The total value of cryptocurrency locked in decentralized finance’s (DeFi) oldest project has surpassed $1 billion for the first time.
MakerDAO, which is also the sector's largest protocol by a margin of $271 million locked in, crossed above $1 billion at around 18:00 UTC on Sunday, according to analytics aggregator DeFi Pulse.
The milestone, which represents how much money has been committed and not earned, demonstrates a rising interest in MakerDao and DeFi projects alike.
Collateral, locked up in the form of ether (ETH) or basic attention token (BAT), is used on Maker's protocol to undertake lending and generate DAI as debt against collateral.
Saying the news marked a "big day" for MakerDAO, David Freuden, co-author of "DAO: A Decentralized Governance Layer for the Internet of Value," told CoinDesk that innovation in DeFi will increasingly challenge the premise of centralized finance.
Maker's dominance over other projects in the sector stands at 27.1%, with the highly valued Compound protocol coming in second place at around $729 million total value locked up.
The DeFi industry has seen a significant rise in total value locked up with the sector's $1 billion milestone in all protocols having been surpassed on Feb. 7, now up by more than $3.3 billion at time of writing.