Ethereum locked in DeFi hits all-time high, total deposits up 22,400 percent in two years

The amount of Ethereum locked in Decentralized Finance has hit an all-time-high after one of the most explosive months for deposits on record and is now up 22,400 percent since December 2017.

More than a million Ether has been deposited into DeFi products in the last four weeks, pushing the total locked up to 4.5 million ETH, according to data from DeFi Pulse.

This platform alone has claimed 500,000 ETH in deposits since mid-November and now holds nearly half of all ETH locked in DeFi.

Deposits on MakerDAO began to surge days after the launch of Multi-Collateral Dai, a major upgrade expanding the range of accepted types of collateral beyond ETH, and allowing users to generate interest on locked DAI.Record growth across DeFi.

ETH's usage in DeFi has been anticipated by many analysts as the "Killer" usage case for Ethereum and a compelling catalyst for the recovery of ETH's price.

Last quarter saw immense growth across DeFi, according to the latest quarterly report by credit-focused crypto research firm Graychain.

Q3 logged a 1,589 percent hike in the number of new addresses over Q2, as well as a 497 percent increase in the number of loans being issued.

Top 5 DeFi platforms by ETH locked as collateralMaker - 2,300,000 ETH.Synthetix - 1,100,000 ETH.Compound - 619,400 ETH.InstaDapp - 236,700 ETH.Uniswap - 180,100 ETH. Graychain attributed part of the rapid growth to "Marketing efforts" by the long-standing crypto exchange Coinbase, who announced support for Multi-Collateral Dai just days before its launch.

Ethereum's large exposure in the DeFi market may not come without its risks.

On Monday, blockchain developer Micah Zoltu warned of a security vulnerability in MakerDAO that could allow bad actors to misappropriate more than $340 million worth of ETH from Maker, Synthetix, Compound, and any DAI-integrated system.