Crypto Market Weekly Report: DeFi Sector Valuation Restructuring, Zone Rotation Evident

Market Overview

Main Market Trend

• The market sentiment index has dropped from 91% to 53%, remaining in the greed zone. BTC maintains high volatility, while Altcoins are generally under pressure, leading to increased market differentiation.

• The market capitalization of USDT and USDC both increased by ( +2.91% and +3.23% respectively ), the total TVL of DeFi rose to $54.1 billion, indicating that the market continues to attract new funds.

• The Decentralized Finance zone leads the market with a weekly return rate of 16.47%, and DEX trading volume reaches a new high of 630 billion in 2024, showcasing strong development momentum.

• Meme coins are making a comeback in the market, showing active performance amid market fluctuations, bringing new liquidity and user growth points to the crypto market.

• DEX projects receive the highest attention, while AI and GameFi zones show weak performance, reflecting that market hotspots are concentrated in the infrastructure and liquidity zones.

• It is advised that investors remain cautious, paying attention to re-staking projects and opportunities in the DEX zone, while also monitoring potential market fluctuations that may arise from next week's Federal Reserve interest rate meeting.

(# Market Sentiment Index Analysis

• The market sentiment index has fallen from 91% last week to 53%, still in the bullish zone.

• Altcoins performed weaker than the benchmark index this week, showing a fluctuating downward trend. After a decline in the first half of the week, most assets failed to recover their losses. Due to leveraged positions, the market saw approximately $2 billion in forced liquidations, and long positions significantly deleveraged.

• Altcoins are expected to move in sync with the benchmark index in the short term, with a low probability of independent market trends.

)# Overview of Overall Market Trends

• The crypto market has been in a wide-ranging fluctuation trend this week, and the sentiment index remains in the bullish phase.

• Projects related to DeFi have performed outstandingly, indicating the market's continued focus on enhancing basic yields.

• DEX projects performed well this week, indicating that on-chain investors are beginning to actively participate in on-chain investment activities.

• The meme zone has returned to the spotlight and is starting to gain market attention.

hot zone

DEX

This week, due to the overall price volatility in the market, many profit opportunities have been created for investors. On-chain investors are actively using DEX for trading, driving the growth of DEX projects.

On-chain data of DEX:

• TVL: The TVL of DEX zone projects increased from 25.22B last week to 26.58B, a growth of 5.39%, indicating that funds are actively entering DEX projects.

• Trading Volume: DEX's trading volume this week reached a record high of $63 billion for 2024, with a trading volume of $7.58 billion in the last 24 hours, showing a significant increase.

The DEX zone is showing a trend of business model upgrades. Leading protocols such as Hyperliquid and dYdX are transitioning from a single trading function to comprehensive financial infrastructure. This evolution is reflected in: protocols based on their own chain layer architecture, achieving vertical integration through function aggregation, and creating a one-stop Decentralized Finance service ecosystem. This type of architectural innovation marks the evolution of the DEX sector from a single trading level to a comprehensive financial infrastructure direction, and the reconstruction of sector value is underway.

![Decentralized Finance zone valuation reconstruction, zone rotation evident｜Frontier Lab crypto market weekly report]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-b30b5d38b44bf527742aea9a0a7119f6.webp###

(# SUI

The Sui ecosystem has seen a high level of discussion this week, with the SUI price rising by 7.8%, outperforming BTC and ETH. The growth of DeFi projects in the Sui ecosystem has been particularly remarkable.

Sui链上Decentralized Finance项目数据:

• TVL: Increased from 1.598B last week to 1.793B, an increase of 12.88%.

• Accounts: A total of 66,543,317, an increase of 2,184,755 compared to last week, a growth rate of 3.39%.

• DEX trading volume: The main DEXs are Cetus, Aftermath Finance, and BlueMove DEX, with a total trading volume exceeding 35 billion USD this week and an average daily trading volume of 466 million USD.

• DeFi项目TVL增量: 排名前三的NAVI Protocol、Suilend和Aftermath Finance本周TVL增速分别为1.14%、17.22%和1.72%。

The Sui chain maintains rapid development, with the SUI price outperforming the market, driving the APY growth of on-chain DeFi projects. At the same time, market fluctuations provide profit opportunities, attracting a large number of users to participate and promoting the development of the entire ecosystem.

