I analyze the top 200 DeFi crypto projects in this article.

This isn't a study. The findings benefit crypto investors.

Let’s go!

A set of data

I analyzed data from defillama.com. In my analysis, I used the top 200 DeFis by TVL in October 2022.

Total Locked Value

The chart below shows platform-specific locked value.

14 platforms had $1B+ TVL. 65 platforms have $100M-$1B TVL. The remaining 121 platforms had TVLs below $100 million, with the lowest being $23 million.

TVLs are distributed Pareto. Top 40% of DeFis account for 80% of TVLs.

Compliant Blockchains

Ethereum's blockchain leads DeFi. 96 of the examined projects offer services on Ethereum. Behind BSC, Polygon, and Avalanche.

Five platforms used 10+ blockchains. 36 between 2-10 159 used 1 blockchain.

Use Cases for DeFi

The chart below shows platform use cases. Each platform has decentralized exchanges, liquid staking, yield farming, and lending.

These use cases are DefiLlama's main platform features.

Which use case costs the most? Chart explains. Collateralized debt, liquid staking, dexes, and lending have high TVLs.

The DeFi Industry

I compared three high-TVL platforms (Maker DAO, Balancer, AAVE). The columns show monthly TVL and token price changes. The graph shows monthly Bitcoin price changes.

Each platform's market moves similarly.

Probably because most DeFi deposits are cryptocurrencies. Since individual currencies are highly correlated with Bitcoin, it's not surprising that they move in unison.

Takeaways

This analysis shows that the most common DeFi services (decentralized exchanges, liquid staking, yield farming, and lending) also have the highest average locked value.

Some projects run on one or two blockchains, while others use 15 or 20. Our analysis shows that a project's blockchain count has no correlation with its success.

It's hard to tell if certain use cases are rising. Bitcoin's price heavily affects the entire DeFi market.

TVL seems to be a good indicator of a DeFi platform's success and quality. Higher TVL platforms are cheaper. They're a better long-term investment because they gain or lose less value than DeFis with lower TVLs.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is an amazing AI-powered chatbot. It can write poetry, fiction, and marketing ideas. I was impressed how well ChatGPT followed the interview, albeit there were a few classics “I’m afraid I can’t do that”.

Full interview below.

Me: I'm your interviewer. We'll discuss crypto. Thanks for being interviewed. What do you think about cryptocurrency?

CGPT: Cryptocurrency is an innovative technology that could transform money and financial activities. It might boost the efficiency and security of financial institutions and let consumers deal directly without banks. Cryptocurrency is still a new and untested technology with many unknowns and hurdles before it can be broadly accepted.

Me: Over 22,000 cryptocurrencies exist, and many have little use. We need how much cryptocurrencies?

CGPT: The appropriate quantity will rely on a multitude of factors, including each cryptocurrency's use cases, adoption rate, and market rivalry. Only a few cryptocurrencies will likely receive widespread adoption and be successful. Many existing cryptocurrencies may not survive since they can't deliver new or valued solutions or compete with more established cryptocurrencies.

Me: Will cryptocurrencies grow? What's next for worldwide adoption?

CGPT: It's hard to forecast the future of cryptocurrencies because the acceptance of new technologies is unpredictable. I believe cryptocurrencies will expand and acquire popularity in the future years. Regulatory ambiguity, security concerns, and scalability issues must be overcome for this to happen. Cryptocurrency companies and organizations must engage together with governments and authorities to address these obstacles and establish a growth-friendly climate. Continued innovation and improvement of the technology, including public education and awareness, will drive acceptance.

Me: Do bear markets affect bitcoin adoption?

CGPT: On the one hand, a bear market might induce uncertainty and hesitation among potential consumers. Bear markets can present opportunities for long-term investors who can acquire cryptocurrencies at cheaper prices and are more likely to hang onto their assets. A bear market can also test the tenacity and power of the underlying technology and community, which can boost long-term confidence and adoption. A bear market might have profound and nuanced effects on bitcoin adoption.

Me: What are some likely outcomes if Bitcoin reaches $100,000 by next year?

