DeFi Dominance: A Quick Guide to Ethereum Protocol Forks

The top DeFi protocols on Ethereum have captured billions of TVL and generated offspring that have captured billions more.
BSCN
March 20, 2023
Uniswap, Compound, Olympus DAO, Aave
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” – Oscar Wilde
Snarkiness aside, any good developer understands it’s far less efficient to build from scratch, than to identify existing good code and to adapt it to their purposes. The world of crypto is filled with Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols that are based on forks of predecessors.
Unsurprisingly, Ethereum protocols are the most popular models for other platforms to follow. In many cases, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of the offspring exceeds the parents!
Let’s check out the top 4 Ethereum protocols, in terms of the adoption of their forks, and then also look at one wild-card protocol: Uniswap, Compound, Olympus DAO, AAVE and Solidly.
(All data sourced from DefiLlama.)
1. Uniswap
Name: Uniswap
Category: DEX
TVL: $3.78 billion
Most Popular Forks: PancakeSwap (BNB etc.), SushiSwap (ETH etc.), BiSwap (BNB), VVS Finance (Cronos), Quickswap DEX (Polygon), Camelot (Arbitrum), SpookySwap (Fantom)
Total TVL of Forks: $6.92 billion
2. Compound Finance
Name: Compound Finance
Category: Lending
TVL: $2.67 billion
Most Popular Forks: Venus (BNB), Tectonic (Cronos), Benqui Lending (Avalanche), Sonne Finance (Optimism), Mare Finance (Kava)
Total TVL of Forks: $4.56 billion
3. Olympus DAO
Name: Olympus DAO
Category: Reserve Currency
TVL: $253 million
Most Popular Forks: Wonderland (Avalanche, ETH), Klima DAO (Polygon)
Total TVL of Forks: $1.51 billion
4. AAVE
Name: AAVE
Category: Lending
TVL: $8.53 billion
Most Popular Forks: UwU Lend (ETH), Geist Finance (Fantom), Radiant (Arbitrum)
Total TVL of Forks: $830 million
The only DeFi protocol in the top 5 that was not originally on Ethereum is Solidly, which was launched by famed DeFi developer Andre Cronje on Fantom. Solidly’s TVL on Fantom experienced a meteoric rise and equally meteoric fall, but the protocol has spun off several massively popular protocols on other blockchains.
Solidly
Name: Solidly
Category: DEX
TVL: $1.5 million
Most Popular Forks: Velodrome (Optimism), Solidly V2 (ETH), Thena (BNB), Ramses Exchange (Arbitrum), Equalizer Exchange (Fantom), Solid Lizard (Arbitrum), Equilibre (Kava)
Total TVL of Forks: $863 million
What is Ethereum:
Ethereum is an open-source, distributed computing platform based on blockchain technology that can execute smart contracts - that is, the terms written in the contract will be executed transparently, automatically when the previous conditions are satisfied, and no one can interfere. At the same time, Ethereum also allows developers to build decentralized applications (DApps) and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).
Find more about Ethereum here:
Website | Twitter | Documentation | Whitepaper | Reddit | Discord | Youtube | GitHub | Ethereum Foundation Blog |
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