eToro: DeFi ‘surges’ onto the scene in Romania

• Cardano (ADA) is Romanian investors’ most held cryptoasset in Q4 with 1360% increase year on year in opened positions
• Smaller coins like TRON, IOTA or Stellar sees increase in trading activity as investors continue to seek diversification
• MANA gains in popularity, as the DeFi boom arrived globally

According to new data from multi-asset investment platform eToro, Cardano continues to maintain its position as the most popular cryptoasset in Q4 2021 on eToro platform globally, while Decentraland (MANA) enters the top 10 most held cryptoassets, proving the increasing  interest in the metaverse.

As investors search to diversify their exposure, smaller cryptoassets like Tron (729% increase) or IOTA (428%) continued to perform very well, seeing great increase in trading year on year.

Simon Peters (photo), crypto market analyst at eToro commented: “As retail sentiment continues to boom, many investors are starting to re-adjust their focus solely from bitcoin. Investors may feel that altcoins, because they tend to be earlier in the development or adoption cycle versus bitcoin or have a potentially more innovative use case, present a better investment opportunity than investing solely into bitcoin at this moment in time.”

Romanian investors follow the global trend. Cardano remained retail investors’ number one pick in Q3 and Q4, with Bitcoin and XRP completing the top three line up for most held cryptoassets during that period. Best performers were Cardano with a 1360% increase year on year, followed by TRON with 888% increase and IOTA with 682% increase.

Nevertheless, the big movers are Decentraland (MANA) and Shiba both globally and among Romanian investors. The arrival of DeFI on the bigger scene, prompted increased demand from investors for MANA, pushing it into the top. MANA performed best with 385% increase quarter on quarter (572% in Romania), while Shiba rose 271% (418% in Romania)

Peters added: “With decentralised projects keen to give token holders a say, investors now have more say than ever in areas such as governance and rewards. With trends such as Web 3.0 and the metaverse only set to grow in 2022, we expect DeFi will go from strength to strength as it becomes more embedded in the mainstream.”

Source: eToro

Source: eToro

Notes :

*The data in the table represents the top 10 most held cryptoassets globally and in Romania on the eToro platform at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021; it does not include positions held as CFDs. Data accurate as of 31.12.2021.

**eToro is a social investment network that empowers people to grow their knowledge and wealth as part of a global community of successful investors. eToro was founded in 2007 with the vision of opening up the global markets so that everyone can trade and invest in a simple and transparent way. Today, eToro is a global network of more than 25 million registered users who share their investment strategies; and anyone can follow the approaches of those who have been the most successful. Due to its simplicity users can easily buy, hold and sell assets, monitor their portfolio in real time, and transact whenever they want.

***Cryptoasset investing is unregulated in some EU countries and the UK. No consumer protection. Your capital is at risk.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. Trading history presented is less than 5 complete years and may not suffice as a basis for investment decision.

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