CGPT: If Bitcoin saw rapid growth, it would undoubtedly have repercussions for the cryptocurrency market and economy. Possible scenarios include increased public interest and awareness of cryptocurrency, a surge in demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and a growth in the cryptocurrency industry's market value. By shifting their focus and cash to the cryptocurrency market, investors and traders may also affect other asset classes, such as traditional equities and commodities. Governments and financial organizations may focus more on the cryptocurrency sector as they try to grasp Bitcoin's rapid rise.

Me: Will other countries accept crypto as currency?

CGPT: It's hard to say if additional governments will adopt cryptocurrencies as legal tender. Some countries have recognized the promise of bitcoin and are exploring its use, while others are cautious. Adoption of bitcoin as legal cash may vary by country, based on financial infrastructure, rules, and political atmosphere. As cryptocurrency technology evolves and becomes more accepted, more governments may embrace it as legal tender.

Me: Final question: will the recent cryptocurrency hacks affect long term adoption?

CGPT: Hacks might tarnish cryptocurrency's reputation and public faith in its security, the technology underpinning it is continually improving. Many cryptocurrency projects have developed strong security mechanisms to prevent hacks and other dangers, and these safeguards will undoubtedly improve over time. The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency makes it more resistant to attacks. Hacks and other security breaches are a concern, but they may not affect cryptocurrency adoption.

Unlimited everything for $19 monthly!?

Even with pretty words, no one wants to read an ugly email.

• Not Gen Z

• Not Millennials

• Not Gen X

• Not Boomers

I am a minimalist.

I like Mozart. I like avos. I love Apple.

When I hear seamlessly, effortlessly, or Apple's new adverb fluidly, my toes curl.

No email marketing tool gave me that feeling.

As a marketing consultant helping high-growth brands create marketing that doesn't feel like marketing, I've worked with every email marketing platform imaginable, including that naughty monkey and the expensive platform whose sales teams don't stop calling.

Most email marketing platforms are flawed.

1. They are overpriced.

2. They use dreadful templates.

3. They employ a poor visual designer.

4. The user experience there is awful.

5. Too many useless buttons are present. (Similar to the TV remote!)

I may have finally found the perfect email marketing tool. It creates strong flows. It helps me focus on storytelling.

It’s called Flodesk.

It’s effortless. It’s seamless. It’s fluid.

Here’s why it excites me.

Unlimited everything for $19 per month

Sends unlimited. Emails unlimited. Signups unlimited.

Most email platforms penalize success.

Pay for performance?

• $87 for 10k contacts

• $605 for 100K contacts

• $1,300+ for 200K contacts

In the 1990s, this made sense, but not now. It reminds me of when ISPs capped internet usage at 5 GB per month.

Flodesk made unlimited email for a low price a reality. Affordable, attractive email marketing isn't just for big companies.

Flodesk doesn't penalize you for growing your list. Price stays the same as lists grow.

Flodesk plans cost $38 per month, but I'll give you a 30-day trial for $19.

Amazingly strong flows

Foster different people's flows.

Email marketing isn't one-size-fits-all.

Different times require different emails.

People don't open emails because they're irrelevant, in my experience. A colder audience needs a nurturing sequence.

Flodesk automates your email funnels so top-funnel prospects fall in love with your brand and values before mid- and bottom-funnel email flows nudge them to take action.

I wish I could save more custom audience fields to further customize the experience.

Dynamic editor

Easy. Effortless.

Flodesk's editor is Apple-like.

You understand how it works almost instantly.

Like many Apple products, it's intentionally limited. No distractions. You can focus on emotional email writing.

Flodesk's inability to add inline HTML to emails is my biggest issue with larger projects. I wish I could upload HTML emails.

Simple sign-up procedures

Dream up joining.

I like how easy it is to create conversion-focused landing pages. Linkly lets you easily create 5 landing pages and A/B test messaging.

I like that you can use signup forms to ask people what they're interested in so they get relevant emails instead of mindless mass emails nobody opens.

I love how easy it is to embed in-line on a website.

Wonderful designer templates

Beautiful, connecting emails.

Flodesk has calm email templates. My designer's eye felt at rest when I received plain text emails with big impacts.

