Mode Network is just 1% of what it once was.
Its total value locked, or TVL — a metric for how much investor funds are in a blockchain or DeFi protocol — has fallen to just under $4 million, a 99% from its May 2024 peak, according to onchain data from DefiLlama.
The onchain data contradict Mode’s own website, which still touts that it has more than $500 million in TVL and hundreds of thousands of users, which would make it a DeFi mammoth.
Mode Network didn’t return several requests for comment.
The network’s native token, Mode, has also declined massively, down more than 98% from its all-time high price from a year ago, according to DefiLlama.
Mercenary capital
Mode Network is an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain that aims to use artificial intelligence for DeFi applications.
Mode’s TVL pumped last year amid its turbo-points airdrop campaign after securing a $5.3 million grant from Optimism, an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain, in January 2024. At its May 2024 peak, it boasted a $582 million TVL.
That period coincided with a hyped buzz for DeFi projects that offered similar rewards in exchange for liquidity provision.
But like other incentive-style growth campaigns in crypto, the liquidity bump that came Mode’s rewards programme did not last long.
It’s a familiar pattern.
DeFi projects juiced on token emissions alone enjoy sudden user volume and TVL spikes. But the growth is usually ephemeral, and they eventually flame out when the drip stops and they’re unable to pivot to another growth strategy.
Berachain, a once-promising layer 1 blockchain, has lost more than $3 billion in investor funds since March amid a massive decline in yield-based incentives that drove user capital to other blockchains.
Even with more than 50 DeFi projects on the blockchain, Mode is now a user engagement desert with hardly any onchain revenue being generated.
