Layer by Layer: Overview of Avalanche DeFi Ecosystem and BOOST Campaign

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols play an integral role in user activity on blockchains today. For example, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) now constitute a significant percentage of overall crypto trading volume and are typically the primary source of user-generated transaction fees for smart contract platforms and their node operators. In 2024, memecoin trading has grown into a dominant driver of user attention and onchain activity, further underscoring the utility of DEXs and other DeFi protocols that provide permissionless access to core financial services. 

One of the key challenges for DeFi protocols is the retention of user capital, which serves a vital role in the product experience for other users. On DEXs, deep liquidity enables tighter price spreads and lower slippage for trades. On lending protocols, more liquidity means more attractive rates for borrowers and better capital efficiency for lenders. Liquidity also has a self-perpetuating effect; lower trading fees and borrowing costs attract more volume, generating higher yields for liquidity providers (LPs), which in turn attracts more liquidity, further reducing user costs, and so on. Today’s DeFi landscape is more competitive than ever, with different ecosystems constantly vying for liquidity fractured across protocols and blockchains. In this report, we explore the state of the Avalanche DeFi ecosystem, currently bolstered by the Avalanche Foundation’s BOOST campaign intended to incentivize DeFi liquidity throughout the ecosystem.