Total crypto market cap gains $400B as DeFi tokens lead the recovery

Bitcoin’s move back to $38,000 triggered strong relief rallies in DeFi tokens and a handful of altcoins.

Altcoins and DeFi sprang back to life on May 24 after a handful of decentralized finance tokens saw their prices increase by more than 60% as Bitcoin bulls pushed BTC price to the $38,000 level. 

Some analysts are describing the move as a ‘dead cat bounce‘ but despite those concerns, the bounce in prices seen across the market is likely a welcome sight for cryptocurrency investors who experienced last week’s historical capitulation event that saw nearly $1.3 trillion in value pulled from the total cryptocurrency market cap.

The biggest bounce-back performance among the top 200 coins was seen in the Ethereum (ETH) layer-two solution Polygon (MATIC), which has emerged as the leading L2 solution in the market in recent weeks.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens have also been at the front of the comeback, with Maker (MKR) surging 91% overnight to trade above $4,000 while Yearn.finance (YFI) has rallied by 72% and now trades near the $48,000 level.

Other notable DeFi price gainers include Uniswap (UNI) and Aave (AAVE), which saw their token values increase by more than 50%, and a 62% price gain for the Binance Smart Chain-based BakeryToken (BAKE) which now trades above $3.30.

Monday’s turnaround has added nearly $400 billion in value to the total cryptocurrency market capitalization which now stands at $1.615 trillion with a Bitcoin dominance rate currently of 44%.

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