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Finance Redefined: Axelar becomes a unicorn, new ETH addresses hit 1.5M per month, Feb. 11–18

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Axelar becomes a unicorn, new ETH addresses hit 1.5M per month, Feb. 11–18
Avalanche

Blockchain platform Axelar surpasses $1-billion valuation, Ethereum’s on-chain metrics reveal compelling insights, Umbria innovates on Avalanche — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

This week has been full of funding raises, innovations, service deployments, and a bit of volatile technical price action — for a change.

Axelar Network attains $1B valuation following secondary raise

The Axelar Network announced the completion of a $35-million Series B funding round this week, elevating its total market valuation to over $1 billion and establishing its status as a unicorn corporation.

Major participants of the round include Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital and North Island Ventures, among others. The network has implemented partnership integrations with a suite of validators, as well as leading blockchain platforms such as Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon and Polkadot.

Cointelegraph spoke exclusively to Axelar CEO and co-founder Sergey Gorbunov for an exclusive insight into the specific strategies for capital deployment across the business in preparation for its upcoming mainnet release.

He noted that the “primary focus is to provide universal interoperability with minimal risk” and that “the funds will be used to continue building the core network functionalities and scaling integrations with more blockchains and applications.”

“Axelar developers are also working to make the network easy to use so that developers on any blockchain can reach the deepest liquidity and broadest user base. With this in mind, we are dedicating resources to improving our APIs, SDKs and associated documentation.”

18.36M Ethereum addresses registered across 2021

New quantitative data released by blockchain intelligence firm IntoTheBlock this week revealed stark insights into the growth of network activity on Ethereum, with 18.36 million new addresses being created in 2021, equivalent to 1.53 million per month.

Despite numeral figures reaching new-highs for primary addresses, the proportion of active addresses in relation to the overall figure decreased throughout the year, posting at 1.05% on Jan. 1, peaking at 1.66% on April 25, and subsequently falling to 0.86% by Feb. 15.

Despite this, Ethereum remains the dominant force in the smart contract market, topping the podium at a distance to its nearest competitor with $123.15 billion in total value locked, compared to Terra (LUNA) and the newly titled BNB Chain with $15.5 billion and $12.6 billion, respectively.

Avalanche ecosystem fosters cross-chain bridge innovation

The technical performance of layer-1 network Avalanche’s native asset, AVAX, over the last 12 months has been a major proponent for cultivating an innovative ecosystem of new products and services designed to enhance or entirely replace existing infrastructure elements.

Implementing this into practice, the Umbria Network has integrated a cross-chain bridge into the network titled Narni and reported capabilities to reduce transaction fees by up to 90% compared to the existing Avalanche bridge.

Alongside this, Umbria has circulated claims suggesting that the service can lower the barrier of entry for retail market newcomers through its utilization of single-sized liquidity pools and lesser complex mathematical algorithms.

Cointelegraph spoke exclusively to Barney Chambers, co-founder and co-lead developer of Umbria, about the specific reasoning behind choosing Avalanche as a home for the project and whether the ambition for economic accessibility drove the decision.

“Umbria is acting as the glue between all of the layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains, enabling users to move their assets in a cheap and timely manner. At Umbria, we envision that, in the future, users will not even need to know what blockchain they are using.”

Token performances

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value slightly decreased by 6.2% across the week to a figure of $116.78 billion.

Convex Finance (CVX) was the solitary riser this week with 8.75% following a market-wide decrease in the latter half of the week.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: Wonderland reveal and Wormhole hacked, Jan. 28–Feb. 4

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Wonderland reveal and Wormhole hacked, Jan. 28–Feb. 4
Coin Telegraph

Wonderland endured a turbulent week of revelations and risks closure, Wormhole was hacked for the second-highest ever DeFi sum, and the Ethereum hash rate hits a new high — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

It’s been a tumultuous week of doxxing, hacks, bailouts and new highs in the decentralized finance space. Read on to recap the most impactful stories of the last seven days. 

This article represents a conspectus of the full email newsletter. For the full edition, sign up via the box below.

Wonderland lost in no mans amid Sifu saga

Following the revelatory identification of previously anonymous QuadrigaCX co-founder Michael Patryn as the founder of DeFi protocol Wonderland — known on social media as @0xSifu — a subsequent community vote decided upon the permanent closure of Wonderland for outstanding security concerns.

The saga commenced when DeFi investigator Zachxbt doxxed Patryn to be Sifu, a figure with a notorious reputation within the digital asset space for alleged fraudulent and illicit activity, most notably regarding the $145-million losses incurred at Canadian-based cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX in December 2018.

Having been made aware of Sifu’s real identity one month prior to this week’s announcement, Daniele Sestagalli, co-founder of Wonderland and stablecoin protocol Abracadabra, posed a crucial question to the community members: “Do we wind down or continue to fight for the aspect of an investment DAO being a revolutionary new organization?” Sestagalli stated his personal preference to be the latter, to fight.

From a technical perspective on Jan. 15, Wonderland recorded a near all-time high of $776.64 million in total value locked, or TVL. However, as a consequence of the exposure, the TVL figure dropped substantially to $78.57 million on Jan. 25, marking an 89.9% demise. At the time of writing, the figure has somewhat recovered to $408.59 million.

In true Web3 style, the decision to “Wind down Wonderland and give the treasury back to its holders” was put to a community snapshot vote. The two-day governance participation resulted in a split decision, an inconclusive majority with 116,000 TIME tokens allocated to the decision of no, and 95,000 to yes.

In response to this, co-founder Sestagalli assessed that “the duty of the team is to enact the will of the token holders. As the vote is so close to 50/50 there is only one path forward, it is to reimburse/unwind,” confirming this in a follow-up tweet.

