The focus has switched to DeFi projects as the field emulates the 2017 ICO pump period with massive amounts of money flowing to these decentralized platforms. Unsurprisingly, Maker, the DAI-producing lending platform, became the first DeFi project to lock a billion worth of crypto assets as its primary collateral, Ethereum (ETH), experienced a 35% surge in the past week.

The total value locked, or TVL in short, measures the difference in the amount borrowed and loaned on DeFi platforms. Currently, Maker’s TVL stands at $1.001 billion in their coffers for lending purposes. The sharp rise in Maker’s TVL has seen the DeFi project reclaim the top spot in the DeFi Pulse rankings with 28% of the total DeFi space TVL.

Congratulations to @MakerDAO for becoming the first DeFi protocol to hit $1 billion dollars locked 🚀🚀🚀 pic.twitter.com/eHaARUKuRL

— Anthony Sassano | sassal.eth 👨‍🌾 (@sassal0x) July 27, 2020

At the start of last week, the total assets held in Maker stood at $626 million before an explosive ETH – gained 35% in the past week – shot the TVL through the billion-dollar mark.

Total assets locked in DeFi experience 700% surge

The total DeFi market TVL reached the billion-dollar mark earlier this year in February before the Black Thursday crash brought Maker to its knees. Since the DeFi market has experienced a 300%+ surge in the number of assets locked, and looking a year back; the TVL has grown an astonishing 680% from $470 million.

Ethereum just blasted through $300.00 😶… will ETH finally start the (dare I say it) bull-market, like it did in 2017??

I mean, even prior Bitcoin maximalists are now announcing ETH purchases.

— Omar Bham (Crrrrypt0) (@crypt0snews) July 25, 2020

With the DeFi market growing and ETH awaiting the proof-of-stake (PoS) in its upcoming switch to ETH 2.0, can ETH and DeFi projects start a bull market similar to 2017’s ICO boom?