The Ethereum total value locked (TVL) has been on a steady decline since the beginning of 2022. After hitting an all-time high of $111 billion back in Q4 2021, the market had turned, tanking the Ethereum TVL along with it. The TVL has been down more than 60% since then, and now, even with a momentous move from proof of work to proof of stake, the Ethereum TVL continues to tank.

Ethereum TVL Drops 4%

The news of the Ethereum Merge came with much promise for the network. For starters, it was expected that it would trigger more adoption of the cryptocurrency. Institutional adoption was expected in some cases, which led some in the community to believe that there would be an increase in the coin’s value.

However, the reverse has been the case since ETH has been on a downtrend since the Merge was completed. The Ethereum TVL has been trending down instead of up and has lost more than 4% of its value in a 24-hour period. The TVL is now sitting at $31.35 billion, the lowest it has been in the last two months. With each recovery, the TVL hits a lower high. 

The total decentralized finance (DeFi) market is also following a similar downward trend. In the last 24 hours, the market has dropped 3.11%, from $56.31 billion to $$54.56 billion. Ethereum continues to dominate the space, with Iron coming in at 2nd place with a TVL of $5.53 billion.

Institutional Investors Pull Out

Most of the uncertainty around price movements post-Merge had led to large outflows from the market. In the days leading up to the Merge, institutional investors had focused their outflows on the cryptocurrency. Reports show that $62 million in outflows were recorded for Ethereum in the span of one week.

The sell-offs were also evident from the large volumes of ETH that were being moved to centralized exchanges at the start of the week. Confidence that had been triggered leading up to the upgrade seems to have worn off in the last days leading up to it.

The digital asset had also taken a hit price-wise following the upgrade. Sell-offs had seen the price decline 4% to $1,500 in a single day. However, volume was up more than 50% in the same time period, showing interest in the cryptocurrency despite the price decline.

Featured image from Analytics Insight, chart from TradingView.com

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