Discussions within the community are vehemently ongoing in a bid to find an accommodating solution to the Wonderland saga for all involved. Proposals currently at the forefront are a merger with Abracadabra or a transition to a DAO structure with greater transparency.

Wormhole exploited for $321M, parent bails it out

DeFi bridging protocol Wormhole suffered a significant security exploit on its network this week to the tune of 120,000 Wrapped Ether (wETH) tokens, equivalent to $321 million at the time of impact — the second-largest hack in the history of decentralized finance behind Poly Network’s seismic $610-million breach in August 2021.

Wormhole is known within the industry for its cross-chain token bridge service in which users can transfer crypto assets between chains such as Ethereum, Solana and Polygon, among others, without interacting with centralized exchanges.

After analyzing blockchain data, it was uncovered that the attacker minted 120,000 wETH on Solana and then proceeded to redeem 93,750 wETH for Ether (ETH) worth $254 million. The remaining wETH was swapped for Solana (SOL) and USD Coin (USDC) on Solana.

Following on from this, the hacker utilized a portion of the funds on an asset-buying spree that included SportX (SX), Meta Capital (MCAP), Finally Usable Crypto Karma (FUCK) as well as the highly anticipated soon-to-be-released asset, Bored Ape Yacht Club Token (APE).

In response, the Wormhole team pledged to the community that the token supply, in addition to the one-to-one backed asset total, would be fully reinstated and is offering a generous whitehat bug bounty reward to the malicious entity for full recompensation of the funds.

The hack risked serious cascading ramifications for protocols and platforms within the Solana ecosystem that rely on the wETH supply for collateral. If their assets were not backed with wETH, investors would have been unable to utilize the service, perhaps lose confidence, and, therefore, short the asset. Solana fell around 13% in the fallout of the news.

In a fortuitous turn of events, Wormhole’s parent company, Jump Crypto, stepped in to bailout the platform and restore all lost funds, an action confirmed by Wormhole in a tweet.

Despite a resolution for the platform’s affected users, concerns still remain as to the whereabouts of the $321 million in lost funds, in addition to the intentions of the hacker within the marketplace.

Ethereum hash rate hits new ATH in PoS transition

Quantitative insights from popular data aggregation site Glassnode this week revealed that the hash rate for Ethereum reached a new all-time high of 1.11 petahash per second (PH/s) on Jan. 28, surpassing the previous figure of 1.08 PH/s established just 15 days prior.

Fluctuations in the hash rate of proof-of-work (PoW) networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are prime indications of additional nodes joining the network, scenarios that ultimately result in higher security and more expansive decentralization of the network.

In December 2021, participants of the Ethereum network implemented the Arrow Glacier upgrade, an initiative designed to delay the activation of a coding mechanism that is set to halt production of mining activities on the network, otherwise known as the “difficulty bomb.”

It is widely expected that Ethereum’s transition to PoS will occur during the latter half of 2022, with Arrow Glacier being the final upgrade, a market sentiment recognized by one of the core developers facilitating the upgrade, Tim Beiko, during a recent commentary.

Token performances

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked slightly increased by 8.87% across the week to a figure of $109.92 billion, attempting to recover from the market downturn in recent weeks.

Tezos (XTZ) reported the highest score in the top 100 following its partnership with Manchester United at 31.60%. Maker (MKR) came in second with a respectable 25.54% gain, while Convex Finance (CVX) recorded a 19.46% increase. Curve DAO Token (CRV) and Oasis Network (ROSE) gained 15.29% and 11.79%, respectively.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: Secret’s $400M fund, and 1inch expanding, Jan. 14–21

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Secret’s 0M fund, and 1inch expanding, Jan. 14–21
Coin Telegraph

Secret Network launched a $400 million DeFi fund and 1inch integrated Avalanche and Gnosis protocols — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

Following a bearish decline for many of the leading decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, it is within the fundamental news where the optimism for growth and prosperity lies. Read on to hear about the most impactful DeFi stories of the last seven days.

What you’re reading is the shorter, snappier version of the newsletter. For the full roundup of DeFi developments across the week delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe below.

Secret Network offers $400M community fund scheme

Secret Network, a privacy-oriented layer-one blockchain, announced the launch of a $400 million funding pot this week in a bid to expand their application and network infrastructure, and tooling mechanisms in addition to accelerating adoption for their native token, SCRT.

Comprising a $225 million ecosystem fund and a $175 million accelerator fund, the capital raise was supported by a number of existing partner organizations, including BlockTower Capital, Arrington Capital and Fenbushi Capital.

The $400 million fund is the first of an expected series of deployments within the Shockwave Initiative, a global growth strategy, announced by the company on Jan. 12. The initiative is focused on the expansion of its ecosystem, including fostering and incubating the roll-out of decentralized privacy applications on its platform, as well as expanding the utility and adoption of the SCRT token, to overall become a fully comprehensive privacy hub for Web3.

Secret Foundation founder Tor Bair told Cointelegraph that the capital will be used to “scale privacy-first, decentralized applications to global adoption by millions of users," as well as emphasizing the importance of Web3 technology, stating that “privacy technologies are essential to ensure that Web3 will be empowering and open, rather than an extension of the failures of Web 2.0.”

Also in the news recently was Secret Network’s issuance of Pulp Fiction-themed nonfungible tokens in partnership with iconic filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. The collection is set to debut seven previously-unseen handwritten chapters of Tarantino’s screenplay of the 1994 classic, with more details on the first sale expected to be made public on Jan. 24.

Despite the fanfare around the launch of these tokens by fans and the wider film community, production company Miramax filed a lawsuit on Nov. 17 accusing director Quentin Tarantino of copyright infringement in pursuing this NFT venture, citing that it interferes with their own visions of future NFT launches and is simply a cash-grab that could potentially devalue the film’s reputable public image. The case remains ongoing at the time of writing.

