The largest share in the segment is occupied by exchanges and liquidity providers - approximately 22%. Asset management services account for about 19% of the market. According to The Block's calculations, the DeFi ecosystem is made up of at least 166 startups and protocols working in 12 areas. New projects appear in the DeFi segment almost every day. Some offer interesting solutions to the market that attract investment and liquidity to the protocols. Other projects are nothing more than imitators striving for fleeting success on the wave of hype. Some are even created just to embezzle client funds and hide. “The number of cheats, scams and hacks in the cryptocurrency market has always been astronomically high compared to other industries. I can't say that there are more of them in DeFi than the market average, '' Nikita Ovchinnik, director of business development at 1inch, shared his opinion. - The real leaders of this segment got interested, believed and started building products back in 2018. Projects such as Compound, Synthetix and others did not come to the market for the hype and quick money. " Some in the industry are clearly not happy with the DeFi fever. Renowned trader Ton Weiss equates decentralized finance projects with Ponzi schemes. What is happening on the market reminds him of the ICO boom times. Contrary to the opinion of skeptics, significant amounts of money are being invested in the development of the segment. For example, Binance will provide $ 100 million to support the decentralized finance ecosystem and ensure its interaction with centralized services. Developers are trying to turn almost any type of traditional financial services into a decentralized protocol, be it trading, lending or derivatives. Over the past six months, at least 17 DeFi projects have attracted venture capital funding. The main segments of the DeFi ecosystem. The largest market share belongs to exchanges and liquidity providers. Asset management services also play a significant role in the segment. Source: The Block. “What makes DeFi unique is the pervasive interconnection between protocols, pieces of which can be assembled like Lego puzzles into something new. Increasing liquidity or blocked funds in one of the products creates feedback loops and adds value to the entire market. The higher the trading volume on the DEX, the more money the liquidity providers make. The more they earn, the more liquidity comes to the market. Increased liquidity leads to small spreads, increases the number of users and the volume of trading increases, returning us to the beginning of the chain, ”said Nikita Ovchinnik. Almost half of the segment's startups are based in the United States. Also popular jurisdictions are the UK, EU and Singapore.