As a typography nerd, I love Flodesk's handpicked designer fonts. It gives emails a designer feel that is hard to replicate on other platforms without coding and custom font licenses.

Small adjustments can have a big impact

Details matter.

Flodesk remembers your brand colors. Flodesk automatically adds your logo and social handles to emails after signup.

Flodesk uses Zapier. This lets you send emails based on a user's action.

A bad live chat can trigger a series of emails to win back a customer.

Flodesk isn't for everyone.

Flodesk is great for Apple users like me.

You’ll be surprised; I sure was

Blogging and writing online as a side income has now been around for a significant amount of time. Nowadays, it is a continuously rising moneymaker for prospective writers, with several writing platforms existing online. At the top of the list are Medium, Vocal Media, Newsbreak, and the biggest one of them, Quora, with 300 million active users.

Quora, unlike Medium, is a question-and-answer format platform. On Medium you are permitted to write what you want, while on Quora, you answer questions on topics that you have expertise about. Quora, like Medium, now compensates its authors for the answers they provide in comparison to the previous, in which you had to be admitted to the partner program and were paid to ask questions.

Quora just recently went live with this new partner program, Quora Plus, and the way it works is that it is a subscription for $5 a month which provides you access to metered/monetized stories, in turn compensating the writers for part of that subscription for their answers.

I too on Quora have found a lot of success on the platform, gaining 23 Million Content Views, and 300,000 followers for my space, which is kind of the Quora equivalent of a Medium article. The way in which I was able to do this was entirely thanks to a hack that I uncovered to the Quora algorithm.

In this article, I plan on discussing how much money I received from 23 million content views on Quora, and I bet you’ll be shocked; I know I was.

A Brief Explanation of How I Got 23 Million Views and How You Can Do It Too

On Quora, everything in terms of obtaining views is about finding the proper question, which I only understood quite late into the game. I published my first response in 2019 but never actually wrote on Quora until the summer of 2020, and about a month into posting consistently I found out how to find the perfect question. Here’s how:

The Process

Go to your Home Page and start scrolling… While browsing, check for the following things…

1. Answers from people you follow or your followers.

2. Advertisements

These two things are the two things you want to ignore, you don’t want to answer those questions or look at the ads. You should now be left with a couple of recommended answers. To discover which recommended answer is the best to answer as well, look at these three important aspects.

1. Date of the answer: Was it in the past few days, preferably 2–3 days, even better, past 24 hours?

2. Views: Are they in the ten thousands or hundred thousands?

3. Upvotes: Are they in the hundreds or thousands?

Now, choose an answer to a question which you think you could answer as well that satisfies the requirements above. Once you click on it, as all answers on Quora works, it will redirect you to the page for that question, in which you will have to select once again if you should answer the question.

1. Amount of answers: How many responses are there to the given question? This tells you how much competition you have. My rule is beyond 25 answers, you shouldn’t answer, but you can change it anyway you’d like.

2. Answerers: Who did the answering for the question? If the question includes a bunch of renowned, extremely well-known people on Quora, there’s a good possibility your essay is going to get drowned out.

3. Views: Check for a constant quantity of high views on each answer for the question; this is what will guarantee that your answer gets a lot of views!

The Income Reveal! How Much I Made From 23 Million Content Views

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!

8.97 USD. Yes, not even ten dollars, not even nine. Just eight dollars and ninety-seven cents.

Possible Reasons for My Low Earnings

• Quora Plus and the answering partner program are newer than my Quora views.

• Few people use Quora+, therefore revenues are low.

• I haven't been writing much on Quora, so I'm only making money from old answers and a handful since Quora Plus launched.

• Quora + pays poorly...

Should You Try Quora and Quora For Money?

My answer depends on your needs. I never got invited to Quora's question partner program due to my late start, but other writers have made hundreds. Due to Quora's new and competitive answering partner program, you may not make much money.

If you want a fun writing community, try Quora. Quora was fun when I only made money from my space. Quora +'s paywalls and new contributors eager to make money have made the platform less fun for me.

This article is a summary to save you time. You can read my full, more detailed article, here.