Related: 'Privacy-preserving computing is the future,' says Secret Network's Guy Zyskind after Quentin Tarantino NFT drop

1inch Network expands to Avalanche and Gnosis Chain

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch Network announced its intention to roll out the 1inch Aggregation Protocol and 1inch Limit Order Protocol this week on Avalanche and Gnosis Chain, respectively, and as such, expand their foothold within the DeFi sector.

An initial list of protocols will become immediately available via 1inch on cross-chain network Avalanche such as 1inch Limit Order Protocol v2, Aave, SushiSwap, Trader Joe and KyberSwap, among others.

Similarly, those protocols immediately accessible on Gnosis Chain, formerly known as xDai Chain, via 1inch, include 1inch Limit Order Protocol v2, Curve v1, and SushiSwap.

“1inch’s main goal is to offer users the best deals across the blockchain space,” stated Sergej Kunz, 1inch Network co-founder, continuing to remark that the expansion to Avalanche and Gnosis Chain "will offer 1inch users more options for cheap and fast transactions.”

According to analytical data from DeFi Llama, the Avalanche ecosystem currently holds $9.77 billion in total value locked (TVL), the majority of which is dominated by Aave, Benqi and Trader Joe with $2.48 billion, $1.35 billion, and $1.21 billion.

On the other hand, Gnosis Chain is currently recording a TVL of $206.8 million, largely accumulated in the last three months from projects including Curve, SuperFluid and RealT, which have amassed $62.9 million, $54 million and $31.3 million, respectively.

Token performances 

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked slightly decreased by 8.29% across the week to a figure of $114.63 billion, continuing along with the wider market decline.

Following an overwhelming bearish 24 hours for DeFi’s leading tokens, all price results are negative this week and will be ranked by market capitalization.

Terra (LUNA) registered minus 8.15%. Avalanche (AVAX) fell sharply by 18.73%, while Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) pulled back 9.3%. Stablecoin Dai (DAI) suffered a similar fate down by 0.06%, while Chainlink performed the worst out of the top five, taking a 21.8% hit.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thank you for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: Vitalik bearish on cross-chain, dYdX decentralizing, Jan. 7–14

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Vitalik bearish on cross-chain, dYdX decentralizing, Jan. 7–14
Coin Telegraph

Vitalik Buterin outlined his views on a cross-chain blockchain world, dYdX announced plans for full decentralization in 2022, and Near Protocol raised $150 for Web3 tech — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

Despite the market printing bearish numbers for a second consecutive week, the industry is not short of bullish fundamental news. Read on to hear about the most impactful DeFi stories of the last seven days.

What you’re about to read is a shorter, more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below.

Vitalik is optimistic for multichain, not cross-chain, Web3 world

Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, shared a candid assessment of the security limitations in implementing fully functional cross-chain bridges within the blockchain industry.

Buterin argued that storing assets on their native chain provides a higher level of security against 51% attacks than cross-chain activities, stating, “It’s always safer to hold Ethereum-native assets on Ethereum or Solana-native assets on Solana than it is to hold Ethereum-native assets on Solana or Solana-native assets on Ethereum.”

Sharing a series of examples to prove his thesis, Buterin noted that if a malicious entity attempted to launch a 51% attack on Ethereum, a transaction undertaken by an innocent party could be censored and/or reverted, but not blocked and not lost.

In the most extreme cases, users’ funds would remain safe even if 99% of the protocol was compromised because nodes would overwhelmingly support the remaining 1% rule-following blocks and, therefore, govern the decision-making.

In contrast, an incident of this kind operating on a cross-chain bridge between Ethereum and Solana, for example, would result in irreversible losses, Buterin argues. The problem compounds with the addition of chains.

Let’s suppose a 51% attack occurs on a single of 50 chains. In that case, all of them become vulnerable in what he describes as a “systemic contagion that threatens the economy of that entire ecosystem.”

dYdX strives to full decentralization in late 2022

dYdX, the layer-two derivatives protocol, published the fourth iteration of its roadmap this week, presenting plans to develop the platform into an open-source, community-centric and fully decentralized operation later this year.

The architecture operates on a dual-model in which sections of the protocol, such as staking and governance, are decentralized, while core functions such as the off-chain order book and matching engine are controlled by an in-house subsidiary, dYdX Trading Inc and supported by centralized servers such as Amazon Web Services.

“There will no longer be central points of control or failure of the protocol,” representatives from the company stated following the v4 upgrade, assuring that “all aspects of the protocol that can be controlled will be fully controlled by the community.”

Last month’s Amazon Web Service (AWS) technical outage highlighted the true vulnerabilities of a number of crypto businesses, including dYdX, Binance.US and Coinbase, and their inherent reliance on centralized servers to maintain the network.

At the time, dYdX shared a sincere update on its official Twitter account and pledged to seek an unequivocal solution to this matter, stating:

“Unfortunately, there are still some parts of the exchange that rely on centralized services (AWS in this case). We are deeply committed to fully decentralizing, and this remains one of our top priorities as we continue to iterate on the protocol.”

Alongside its aspirations for decentralization, dYdX is also pursuing improvements to its interface trading platform, introducing spot, margin and synthetic trading opportunities, as well as appointing an external auditor to appraise business operations.

Near Protocol raises $150 million to accelerate Web3 adoption

Proof-of-stake blockchain Near Protocol raised $150 million in seed investment this week to enhance the awareness and adoption of Web3 applications within its network, with an inherent focus on expanding its audience and community base to the regions of Latin America, Turkey and India.

The capital raise was led by renowned hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and was further participated by Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital and Andreessen Horowitz’s Silicon Valley-based fund a16z. Individual angel investors included British billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard and Aave founder Stani Kulechov.

