Decentralized finance (DeFi) activity is soaring on Cardano (ADA) as the Ethereum (ETH) competitor kicks off a red-hot start to 2023.

The DeFi tracker DeFi Llama reports that Cardano has $65.97 million in total value locked (TVL) at time of writing, roughly a 36% increase from January 1st when Cardano’s TVL registered at $48.5 million.

The TVL of a blockchain represents the total capital held within its smart contracts. TVL is calculated by multiplying the amount of collateral locked into the network by the current value of the assets.

Cardano’s top decentralized application (DApp) is Minswap, a multi-pool decentralized exchange (DEX). With $27.26 million in total value locked, Minswap represents more than 41% of the TVL on the Cardano blockchain.

The second most prominent DApp on Cardano is Indigo, a decentralized synthetics trading platform that has $11.35 million in TVL. Third, is WingRiders, an automated market maker (AMM) DEX with $10.87 million in TVL. Both Indigo and WingRiders have seen TVL increases of roughly 25% in the past month.

Cardano’s TVL jump closely mirrors its price surge: ADA is trading around $0.322 at time of writing and is up more than 31% since December 31st. The eighth-ranked crypto asset by market cap still remains nearly 90% down from its all-time high of $3.09, which it hit in September 2021.

Source : [Cardano DeFi Activity Soars 36% As ADA Opens 2023 With Big Rallies](dailyhodl.com/2023/01/11/cardano-defi-activity-soars-36-as-ada-opens-2023-with-big-rallies/) by Conor Devitt - The Daily Hodl by Conor Devitt / January 12, 2023