<p>The horse race in the burgeoning decentralized finance market continues with Uniswap surpassing MakerDao for the number-one spot in total value locked (TVL) — though the exact conditions by which this occurred point to a temporary boost.</p> <p>Uniswap's TVL, which represents the total amount of crypto locked into a given DeFi lending or exchange protocol, now stands at $1.6 billion, according to DeFi Pulse. MarkerDAO's, meanwhile, stands at $1.5 billion. </p> <div id="attachment_76751"class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2722px;"><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/76725/uniswap-maker-tlv-sushiswap/screen-shot-2020-09-02-at-12-02-43-pm" rel="attachment wp-att-76751"><img class="has-caption wp-image-76751 size-full" src="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2020/09/Screen-Shot-2020-09-02-at-12.02.43-PM.png" alt="" width="2712" height="1260" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Source: DeFi Pulse, The Block Research</p></div> <p>Indeed, Maker only just surpassed lending protocol Aave after it surpassed Marker on <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/75935/defi-aave-number-one-tvl-makerdao">August 25,</a> representing the speed at which market participants are moving between these different protocols as the search for yield intensifies. </p> <p>Uniswap's growth has been fueled by the launch of a forked protocol SushiSwap, with $1.2 billion in deposits coming from SushiSwap. In order to engage with the SushiSwap protocol, users must first deposit tokens supported by the protocol onto Uniswap where they will get so-called LP tokens they can use on SushiSwap. The reasoning for this design is to effectively draw liquidity from Uniswap. </p> <p>But the planned trajectory of SushiSwap means that Uniswap's sky-high TLV is almost assured to be temporary. As outlined in this August 27 <a href="https://medium.com/sushiswap/the-sushiswap-project-c4049ea9941e" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blog post</a>, the liquidity tokens currently staking on Uniswap will migrate to dedicated SushiSwap contracts — that is, onto a standalone decentralized exchange.</p> <p>Simply put, it's an end to what is effectively a form of protocol <a href="https://twitter.com/martinkrung/status/1298363320270032897" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">vampirism</a> and, as a result, the TLV will drop accordingly. </p> <div id="attachment_76750"class="wp-caption alignnone" style="max-width: 2712px;"><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/76725/uniswap-maker-tlv-sushiswap/screen-shot-2020-09-02-at-12-03-21-pm" rel="attachment wp-att-76750"><img class="has-caption wp-image-76750 size-full" src="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2020/09/Screen-Shot-2020-09-02-at-12.03.21-PM.png" alt="" width="2702" height="1248" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Source: DeFi Pulse, The Block Research</p></div> <p>Broadly speaking, the<a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/55212/value-locked-into-defi-protocols-has-crossed-1-billion"> yield farming</a> craze in recent weeks has shot up the TVL of almost all DeFi protocols, to stand at over $9.11 billion currently.</p> <p>In February, that amount was only <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/55212/value-locked-into-defi-protocols-has-crossed-1-billion">$1 billion</a>. As The Block Research previously <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/55212/value-locked-into-defi-protocols-has-crossed-1-billion">reported</a>, TVL is not an ideal metric to look at DeFi activity.<a href="https://explore.duneanalytics.com/public/dashboards/NQ9Co0On9h9cqpAxxDW44u7ZycFE5jGC2u1xJb3B"> The Block's Open Finance Index</a>, which takes into consideration vertical-specific parameters such as decentralized exchange volumes, provides a better picture.</p>