The Ethereum blockchain stumbled twice over this week, failing to succeed in finality for greater than an hour on the second incident. Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) tooling protocol, Aragon, received caught up in a dispute over treasury funds. Lastly, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal hints at a possible Polygon zkEVM airdrop, though DeFi customers stay skeptical.
An eventful week! Let’s see what went down this previous week in DeFi.
Overview: Markets Grind Decrease, Alts Bleed
Total value locked (TVL) throughout all chains continued to grind downwards as crypto costs fell throughout the board. Notable rises in TVL included Bitcoin Layer-2, Stacks, which noticed a spike because of the BRC-20 narrative, in addition to Kava and Polygon zkEVM, which noticed will increase within the low teenagers. That is doubtless resulting from Kava’s upcoming improve and rumors of a possible Polygon zkEVM airdrop.
Supply: DeFiLlama
Welcome to Alpha Central
José Maria Macedo shares the Delphi Labs’ thesis on Cosmos and why they’re bullish on the ecosystem. These elements embody native USDC offered by Noble, dYdX’s upcoming v4 launch and Sei Network’s upcoming launch, amongst others.
Crypto Shiro dives into BRC-20s, that are tokens constructed on the brand new BRC-20 token standard, and in addition the most recent development within the memecoin market, this time on the Bitcoin community.
Bert Miller of Flashbots mentioned how infamous sandwich attacker, jaredfromsubway.eth, has been making a lot cash on memecoins and how one can defend your self from falling sufferer to his assaults.
Ethereum: Beacon Chain Stumbles
The Ethereum Beacon Chain went down for twice over the week, failing to succeed in finality for 25 minutes and over an hour in separate incidents. The chain has since been restored to full operate, with consensus shoppers Teku and Prysm releasing fixes to keep away from comparable conditions sooner or later.
DAI stablecoin issuer, MakerDAO, launches the Spark Lend protocol, permitting the borrowing and lending of ETH, DAI and their staked variants, stETH and sDAI. The service just isn’t accessible within the USA.
In the identical week, MakerDAO introduced the subsequent large replace for the protocol, termed as “Endgame”. The replace, which is able to embody 5 phases, will revamp and improve the DAI and MKR tokens in addition to incorporate AI instruments to enhance on the effectivity of the protocol.
Prime Protocol goes stay on Ethereum, Avalanche, Arbitrum and Moonbeam, permitting customers to borrow freely in opposition to their whole cross-chain portfolio. The Early Adopter program is at present stay permitting customers to earn factors for participation.
DAO tooling protocol, Aragon, repurposed Aragon DAO treasury in response to a perceived 51% attack by a bunch often called the Threat Free Worth (RFV) Raiders. They launched an updated statement to make clear their actions, stating that DAO funds should not managed by the Aragon Affiliation however remaining treasury funds will likely be disbursed by way of a grants program.
Instadapp’s account abstraction supported pockets, Avocado, proclaims Avocado Multisig, bringing multi-signature options to the pockets. The function will likely be rolled out quickly to all ten supported chains.
Bridging protocol Multichain launches its first decentralized application (DApp) on their zkRouter know-how, a cross-chain bridge between Ethereum and Fantom, on testnet. ZkRouter is a trustless and personal asset switch mechanism supported by zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs).
Prime ETH liquid staking derivative (LSD) protocol, Lido Finance, places their Lido V2 improve to a vote, with the improve anticipated to go stay on Could 15, if the vote passes. Lido V2 will incorporate the much-awaited withdrawal function for ETH stakers.
DeFiLlama releases LlamaNodes, defending customers from maximal extractable value (MEV) assaults and, on the identical time, sharing MEV earnings with customers. LlamaNodes is inbuilt collaboration with MEV block builder, NeoConstruction.
Interoperability layer, DeBridge, launches their DLN API, enabling deep liquidity throughout chains whereas promising near-instant transfers with minimal charges.
ETH LSD-focused borrowing protocol, Gravita Protocol, shares extra about their distinctive promoting factors: together with assist for a number of ETH LSDs and aggressive borrow charges on each short-term and long-term borrowing.
Cross-chain MEV-protected swap protocol, Cashmere, deploys their testnet v1.1, implementing optimizations to enhance transaction speeds and consumer expertise. In the identical week, Cashmere additionally built-in the Linea blockchain, taking their complete supported chains to 11.