In a Medium blog post, Near Foundation CEO Marieke Flament shared her optimism on the latest funding, around which succeeds the previous total of $65.9 million raised by the company:

“We are delighted to have such a fantastic list of backers supporting NEAR’s mission. We are looking forward to leveraging the funding to improve access to blockchain technology in an ever-growing list of countries across the world.”

In October 2021, the smart contract platform allocated $800 million for new initiatives within the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, such as developer applications, startup grants and geographical fund pots.

Token performances 

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked slightly decreased by 2.77% across the week to a figure of $128.15 billion, continuing along with the wider market decline.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization have mainly been bullish over the last seven days.

Secret (SCRT) took the lead for a second week with 15%. Terra (LUNA) rose by 6.32%, while 1inch Network (1INCH) posted gains of 2.9%.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: Terra expanding UST and LUNA, and Aave Arc seeks institutional adoption, Dec. 31–Jan. 7

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Terra expanding UST and LUNA, and Aave Arc seeks institutional adoption, Dec. 31–Jan. 7
Coin Telegraph

Terra Research presented a governance proposal to expand the influence of UST and LUNA, Aave Arc launched a DeFi pool for whitelisted projects, and WonderFi Tech purchased First Ledger Corp for $162 million — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

The new year is upon us, and the expectations for DeFi innovation, utility and mainstream adoption are greater than ever. Read on to hear about the inaugural stories of 2022.

Reading this article, you're only receiving a portion of the content from our DeFi newsletter. Drop your email below for the full copy.

Terra Research proposes new utility for TerraUSD and LUNA

Decentralized algorithmic stablecoin issuer Terra published an ambitious proposal via its research team this week to expand the interchain deployment of its TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin across five projects on Ethereum, Polygon and Solana.

Titled “UST Goes Interchain: Degen Strats Part Three,” the lengthy governance post extensively detailed the methods and procedures in which Terra’s native token, LUNA, and $139 million of TerraUSD (UST) could be deployed to “bring awesome UST use-cases to Ethereum DeFi.”

In the proposed strategy, which has gained 3,500 views and six replies from community members who self-titled themselves Lunatics, Terra would deposit between $250,000 and $50 million in UST in a bid to boost the stability of each of the new partner projects. It is expected that a community-led governance vote will occur in the near future to determine confirmation.

DeFi liquidity provider and market maker Tokemak would receive $50 million in UST for a maximum of six months, and lending and borrowing platform Rari Fuse would receive $20 million in UST across the same period. Yield aggregator Convex Finance would receive $18 million, while OlympusDAO would get $1 million in UST bonds and $425,000 in LUNA incentives for three months.

The distribution of UST across a plethora of projects will support Terra in accelerating quantitative ambitions such as that of its market capitalization within the stablecoin market. At the time of writing, Tether’s USDT leads the way with approximately $78 billion, with Circle’s USDC in second place with $43 billion, followed by Binance’s BUSD at $14 billion, and finally UST, with a market cap of $10 billion.

In a recent tweet, Terra founder Do Kwon divulged his ambitions to propel the network native asset UST to the forefront of the stablecoin market, ahead of stalwarts USD Coin, Tether and Binance USD (BUSD), among others.

Related: Terra (LUNA) hits record $20B TVL, surpassing Binance Smart Chain

New service Aave Arc aims to enhance institutional adoption in DeFi

Decentralized lending platform Aave (AAVE) announced the launch of its permissionless lending and liquidity pool, Aave Arc, this week with the ambition of fostering greater institutional participation in fully regulated and compliant decentralized finance services.

Thirty organizations were granted primary whitelist entry to the service, including digital asset custodian Fireblocks, alongside Anubi Digital, Canvas Digital, SEBA Bank, GSR and crypto yield aggregator Celsius.

Following the successful completion of prerequisites such as Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering protocols, these firms will gain exclusive access to “securely participate in DeFi as liquidity suppliers and borrowers” in a market that has soared 10 times in total value locked over exactly 12 months — from $30 billion to $300 billion.

Aave CEO and founder Stani Kulechov shared remarks on the potential for the expansion of the DeFi market with the implementation of this new service, stating:

"DeFi represents a powerful wave of financial innovation including transparency, liquidity, and programmability–and it’s been inaccessible to traditional financial institutions for far too long. The launch of Aave Arc allows these institutions to participate in DeFi in a compliant way for the very first time.”

Related: Without staking, institutional crypto investors cannot escape inflation

WonderFi acquires parent company of Bitbuy for $162M

DeFi platform WonderFi Technologies agreed to purchase First Ledger Corp, the parent firm of the first regulated crypto exchange in Canada, Bitbuy, this week for an impressive $162 million in a bid to expand the presence of cryptocurrency and DeFi across the country.

Backed by renowned billionaire investor Kevin O’Leary, WonderFi detailed its method of funding the takeover through the issuance of 70 million new shares, paying $15.7 million in upfront cash in addition to $23 million in deferred cash via a vendor-take back note due in 12 months. Alongside this, the team stated that it was going to “retain substantially all current Bitbuy employees and enter into employment agreements with key members of the management team.”

Established in 2016, Bitbuy became licensed by the Ontario Securities Commission as a fully regulated crypto exchange in Canada after last November. The platform has over 375,000 users who have transacted more than $3.4 billion. In May 2020, the Toronto-based exchange launched the world’s first 1:1 Bitcoin deposit insurance scheme for its customers.

Commenting on the importance of licensed marketplaces within the digital asset ecosystem, WonderFi CEO Ben Samaroo stated:

“The integration of Bitbuy’s product suite will accelerate and expand the reach and scope that WonderFi can offer to the market, and will drive long-term growth and value for the company.”

