$25b Crypto Lending Market Now Led By ‘transparent’ Players: Galaxy

CeFi lending markets reached $25 billion in Q3, its highest level in over three years, and the market looked very different then, says Galaxy’s Alex Thorn.

The crypto lending market has become more transparent than ever — led by the likes of Tether, Nexo and Galaxy — and has just hit an aggregate loan book of nearly $25 billion outstanding in the third quarter.

The size of the crypto lending market has increased by more than 200% since the beginning of 2024, according to Galaxy Research. Its latest quarter puts it at its highest since its peak in Q1 2022.

However, it has yet to return to its peak of $37 billion then.

The main difference between then and now is the number of new centralized finance lending platforms and much more transparency, said Galaxy’s head of research, Alex Thorn.

Thorn said on Sunday he was proud of the chart and the transparency of its contributors, adding that it is a “big change from prior market cycles.”

The CeFi lending landscape was dominated by a handful of platforms during the previous market cycle peak.

These included Genesis, BlockFi, Celsius and Voyager, all of which were significantly impacted by their exposure to the exchange FTX, which collapsed in November 2022.

Celsius had already filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, before the demise of FTX, primarily due to exposure to Three Arrows Capital.

Related: Stablecoin giant Tether backs Ledn, targets global crypto lending

Source: CoinTelegraph