As Bitcoin Remains Muted, Traders Find Time To Eat Sushi

Bitcoin is struggling to find momentum even as Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk expressed explicit support for the world's apex cryptocurrency on Monday.

What Happened: Bitcoin traded mostly unchanged over 24 hours at $33,670 at press time late Monday, retreating from the above $38,000 levels it was trading at last week after Musk initially updated his Twitter bio to “#Bitcoin.” 

The cryptocurrency’s gains are outshined by a decentralized finance, or DeFi, cryptocurrency.

See also: How to Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

SushiSwap (SUSHI) traded about 32% higher at $13.43 at press time. The cryptocurrency has surged about 61.4% against the U.S. dollar over the past seven days and 281% over 30 days, as per data from Messari.

It outshines Bitcoin, up 1025.9% against the apex cryptocurrency over a period of 90 days.

Among other Defi coins, Uniswap (UNI) has surged 13.2% to $19.74 over 24 hours.

Aave (AAVE), another DeFi coin that has added 211.7% gains over 30 days, is down 2.5% to $290.49 at press time.

Ethereum (ETH) cryptocurrency, which supports the primary blockchain platform associated with DeFi projects, is up 5% at $1,387.30.

Why It Matters: DeFi cryptocurrencies have been seeing momentum over the past month as total value locked (TLV) in such projects increases. According to DeFi pulse, the TLV for overall DeFi projects has increased to $27.68 billion as of press time.

SushiSwap, the DeFi project supported by the SUSHI cryptocurrency, has a TLV of $2.34 billion.

SushiSwap's share of the decentralized-exchange market is also increasing rapidly, as per Dune Analytics data. The SushiSwap trading volume made up for 23.3% of the DEX market at press time. UniSwap has a DEX trading volume market share of 48.9%.