Related: Kevin O’Leary says his crypto holdings could reach 20% of his portfolio

Token performances 

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked slightly decreased by 6.5% across the week to a figure of $131.8 billion, largely in line with the overall market downturn.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization have mainly been bullish over the last seven days.

Secret (SCRT) took the lead this week with 26.6%. Chainlink (LINK) grew by 24.2%, while Fantom (FTM) almost exactly replicated last week’s gains with a further rise of 23.4%. Yearn.finance (YFI) and Dai — yes, the stablecoin — claimed fourth and fifth places this week with 8.2% and 0.03%, respectively.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: Binance leads $60M Multichain funding, Interlay raises $6.5M, Dec. 17–24

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Binance leads M Multichain funding, Interlay raises .5M, Dec. 17–24
Belt Finance

Binance Labs was the lead funder in a $60-million seed round, Interlay seeks to increase Bitcoin interoperability, Bent Finance and Grim Finance suffer million-dollar exploits — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

As the crypto community filled its crypto stockings for the holiday season, the Grinch emerged to gift a grimacing fate to two DeFi platforms, stealing their festive spirit and a whole lot of dollars. 

Reading this article, you're only receiving a portion of the content from our DeFi newsletter. Drop your email below for the full copy.

Binance VC arm leads $60M round in cross-chain protocol Multichain

Binance Labs, the venture capital side of global crypto exchange Binance, facilitated a $60-million capital funding raise for cross-chain router protocol Multichain. Other notable participants included Sequoia China, IDG Capital and Three Arrows Capital.

Amid Multichain’s corporate rebrand from AnySwap last week, analytical estimates placed the protocol’s total value above $5 billion and reported over 300,000 users on the platform. The funds raised will be utilized across various domains, including research and development of crypto algorithms, audits, security and general ecosystem growth.

In addition to the capital support, Binance has also pledged to develop a broader relationship with the protocol, announcing that Multichain will be officially recommended as a tool to bridge bToken across chains through Binance’s smart contract platform, the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

BSC expressed high praise of Multichain, noting that it is “one of the biggest routers on BSC.” Zhaojun, a co-founder of Multichain, stated that the protocol connects “more public blockchains and crypto assets than anyone else, with lower transaction fees, shorter bridging time and higher security levels.”

Related: Binance to launch $1B fund to develop BSC ecosystem

Interlay raises $6.5M to accelerate Bitcoin DeFi interoperability

DeFi infrastructure startup Interlay announced a $6.5-million Series A funding round led by venture fund DFG Capital with additional participation from Hypersphere and Nexo Finance, among others.

The funding is set to support the construction of DeFi applications cross-chain to Ethereum, Cosmos and Polkadot, as well as onboard new developers to the team.

Interlay was designed to enhance the interoperability of crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) to networks that typically facilitate DeFi activity such as Ethereum and Polkadot, a vision that the Web3 Foundation understood when it invested in the platform via a grant in March 2020.

Interlay's core product, a Bitcoin-backed digital asset titled InterBTC, can be utilized within the Polkadot ecosystem for various DeFi activities such as yield farming, lending and acting as a collateral asset. Tokenizing a Bitcoin derivative opens the possibility of greater utility for the asset in comparison to the functional capacity of the Bitcoin network.

Speaking on the funding raise, James Wo, founder and CEO of DFG, stated that Interlay’s solution would “expand the cross-chain possibilities for Bitcoin” before tweeting:

Related: Crypto interoperability evolves: From blockchain bridges to DeFi transfers

Bent Finance and Grim Finance exploited for multi-millions

DeFi protocol Grim Finance reported over $30 million in losses this week after an “external attacker” gained access to the protocol’s vault contract via five reentrancy loops. This made it the sixth platform to encounter a security breach in the month of December, following high-profile hacks such as BadgerDAO’s $120 million loss.

In a damning explanatory tweet thread, DeFi security service RugDoc stated that Grim Finance’s largest mistake was not implementing a reentrancy guard on the before-after pattern in the protocol’s smart contract coding. Another mistake was granting the user “more privilege than is necessary” in enabling them to choose the preferred deposit token. RugDoc further explained:

“Hopefully, all projects can draw lessons from this incident that there is much knowledge most experienced solidity devs have at hand. If you haven’t acquired this yet, don’t build multi-million dollar projects. Don’t get audits from companies which everyone knows are useless.”

Similarly, fellow DeFi platform Bent Finance, known for its capabilities of staking and yield farming, also suffered a malicious exploit this week to the tune of 440 Ether (ETH), or just above $1.6 million at the time of writing.

Related: Crypto could save Millennials from the economy that failed them

Token performances 

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked has increased 15.74% across the week to a figure of $142.58 billion, engulfing the losses printed in last week’s market downturn.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization have mainly been bullish over the last seven days.

Yearn.finance (YFI) registered two weeks of gains with 53.28%. Terra (LUNA) rose 36.6%, while Aave (AAVE) printed gains of 34.2%. Curve DAO Token (CRV) and Compound (COMP) claimed fourth and fifth places this week with 28.6% and 15.4%, respectively.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: 83% of 7-figure Millennials own crypto, Sen. Warren criticizes DeFi, Dec. 10–17

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: 83% of 7-figure Millennials own crypto, Sen. Warren criticizes DeFi, Dec. 10–17
Coin Telegraph

A new study finds that more than 80% of millionaire youths hold digital assets, Senator Warren attacks stablecoins and billions are locked in the Eth2 contract.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

As the market attempted to recover from last week’s pummeling, decentralized finance (DeFi) was once again the topic of discussion in high-profile U.S. governmental offices. Read on to learn more about this news and much more from the world of decentralized finance.

What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter designed for brevity. For the full version of DeFi’s developments over the last week, drop your email below.

