Report: Tether, Galaxy, and Ledn dominate CeFi crypto lending, and on-chain DeFi lending surges

Mars Finance News, on April 15, Galaxy Research, a digital asset investment company, released a report indicating that the crypto lending market scale is still far from the level before the brutal Crypto Winter of 2022-2023, but recovery signs are emerging beneath the surface, especially in the decentralized domain. The report shows that by the end of 2024, the total crypto lending market size is $36.5 billion, including loans backed by crypto-collateralized stablecoins. This is a significant drop from the $64.4 billion peak during the 2021 bull market, when crypto lending surged due to speculative fervor. The market downturn stems from the collapse of major lending institutions like Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis, with a few large participants dominating the centralized finance (CeFi) lending sector. The report states that Tether holds the largest market share, followed by Galaxy and Ledn. These three entities account for nearly 90% of the outstanding loans in the $11.2 billion CeFi loan ledger. Notably, CeFi loans have declined by 68% from their peak of $34.8 billion in early 2022. The real growth is happening on-chain. Decentralized lending protocols allow users to borrow crypto assets by locking collateral, operating 24/7 without relying on centralized entities, and such protocols are developing rapidly. Galaxy indicates that since the market bottomed out in late 2022, DeFi outstanding loans have surged 959%, rising from $1.8 billion to $19.1 billion, covering 20 applications and 12 Blocks.