Layer by Layer Issue 5: Avalanche, Solana, Binance Smart Chain, Cosmos, and Terra

As the cryptocurrency market continues to recover from its lows in July this year, Layer 1 ecosystems have continued to grow as both new and existing users flow onto different chains. Total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum DeFi protocols last reached a peak in May at $91.4B and is on the verge of again hitting this previous all-time high (ATH) as of this writing, now up to $85.4B from a low of $49.8B.

Meanwhile, DeFi TVL has already surged past prior ATHs in several other L1 ecosystems over the past month, including Terra, Solana, Avalanche, and Fantom. As we have done frequently in the past, we can look at the value locked in cross-chain bridges to get a sense of the amount of capital flowing between chains, much of it from Ethereum to other L1s.