Blockchain analysis and growth agency, GFX Labs, attracts up a proposal to activate the Uniswap price swap, which might channel a portion of charges generated from pools to the Uniswap treasury. Some customers have expressed doubts nonetheless, citing shedding competitiveness to Uniswap V3 forks, regulatory dangers and losing a worth catalyst within the present bearish situations.
Hourglass goes stay, offering a liquid staking layer for Frax liquidity pool positions. At present, frxETH-ETH liquidity swimming pools are supported for 4 totally different durations.
L2s: DeusDAO Exploiter Returns Majority of Funds
The exploiter of DEI stablecoin issuer, DeusDAO, returns 2023 ETH to the protocol. Mixed with funds that have been efficiently intercepted by white hat hackers, the full reclaimed funds totals nearly $6 million, recouping many of the losses.
Unique peg hedging protocol, Y2K Finance unveils their V2, which is able to introduce computerized rollovers, 24/7 deposit queues, elevated income streams for Y2K token lockers and elevated variety of supported property.
Directional liquidity protocol, PoolShark, introduces Cowl Swimming pools, an revolutionary answer permitting stop-losses in liquidity pool positions to guard the capital of liquidity suppliers. The function will likely be launching in testnet first earlier than hitting mainnet.
Solidly fork, Ramses Exchange, introduces Ramses Concentrated Liquidity to the platform, combining the Solidly bribes system and concentrated liquidity to attain a extra environment friendly mannequin. The function is anticipated to go stay within the week of Could 24.
Arbitrum-based option vault protocol, Dopex, launches 0DTE (days-to-expiry) ARB possibility vaults, offering short-term buying and selling alternatives to choices merchants on the platform.
Synthetix will enhance perpetuals buying and selling rewards to 300K OP tokens, up from 200K OP tokens final week. The elevated rewards will final for the subsequent 16 weeks and front-ends constructed on Synthetix corresponding to Kwenta and Polynomial Finance will even be distributed extra rewards.
DeFi insurance coverage protocol, Cozy Finance, unveils Cozy V2, permitting customers to get safety in opposition to smart contract exploits, depegs and extra. Customers may earn yield from backing these insurance coverage contracts, taking the other facet of the contract.
Leveraged yield-farming and lending protocol, Additional Finance, is now stay on Optimism. The crew has additionally acknowledged that the EXTRA token will likely be launched within the coming weeks and an airdrop has been deliberate.
Money market protocol, zkLend, deploys on StarkNet, facilitating the borrowing and lending of WBTC, ETH, USDC, USDT and DAI.
Avalanche: GoGoPool Helps Subnet Deployment
Permissionless staking protocol, GoGoPool launches on Avalanche, facilitating the speedy deployment of subnets and at half the upfront price.
Cosmos: Neutron is Stay
Cosmos-based chain Neutron launches, making it the primary stay chain to be secured by the Cosmos Hub by way of Replicated Safety. The Neutron airdrop will happen within the third week from their launch to kickstart governance and decentralization efforts.
Perpetuals buying and selling protocol, Levana Protocol, launches on testnet on finance-focused Cosmos chain, Sei Community, saying a set of missions for Sei testnet customers in collaboration with Blocked Protocol.
Modular blockchain community, Dymension, hints at their upcoming incentivized testnet.
One other Week, One other Airdrop
Decentralized leveraged buying and selling protocol, Pika Protocol, proclaims PIKA token sale, the place chosen whitelisted customers will be capable to take part. PIKA’s token distribution additionally contains 11% for retrospective and future airdrops, though particulars haven’t been launched but.
Polygon founder hints at the potential of a “large airdrop” for Polygon zkEVM in response to discussions on the chain’s low TVL because of Polygon already having a circulating token, MATIC.
Mysten Labs proclaims their Lively Contributors & Early Supporters (ACES) program, the place customers who have been members within the Sui’s Discord server earlier than Could 3 will likely be allowed to register as considered one of their ACES. Customers must register earlier than Could 17, 11 am PDT to qualify and can obtain an unique NFT as a part of this system.
Blockchain recreation and infrastructure layer, Fusionist, confirms rumors of an airdrop of their token, ACE, to reward early supporters and testers.
The market grinds decrease as market members take a breather from the prior weeks of euphoric memecoin buying and selling. Keep tuned for subsequent week’s version, and maintain supporting your favourite initiatives, degens!