) Decentralized Finance zone

TVL Growth Ranking

The top 5 projects in terms of TVL growth in the past week ### TVL > 30 million USD ###:

1. Synthetix: 87.69%
2. Babylon: 67.32%
3. Usual Money: 53.61%
4. BounceBit: 50.31%
5. Equilibria: 40.27%

(# Overall performance of the zone

• Stablecoin market cap growth: USDT increased by 2.91% to $145.1 billion, USDC increased by 3.23% to $41.5 billion, indicating continued influx of capital into the market.

• Increased liquidity: The risk-free arbitrage rates in traditional markets are declining, while the arbitrage rates in on-chain DeFi projects are increasing due to the rise in the value of encryption assets, making a return to DeFi a good choice.

• Fund situation: The TVL of DeFi projects increased from 53.2 billion USD last week to 54.1 billion USD, a growth of 1.69%, maintaining a continuous upward trend for nearly two months.

)# In-depth Analysis

The core driving factors of this round of increase:

• The bull market cycle drives the demand for liquidity to rise
• The basic lending interest rate level rises
• The profit space of arbitrage cycle strategies in Decentralized Finance protocols is enlarged.

The conduction mechanism strengthens the intrinsic value support within the DeFi zone, forming a positive growth momentum.

![Decentralized Finance zone valuation reconstruction, zone rotation emerges｜Frontier Lab crypto market weekly report]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-88728426a72772ae8fbf3803502d9a48.webp###

( Other zones performance

)# public chain

The top 5 public chains by TVL growth in the crypto market over the past week:

1. Hyperliquid: 21.23%
2. Sui: 14.45%
3. Algorand: 10.99%
4. PulseChain: 7.33%
5. Bitcoin: 6.99%

Overview of the Rise List

The top 5 tokens with the highest price increase in the past week ### excluding tokens with very low trading volume and meme coins ###:

1. USUAL (Usual): 98.57%
2. BGB (Bitget): 95.01%
3. SUSHI (Sushi): 65.77%
4. ORCA (ORCA): 48.16%
5. ACX (Across Protocol): 45.88%

(# Meme Token Growth Rankings

1. FARTCOIN )Fartcoin###: 187.53%
2. BABYDOGE (Baby Doge Coin): 117.03%
3. WOLF (LandWolf): 74.42%
4. TURBO (Turbo): 52.45%
5. DOG (DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON): 40.57%

( social media hotspot

This week, the DEX projects received the highest attention on social media, showing a general upward trend and outperforming other zones. The market fluctuations have created trading opportunities, and on-chain users are actively participating, leading to an increase in trading volume across various DEX.

) market theme overall overview

According to weekly return rate statistics, the DeFi zone performed the best ### 16.47% ###, while the AI zone performed the worst ( -7.24% ).

( Next week's crypto market major event preview

• December 17: U.S. November Retail Sales MoM
• December 18: Hong Kong's "Stablecoin Bill" submitted for first reading in the Legislative Council.
• December 19: Federal Reserve interest rate decision, announcement of interest rate resolution and economic outlook summary
• December 20: U.S. November Core PCE Price Index Year-on-Year, Asia Blockchain and AI Week

) Next Week Outlook

Macroeconomic Factors Analysis:

• The market has already priced in the expectation of a 25 basis point rate cut at the Federal Reserve's December meeting.
• Pay attention to Powell's speech and economic outlook summary, assessing the direction of monetary policy in January 2025.
• In the short term, the Microsoft shareholders' meeting resolutions and macro data may dominate market sentiment, and the crypto market is expected to maintain a fluctuating pattern.

zone rotation trend:

• DeFi zone: Re-staking projects benefit from the rise in risk aversion sentiment, and the DEX zone sees an increase in on-chain activity driven by arbitrage demand amid market volatility.
• AI zone: Agent sub-track maintains high attention, Web2 and Web3 ecosystems accelerate integration

Investment strategy recommendations:

• Maintain a defensive allocation, focusing on the safe-haven properties of BTC and ETH.
• Choose the right timing to layout high-quality Decentralized Finance zones with intrinsic returns.
• Stay cautious, strictly control your positions, and manage risks effectively.

![Decentralized Finance zone valuation reconstruction, zone rotation evident｜Frontier Lab crypto market weekly report]###https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-919ab535cfdb7d31d4a6427cd31ee908.webp###