Senator Warren warns about supposed DeFi dangers

Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly scrutinized the decentralized finance sector this week in a hearing with the Senate Banking Committee.

Speaking on the topic of “Stablecoins: How Do They Work, How Are They Used, and What Are Their Risks,” Warren conversed with Alexis Goldstein, a regulatory expert on financial matters, on the intricacies of stablecoin transactions, including Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) and whether the former has genuine one-to-one dollar backing.

Following this, the former Democratic presidential candidate questioned Hilary Allen, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law, on whether a run on stablecoins could potentially endanger the country's financial system.

In response, Allen argued that stablecoins runs, in which speculators of the asset sell on mass, would be akin to that witnessed in money market mutual funds and foreign exchange markets and, therefore, could have wide-ranging consequences for the DeFi ecosystem.

In closing, Warren stated, “DeFi is the most dangerous part of the crypto world,” adding:

“I don’t think DeFi can grow without stablecoins. I think it would struggle. Right now, I think DeFi is contained to the point where it won’t impact financial stability, but if it grows, I think there’s a real threat there, particularly if it becomes intertwined with our traditional financial system.”

Warren’s track record in commenting on the cryptocurrency space follows a consistently predictable pattern that largely insinuates illicit activity within the market, alongside advocacy for robust consumer security in light of sparse regulation.

In June this year, she spoke dramatically about the emergence of central bank digital currencies (CBDC), stating that cryptocurrencies have “created opportunities to scam investors, assist criminals and worsen the climate crisis” and that a positive solution could be a centralized, federally-backed U.S. digital dollar.

Around the same time as the hearing, Warren became embroiled in an argument with tech titan Elon Musk, accusing the maverick CEO of “freeloading” off the general public after reports emerged about tax contributions among the country’s top earners. Verbal insults were exchanged back and forth between the pair on various mediums, including Twitter.

Related: Elizabeth Warren compares 'bogus' crypto to 'legitimate' CBDCs in senate hearing

$33.5 billion trapped in Ethereum Beacon Chain contract

An Ethereum Beacon Chain staking contract containing 8,641,954 Ether (ETH), equivalent to $33.5 billion, was discovered to be inaccessible this week without the action of a hard fork, an event in which the details have yet to be finalized. 

The Beacon Chain is the inaugural development in Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake mining consensus. One of the prerequisites for becoming a validator on Ethereum 2.0 is to stake at least 32 ETH in the contract. Therefore, a short-term situation has arisen whereby vast sums of capital are stored in a contract that cannot be spent or transferred out.

Once the merger of the Beacon Chain into the Ethereum mainnet is finalized, the transition to Eth2 will be complete. Following this, the hard fork details are expected to be drawn up, creating a solution to what is currently a dormant contract.

Related: Small Ethereum investors increase exposure as ETH loses $4K level

New study finds that 83% of Millennial millionaires own crypto

A survey reported by U.S. news broadcaster CNBC has revealed fascinating insights into the financial portfolios of Millennial millionaires, concluding that a large majority of individuals have invested in the nascent cryptocurrency markets and are expecting to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.

Conducted by Spectrem Group, the survey polled investors with assets in excess of $1 million and found that 83% of them had made crypto investments in their lifetime and that 53% of respondents hold 50% or more of their portfolio in the digital asset market.

George Walper, president of Spectrem Group, noted that traditional organizations have largely failed to recognize the interest from Millennials in the digital economy, stating:

“I’m not sure the wealth management industry has recognized that they need to think of these as completely different generations. Most firms were hoping to ignore it. But millennial millionaires are not going to just grow out of crypto.”

Related: Crypto Could Save Millennials From the Economy That Failed Them

Token performances

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked has decreased 13.51% across the week to a figure of $122.89 billion.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization are mostly bearish across the last seven days.

Yearn.finance (YFI) grew a healthy 33.56%. Avalanche (AVAX) rose 22.03%, while Curve DAO Token (CRV) posted gains of 11%. PancakeSwap (CAKE) and Oasis Network (ROSE) claimed fourth and fifth places this week with 8.48% and 5.6%, respectively.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: AWS turns crypto exchanges offline, and Sushi CTO resigns, Dec. 3–10

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: AWS turns crypto exchanges offline, and Sushi CTO resigns, Dec. 3–10
Amazon Web Services

An AWS outage sent shockwaves around the crypto industry, Delong left his role as Sushi CTO, and Coinbase opened a cryptography library — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

Although the markets may be down and technical indicators built upon AWS malfunctioning, fear not young degens, fundamental news and the spirit of Wagmi is abundant as ever. So, read on and discover all you need to know about the most important events of this week.

What you’re about to read is a shorter, more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below.

AWS outage highlights the need for truly decentralized exchanges.

An Amazon Web Service outage this week produced significant cascading effects on the global supply chain and delivery industry, as well as hours-long operational disruptions to decentralized exchange dYdX and leading centralized exchanges Binance.US and Coinbase.

AWS is the world’s largest cloud service infrastructure, which provides an array of services, including network servers, storage capacities, remote computing and mobile development, to name a few.

According to data published this year by Synergy Research Group, the tech titan holds a 33% share of the cloud infrastructure market, followed by Microsoft and Google with 20% and 10%, respectively.

Details on the incident were largely undisclosed; however, it was stated on the company’s service health page that “multiple AWS APIs in the US-EAST-1 Region,” located in Northern Virginia, were experiencing connectivity issues.

In a Twitter statement shared on Tuesday, and into the early hours of Wednesday, dYdX spoke about enhanced latency across the network, as well as website loading failures, before disclosing its overreliance on the centralized servers, one of which is AWS.

