Traders Shifting Interest From Defi To Memecoin as Monthly DeFi Protocol Fees Dropped By 24%

August hit decentralized finance (DeFi) hard, with fees dropping by 24.4% from July, the largest fall since February. DeFi protocols, not including base layers, collected $288.38 million in fees for the month. Lido topped the list with $76.18 million, followed by Uniswap, Jito, and PancakeSwap. According to market researcher Nick Ruck, the drop in fees is due to lower returns from DeFi protocols. As APRs from liquid restaking tokens have fallen, more traders are moving their money into memecoins, which is hurting the DeFi market.