Polygons DeFi ecosystem starts to unfold
Polywhale Finance, a new finance dapp and the first yield farming dapp on the Polygon Network, is making some serious noise this week after launching on the 23rd April 2021. In the last 24 hours users of the platform have surged 50% to over 2,600, while transactions have increased over 60% to almost 21,000. Most importantly, the volume generated through the dapps smart contracts is currently over $35 million with the average transaction being around $1,700.
Interestingly, when observing the data across the 5 days of activity to date for the dapp we can see that a large portion of volume and users arrived within the last 24-hours. This leads us to further investigate the events leading up to the observed surge.
Launching with the slogan ‘the best APYs on Polygon’ certainly didn’t hinder the marketing efforts of the team. Coupled with the fact that Polywhale is the first yield farming dapp on Polygon, it only made sense that excitement started to build. These heightened levels of hype attract waves of new investors and older crypto traders in search of options amidst crippling gas fees on Ethereum exchanges. Polywhale quickly found its feet and the total value locked (TVL) inside the dapps smart contracts within just 20 minutes of the launch had grown to an impressive $3 million.
Then came a $100 giveaway in the platform’s native token KRILL and a ‘like and retweet’ campaign which further stimulated awareness of the new platform. Arguably, token drops for new DeFi platforms are highly sought after as already proved by platforms such as Uniswap and Compound. Furthermore, in a Medium blog article, the team has addressed the issue of a potential rug pull early doors and posted a ‘How safe are we’ guide.
One reason for the increase in users of layer-2 trading platforms is clearly the escalating gas fees associated with Ethereum exchanges. Ever since the Summer of DeFi in 2020, increased usage of the Ethereum blockchain has congested the network, causing gas fees to spike. It is quite clear to see why people, especially those trading hundred dollar portfolios and not thousand dollar ones, are shifting to layer-2 solutions like Polygon. Another reason is an overall increase in knowledge and awareness about decentralized finance services such as staking and passive income over the last 12 months.
The DeFi ecosystem on Polygon is growing all the time and with other big-name players like Aave already flourishing on the network, it will be fascinating to observe how Polywhale can fit into that puzzle and furthermore retain its community amidst mounting competition.