Analytical data from DappRadar reveals that dYdX is the 13th largest decentralized finance application built on the Ethereum Network, registering approximately $1.5 billion in daily trading volume. In September this year, dYdX achieved a historic transactional milestone in surpassing the volume of Coinbase over the course of a single day, with $4.3 billion in comparison to $3.7 billion.

Decentralization is understood by many early crypto adopters to be a core component of the industry’s architecture. Alongside security and scalability, the former makes up the so-called blockchain trilemma, a concept coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, to denote the necessity to sacrifice one side of the triad to experience the benefits of the other two.

In the world of crypto exchanges, many opt to prioritize security and scalability in pursuit of mass adoption but, therefore, operate with largely centralized, Web 2.0-like structures.

Related: Decentralization vs. centralization: Where does the future lie? Experts answer

Joseph Delong wraps up time as SushiSwap CTO

SushiSwap chief technology officer Joseph Delong, announced his immediate departure from the decentralized exchange this week, pledging to honorably pass the proverbial baton onto the next leader, alongside necessary accounting and information data.

Delong explained the reasoning behind his decision in a candid Twitter thread, citing internal conflicts and a lack of unified vision for the project, stating:

​​“I wish Sushi the best and am saddened that Sushi is so imperiled within and without. The chaos that is occurring now is unlikely to result in a resolution that will leave the DAO as much more of a shadow than it once was without a radical structural transformation.”

Delong has experience working in the Web 3.0 space as a blockchain engineer and developer. Formerly employed as a senior software engineer at ConsenSys, Delong took up the position of chief technology officer at SushiSwap at the beginning of 2021 following Chef Nomi’s infamous exodus in the months prior.

Over the past year, Delong has guided SushiSwap to the 12th ranked position in nominal total value locked value (TVL) with $2.85 billion but also suffered obstacles with stringent whitelisting acceptance on layer-two protocol Optimism, as well as a $3-million supply chain exploit on launchpad MISO and, more recently, a rumored vulnerability in its smart contracts to the value of $1 billion.

Related: SushiSwap denies reports of billion-dollar bug

Coinbase opens cryptography library to promote innovation

One of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase, this week announced the launch of an open-source library-themed platform, titled Kryptology, designed to provide developers with a suite of “secure, audited, and easy-to-use application programme interfaces (APIs).”

In an official blog post, Coinbase outlined its intentions for the library in fostering the continued development of this long-standing technology:

“While enabling further innovation is our primary goal, we also aim for Kryptology to elevate the standard for what is considered to be a robust, usable cryptographic library.”

Related: Coinbase announces support for hardware wallets, starting with Ledger

Token performances 

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked has decreased 11.3% across the week to a figure of $143.95 billion.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization exceeding bearish across the last seven days.

Terra (LUNA) was the sole gainer of the top 100 this week with a mere 1.81%. Not the most memorable technical week for DeFi, let’s put it that way, but unsurprising considering the wider context of the crypto-wide market pullback.

Interviews, features and other cool stuff

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: Two DeFi hacks top $120M, and $500M Algo Fund launches, Nov. 26–Dec. 3

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: Two DeFi hacks top 0M, and 0M Algo Fund launches, Nov. 26–Dec. 3
Coin Telegraph

MonoX and BadgerDAO suffer callous security attacks, Borderless Capital opens a $500-million fund to advance Algorand’s ecosystem, and Iota is to launch Assembly in early 2022 — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter.

A week packed with positive advancements in the DeFi space including nine-figure fund raises, successful product launches and soaring token prices was somewhat tarnished by the news of two severe security exploits. Read on to get the full scope of developments across the week.

What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter designed for brevity. For the full version of DeFi’s developments over the last week, drop your email below.

Borderless Capital launches $500M fund to support Algorand ecosystem

Capital venture firm Borderless Capital announced the launch of ALGO Fund II this week, a $500-million initiative assembled to support the creation of digital asset projects on the Algorand blockchain. 

Announced via a blog post by the Algorand Foundation, the capital will specifically focus on decentralized applications, niche services of liquidity mining, lending, borrowing and yield farming, as well as nonfungible tokens.

Algorand is an open-source decentralized blockchain most regarded for its speed of efficiency, security and status as a potential competitor to Ethereum’s dominance.

Incepted in November 2018, Borderless Capital has already invested in over 100 blockchain-related projects via its $400-million ALGO Fund I, including Tinyman, Yieldly, Opulous and Flare Network, among others, as well as established successful accelerator programs across three major industrial continents.

Iota prepares to launch decentralized smart contract platform

Distributed ledger platform Iota announced the launch of decentralized layer-one smart contract network Assembly and accompanying ASMB token this week.

Assembly will seek to drive adoption of smart contract services and foster an environment for creators, developers and community advocates that facilitates the expansion of the Iota ecosystem into Web 3.0 sectors, including the metaverse.

Expected to launch in 2022, Assembly will function in parallel to Iota and employ the network’s existing infrastructure, most notably the directed acyclic graph structure, to operate as an interoperable, self-sovereign bridge that reaps the benefits of scalability and security, among others.

Decentralized application developers will be able to create their own smart contract chains and set individual parameters for low-cost execution fees, a function that will also enable service providers to issue on-chain stablecoin assets to incentivize validators.

In a recent Twitter post, Iota revealed that stakers can earn rewards in both Shimmer (SMR) and ASMB tokens upon launch of the networks, stating that “for every 1 $MIOTA staked, users receive 1 $SMR and 4 microASMB every 10 seconds, for 90 days, once the staking has started.”

DeFi projects MonoX and BadgerDAO exploited for $150M

Decentralized projects MonoX and BadgerDAO were the victims of individual sophisticated protocol hacks this week that resulted in over $150 million in asset losses. 

The MonoX platform suffered a single cyberattack on Nov. 30 when a bug in the smart contract’s swap contract enabled manual price manipulation of MONO tokens, an asset that had only just been listed on the Huobi exchange in the days prior.

