double-digit losses month-on-month. LEND posted a 28 per cent decline while YFI dropped by 32 per cent and UMA lost 60 per cent of its value.