DeFi the odds: Total user numbers up 55% in just six weeks

While many decentralized finance tokens suffered heavy losses last month, prompting hastily written obituaries about the DeFi “bubble,” metrics measuring user activity saw sustained, sector-wide growth.

According to crypto market data aggregator Dune Analytics, the total number of unique DeFi user addresses is around 860,000, an increase of roughly 10 times over the past year. However, that figure is cumulative, and users might have more than one address.

Despite many DeFi tokens shedding significant value last month, the sector’s user count increased in October by nearly 40%, from roughly 555,000 to 775,000.

A further 85,000 users joined DeFi during the first 11 days of November, increasing the number of users by 11% in less than two weeks. In total, that means DeFi user numbers have grown 55% from the start of October.

Lending protocol Compound and decentralized exchange Dydx were among DeFi’s strongest gainers, increasing their user bases over the past 30 days by 250% and 50%, respectively.

Compound’s absolute growth of 135,000 new users over the past month even exceeded the 110,000 attracted by leading DEX Uniswap.

The quantity of markets hosted on Uniswap is also quickly expanding, with the number of pairings on the platform increasing 34%, from roughly 16,200 to 21,700 over 30 days.

Dune estimates that nearly 81,000 users interacted with Uniswap over the past week — equal to 9.4% of all unique addresses in engaging with the entire DeFi sector.

Uniswap currently represents 63.6% of daily DEX trade, followed by Curve with 12.2%, SushiSwap with 8.64%, and 0x with 7%. As such, just four exchanges make up more than 91% of total DEX volume.