UNI, AAVE, CRV, AXS and DOGE are among the leading projects that have helped change the face of the crypto ecosystem and pave the way for mass adoption in 2021.

2021 was a breakthrough year for the crypto market in many ways, and most investors were absolutely thrilled when Bitcoin price hit a new all-time high (ATH) of $ 68,789. Meanwhile, Ether saw a parabolic rally, rising 565% to an ATH of $ 4,859 in November.

While these are impressive numbers that large-cap cryptocurrencies are delivering, the most impactful growth and development has come from the altcoin market, where DeFi and NFT have created levels that are up thousands of percent and a whole new phase of awareness and development the acceptance of. initiated blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Here are five projects that made a significant contribution to the crypto ecosystem in 2021.

Uniswap

Uniswap Decentralized Exchange (UNI) is said to have had the greatest impact on the entire crypto ecosystem since its launch in the summer of 2020 and has seen significant growth over the course of the year. 2021 as it facilitates the start of thousands of new crypto projects by removing barriers to market entry on centralized exchanges (CEX).

Data from Dune Analytics shows that Uniswap was the dominant decentralized exchange (DEX) throughout 2021, consistently trading more than all other DEXs combined.

Monthly DEX trading volume by project | Source: Dune Analytics

As can be seen in the graph above, the trading volume on DEXs really started to increase in the second half of 2021, mainly due to the activity on Uniswap.

In 2021, Uniswap led the way in development, with developers announcing the release of Uniswap v3 in March to reduce transaction costs and turnaround time for users.

Aave

Aave (AAVE) is a DeFi protocol that allows users to deposit and lend their tokens at a profit, or pledge them as collateral to borrow some other asset.

As the DeFi sector gained momentum in early 2021, AAVE became a community favorite thanks to a wide range of supported crypto assets and the support of a number of prominent players.

Over the past year, AAVE has expanded its capabilities and reach with the release of AAVE v2, adding support for Polygon, a Layer 2 scaling solution, and Avalanche, a popular cross-chain blockchain network .

Total liquidity in the AAVE protocol | Source: Aave

As a result of these additional capabilities, the total available liquidity of the AAVE protocol has exceeded $ 25.7 billion, making AAVE the leading DeFi protocol in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL).

Curve

Curve Finance is a stablecoin-centric protocol that uses an automated market maker (AAM) to manage liquidity on the platform and the entire DeFi ecosystem.

Stablecoins have emerged as essential for the crypto community as a whole in 2021 as they provide ample liquidity to the market and act as a safe haven for traders seeking protection in times of volatility.

The growing importance of stablecoins has benefited the Curve Protocol and its native token (CRV) by accelerating stablecoin integration with many leading DeFi protocols, including the Yearn ecosystem, Finance, and Convex Finance.

Despite the fact that a significant portion of the assets tied to the Curve protocol are stablecoins, the platform currently ranks second best protocol behind AAVE in terms of TVL at $ 21.77 billion.

Total value locked on curve | Source: Defi Lama

Curve has also integrated into many of the most active blockchain networks including Ethereum, Avalanche, Harmony, xDAI, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Fantom, proving its role as a stablecoin liquidity provider for the whole market.

Axie infinity

Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn (P2E) fighting and trading game that allows participants to collect, breed, raise, battle, and trade NFT-based creatures known as Axies.

The P2E model is emerging as a new fan favorite in 2021 as it gives users the opportunity to earn daily income along with their gameplay and offers some unique advantages over the traditional pay-to-play (P2P) model.

Along with the growing popularity of Axie, Infinity has created an ATH layer for the platform’s native token, AXS. When AXS hit a new ATH, on Aug.

AXS price vs. total sales | Source: Token Terminal

Axie Infinity is also one of the first projects to start the trend of moving away from the Ethereum network due to its high fees and slow transactions. At the beginning of the year the project switched to the Ronin sidechain and in November the project launched its own DEX called Katana.

Dogecoin

Dogecoin is an open source proof-of-work (PoW) cryptocurrency that leads the field of “meme coins” and attracted a lot of attention from investors and the media in 2021.

While Dogecoin has done little on the tech or development front, regular support from influencers like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban has helped drive Dogecoin into a 23.746% rally. The price rose from $ 0.0031 on the 1st all-time high of $ 0.74 on May 8th.

DOGE / USDT 1-day frame chart | Source: TradingView

In addition to the apparent price growth, DOGE has attracted increasing attention after announcing that it will be used to fund SpaceX’s lunar satellite launch and that the Dogecoin movement has also been activated, the mem-coin rally and spawned several very successful dogs – themed projects such as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogelon Mars (ELON).

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