- Hedera Hashgraph is one of the leading blockchains in the world.
- The network’s DeFi ecosystem has just $54 million in TVL.
- It has been overtaken by the likes of Base, Optimism, and Arbitrum.
Hedera Hashgraph has made headlines recently. As I wrote here, the developers recently launched Stablecoin Studio, a complete suite for stablecoin development. The suite is being used by well-known companies like Shinhan Bank, Standard Bank, and Cathay Bank.
It was also integrated in Federal Reserve’s FedNow program. These announcements, together with the recent Bitcoin price movement, have helped HBAR price bounce back by over 12% from its lowest level this month.
Hedera Hashgraph DeFi ecosystem
A key challenge for Hedera Hashgraph is that its role in decentralized finance (DeFi) is a bit limited. DeFi is a major field in the blockchain industry with a total value locked (TVL) of more than $80 billion. At its peak, DeFi had over $300 billion worth of assets.
DeFi is now dominated by blockchains like Ethereum, Tron, BNB Chain, and Arbitrum. Hedera, despite its strong credentials, has a very limited role in the industry. Data by DeFi Llama shows that the network has a TVL of just $54 million.
Hedera has just 6 DeFi protocols in its ecosystem. SaucerSwap, a DEX, has a TVL of over $28.45 million. It is followed by Stader, HeliSwap,and Pangolin which have $21M, $3.9M, and $214k. The other two, Tangent and Bubbleswap, have no assets in their ecosystem.
This development means that Hedera Hashgraph has been left behind by relatively new chains. For example, Base, the blockchain by Coinbase, has a TVL of over $423 million and has 123 projects. Base was launched just in July.
Hedera is also smaller than other newer Layer-2 blockchains like Arbitrum and Optimism. Other notable chains with a bigger market share than Hedera are Mixin, Kava, and PulseChain.
The challenge for Hedera is that the DeFi industry is maturing. And as this happens, many users will opt for bigger platforms like Aave, Compound, Lido, and Uniswap. Recently, we reported that AlgoFi, the then biggest DeFi platform in Algorand, shut down because of low demand.
Still, Hedera its strengths. For example, it has partnerships with some of the biggest companies in the world like IBM, Google, and ServiceNow. These firms are using Hedera’s technology to build their decentralized products.
HBAR price forecast
The 4H chart shows that the HBAR crypto price has been in a tight range in the past few days. In this period, it has remained slightly below the important resistance point at $0.052, the highway point this month and the lowest swing in August. It is consolidating at the 25-period and 50-period moving averages while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has pointed upwards.
Therefore, the outlook for HBAR price is neutral with a bullish bias. A move above the resistance at $0.052 will point to more upside.
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