Badger
Stacks AMM Revealed, Native Bitcoin Swaps Executed With Proof-of-Transfer Protocol
According to a recent report, the first trust-less swap between the Bitcoin blockchain and Stacks protocol has been executed. The co-founder of the Stacks protocol, Muneeb Ali tweeted about the native bitcoin swap and said the progress is a big deal. Trust-less Native Bitcoin Swap Executed With an NFT Called ‘Boombox’ On July 23, a […]Index Coop to include BadgerDAO in DPI DeFi index from August
The DPI token’s price has crashed more than 64% in six weeks.
BADGER, the governance token of Ethereum-powered Bitcoin yield protocol, BadgerDAO, will be included in Index Coop’s DeFiPulse Index (DPI) token from August.
Index Coop announced the news on June 26, noting BADGER’s inclusion would be pushed back by one month due to prioritizing other upgrades.
Slight Correction
— Index Coop (@indexcoop) June 25, 2021
DeFi Pulse Index has added $BADGER to the methodology.
However, it will not be included in this month's $DPI rebalance due to the necessity to add support for a wBTC pair to our rebalancing operations.$BADGER will be added to next month's rebalance.
The DPI token is a market cap-weighted index spanning the 10-most popular Ethereum-based DeFi tokens listed on decentralized finance data aggregator, DeFiPulse.
The DPI index token rebalances on the first day of every month, adjusting allocations according to supply and price data provided by CoinGecko. Tokens will not be allocated a weighting higher than 25% during rebalancing.
As of this writing, UNI has the largest allocation in the DPI Index with roughly 26.5%, followed by AAVE with 18.4%, MKR with 13.5%, and COMP with 9.3%.
SUSHI, YFI, and SNX each have allocations of between 7% and 8.6%, while LRC, REN, KNC, and BAL are weighted between 1.2% and 2.4%. CREAM, FARM, and MTA represent less than 1% of the index each.
The index excludes wrapped tokens, synthetic assets, tokenized derived, tokens that are tied to physical assets, and tokens that represent ownership claims to other tokens.
Related: Overexposed: DeFi indexes aren’t as diversified as you think
DPI has shed nearly two-thirds of its value over roughly six weeks, tanking from a May 12 all-time high of $656.49 to last change hands for $234.
Despite suffering a heavy drawdown amid the recent crypto market crash, DPI is still up more than 300% from its November 2020 low of $57.20.
Badger DAO and RenVM announce launch of BTC-on-Ethereum ‘Badger Bridge’
The bridge gets a makeover with Badger branding, and will allow users to deposit newly-wrapped BTC into yield-bearing vaults with a single click.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols Badger DAO and RenVM have announced today the launch of “Badger Bridge,” a Bitcoin-to-Ethereum bridge that will allow BTC holders to bring their Bitcoin to Ethereum and deposit it into yield-bearing vaults purportedly with a single click.
“The Badger Bridge is the first of its kind to enable users to earn yield on their tokenized Bitcoin immediately, all while transacting within the same app. What used to be an arduous process to obtain yield on your Bitcoin is now just a few short clicks,” reads a blog post from the Badger team. “With the launch of the Bridge within the Badger App, we have taken a significant step towards realizing the Badger mission of being the one-stop shop for users to put their Bitcoin to work.”
The announcement notes that since June of 2020, RenVM’s “wBTC.cafe has been responsible for successfully minting over 25,000 BTC,” or $1.3 billion in Bitcoin to wrapped Bitcoin conversions. Users of the rebranded Ren bridge are also incentivized with upwards of $6 million in $BADGER and synthetic Bitcoin $DIGG rewards: “Badger is incentivizing the transfer of up to 100,000 BTC ($5B) with nearly $6MM in user rewards to be paid out in 25,000 $BADGER and 100 $DIGG”
“BadgerDAO is becoming the one stop shop for BTC in DeFi, and RenVM is underpinning this functionality by providing seamless interoperability for their users,” RenVM COO Michael Burgess said of the integration. “Together we're truly expanding breadth and utility for that Bitcoin, and all of DeFi."
The integration via Ren notably removes the RenVM branding for the Bitcoin-to-Ethereum bridge/wrapper, redirecting Ren’s wBTC.cafe website to BadgerDAO’s Badger Bridge page. Ren will continue to provide the infrastructure for the swaps, however.
Burgess said that the decision was driven by an effort to streamline the user experience when it comes to wrapping Bitcoin and using it as collateral in the DeFi ecosystem.
"We wanted to strengthen our relationship with the BadgerDAO team and really make it the go to place for putting your BTC to work, so it’s a natural fit. Further, it helps from a UX perspective by consolidating this functionally for users under one roof."
The use of a second protocol on the backend bears similarities to Badger’s recent agreement with Yearn to build a WBTC vault. While Yearn strategists developed the vault, access to it is hosted on Badger’s website with a small “Yearn” tag and the two protocols will split the vault’s fees. It is currently under a guarded launch with over $9 million in BTC locked earning over 125% APY per year.
Badger currently accounts for $999 million in total value locked. Both $BADGER and $REN up on the day after weeklong pullbacks, rising 9.28% to $28.91 and 7.86% to $0.8497, respectively.
Badger DAO integrates with institutional DeFi gateway Fireblocks
The Bitcoin-on-Ethereum project gets a major institutional breakthrough via Fireblocks.
In a blog post today, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Badger DAO announced a forthcoming integration with Fireblocks, a digital asset storage, management, and DeFi on-ramp for institutional investors.
“We’re excited to announce a strategic partnership between Fireblocks and BadgerDAO to enable their 200+ institutional clients to securely hold Badger assets on their platform and put their Bitcoin to work through the Badger protocol,” reads the post.
BadgerDAO founder Chris Spadafora said that the integration will help make Badger’s vaults and products more accessible to institutional investors, and not just the retail DeFi crowd:
“Our intention is to further help onboard institutional Bitcoin holders to defi. With Badger smart contracts being easily integrated by anyone/company without our permission, we anticipate many more centralized businesses servicing the institutional market to be powered by Badger.”
Fireblocks first offered institutional access to DeFi via an integration with money market Compound in March 2017. Since then it’s onboarded another dozen protocols, including mainstays like Synthetix and Aave. Clients include major cryptocurrency funds like Parafi Capital and Galaxy Digital, and in March the company raised a staggering $133 million in a funding round led by BNY Mellon.
When asked about the bump in total value locked Badger might see as a result of being added to the exclusive list of protocols, Spadafora declined to speculate but pointed to Fireblocks’ reach and clientele to give a sense of a possible ceiling.
“It’s hard to know exactly what TVL bump we will see but they have 200 institutional clients that have $400B in transfer/custody on their platform.”
The business development process bringing the DAO and the infrastructure provider together was an unusual one. Spadafora told Cointelegraph that a community member facilitated a intro between Fireblocks and the Badger DAO core team. While it’s not unusual for the community to “kickstart” BD efforts with other DeFi protocols, it’s one of the highest-profile instances of a DAO working with an institutional player to date.