Nansen, a cryptocurrency and blockchain statistics and analytics platform, has issued a report on the growth of decentralized finance (defi) in 2021. The document highlights how defi managed to keep growing, opening the field to new participant chains. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) also had a notable year, with many new wallets experiencing growth as a result.

Nansen Puts 2021 in Review

Nansen, a blockchain analytics firm backed by Coinbase Ventures and a16z, has presented a report about the behavior and growth that decentralized finance and NFTs experienced in the last year. The document, titled “Nansen’s State of The Crypto Industry Report 2021,” highlights how defi growth accelerated and NFTs rose as an important part of the crypto industry, as well as other industries — even attracting celebrities.

Regarding defi, Nansen estimates the growth of the market compared to 2020 was 1,120% in TVL. While ethereum finished the year with 70% dominance in the defi sector, the crypto’s inability to scale opened the doors for other solutions to arise. BSC and Polygon were two of these chains that surpassed the number of transactions on Ethereum by 1,345% and 760%, respectively, at their peaks. In the same way, solana and avalanche reached significant levels of activity on their networks.

When it comes to protocol activity, Uniswap and Aave were two of the protocols that registered significant movements, and Lido, an ETH2 staking protocol, also saw the participation of large ETH whales.

NFTs Galore

Another of the notable phenomena of last year was the rise of the NFT market. With projects like Cryptopunks and Bored Yacht Ape Club leading the way, NFTs managed to take the attention of celebrities like Stephen Curry and Jay-Z, who substituted their avatars on social media with images of these NFTs.

Data from the report indicates that the NFT market bloomed during 2021, experiencing two notable peaks during the year. The highest trading occurred around August 29, seeing sales for 132K ETH, worth $422 million. The NFT market registered sales of 4.6 million ETH worth $17 billion. Nansen also informs about the rise of smart money connected to this new market, with the top 10 NFT traders recording more than $185 million in profits.

The company believes that similar themes will continue to grow and develop in the defi market this year. Quality dapps, decentralized stablecoins, government regulation, and NFT innovation are some of these themes.

What do you think about Nansen’s latest defi report? Tell us in the comments section below.