After boosting the MONO token to what the team described as “sky-high” levels, the hackers exchanged the funds into other assets on the platform and secured lucrative profits.

In the days following the breach, the MonoX team confirmed that losses totaled around $31 million, alongside the publication of a remorseful statement, the essence of which stated:

“Days like yesterday are horrible, there is no sugar coating the harsh reality of a contract being exploited and people losing money. Our supporters put their faith in a new project like us, and yesterday we let them down.”

Similarly, but with no affiliation to the other, BadgerDAO was also the victim of a financial exploitation this week. Although concerns were raised by community members on Discord regarding suspicious increases in allowance in the days preceding, admins didn’t perceive this to be a threat as highlighted in this tweet from 0xMoves.

According to blockchain analytics service PeckShield, losses from the BadgerDAO have amassed $120 million at the time of writing, including 2078.76 Bitcoin (BTC), 30.27 Interest Bearing Bitcoin, and 151.32 Ether (ETH).

The Badger team has now responded by opening a full investigation into the events in addition to pausing smart contract activity until safety on the protocol is once again stabilized.

Related: Recounting 2021’s biggest DeFi hacking incidents

Token performances 

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked has increased 8.01% across the week to a figure of $159.5 billion.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization performed reasonably well across the last seven days.

Terra (LUNA) soared to record heights this week thanks to gains of 66.85%. Uniswap (UNI) achieved a healthy 14.3%, while Tezos (XTZ) posted an increase of 12.70%. Fourth and fifth spots this week were claimed by Chainlink (LINK) and Oasis Network (ROSE) with 8.1% and 8% gains, respectively.

Analysis and hot topics from the last week:

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Finance Redefined: ENS airdrops token, and SEC’s Crenshaw speaks on DeFi, Nov. 5–12

Coin Telegraph
Finance Redefined: ENS airdrops token, and SEC’s Crenshaw speaks on DeFi, Nov. 5–12
Coin Telegraph

Ethereum Name Service issued its native token, an SEC commissioner published a DeFi opinion piece, and Polkadot’s parachains registered billions of dollars — all coming to you in this week’s Finance Redefined.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance (DeFi) newsletter.

Ethereum Name Service announced a retroactive token airdrop this week to a fanfare of crypto enthusiasts. If you happen to own a .eth domain, read on to discover how you can claim your eligible tokens.

What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter. For the full breakdown of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below.

“The DAO space has matured,” says ENS' director of operations

Domain protocol Ethereum Name Service distributed its native ENS governance token this week in an airdrop event to early adopters of the protocol and announced the formation of a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO.

Users who registered Ethereum addresses, such as Cointelegraph.eth, were granted a sum of ENS tokens dependent on the date of domain registration and length of renewal fees, in addition to other engagement parameters. The claiming window for tokens lasts until May 4, 2022 to allow the maximum opportunity for applicable claimants. All details on claiming can be read here.

In the days following the announcement, major cryptocurrency exchanges Binance, KuCoin, Uniswap and SushiSwap, among others, started accepting the token on their platforms for an array of trading activities.

The ENS token has experienced major volatility since launching as a flurry of investors seek to secure their unrealized profits. The asset reached an all-time high price of $85.70 but has since fallen to $54.19 at the time of writing.

Cointelegraph spoke to Brantly Millegan, director of operations at Ethereum Name Service, for an exclusive insight into the protocol’s privacy details:

“ENS is an open public protocol. The core components of ENS are decentralized and self-running, but there are a few things that require some human discretion.”

DAOs promote a decentralized, open-source model of governance that is owned and managed by the active individuals within the community, rather than a handful of signatories. Projects emerging within the nonfungible token, or NFT, space are adopting the model to encourage their holders to stake assets in a bid to increase the floor price of their collection.

SEC commissioner advocates for greater DeFi regulation

United States Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw published an opinion piece this week outlining the “panoply of opportunities” in the DeFi space, alongside expressing a level of caution regarding the lack of regulatory clarity and foreshadowing the challenges that DeFi is expected to pose. 

Titled “DeFi Risks, Regulations, and Opportunities” and published in the debut edition of The International Journal of Blockchain Law, the piece argues that investors in the digital asset industry require greater legislative protection akin to traditional markets, a sentiment echoed in Crenshaw’s speech at the “SEC Speaks” conference in October.

Despite being a core pillar of decentralization since the inception of Bitcoin (BTC) in 2009, Crenshaw also argues that participants in the DeFi space tend to prioritize financial gains over pseudonymity:

“In moving to DeFi, I suspect most retail investors are not doing so because they seek greater privacy; they are seeking better returns than they believe they can find from other investments.”

She continues on to suggest that projects that adhere to the SEC’s regulatory framework can expect a higher probability of success going forward.

Related: How to spot a rug pull in DeFi — 6 tips by Cointelegraph

DeFi protocol Moonbeam close to $1B raised in Polkadot parachain auction

DeFi protocol Moonbeam is in pole position to claim victory in Polkadot’s inaugural 10-project parachain auction. The bidding, which commenced on Nov. 11 and is scheduled to run until Nov. 18, has attracted approximately 75,000 participants, who have staked over $2.5 billion in DOT tokens. 

Polkadot parachains are distinctive layer-one blockchain networks operating in parallel to the main network, in addition to being connected to the Polkadot Relay Chain. They can be implemented across a number of sectors from decentralized finance to smart contracts.

Earlier this week, Acala was leading the way in the auction but has since been overtaken by Moonbeam in what has become a two-horse race. The two protocols have accumulated 20.3 million DOT and 17.2 million DOT, respectively — equivalent to a colossal $980 million and $797 million.

In early October, Polkadot council members passed a governance proposal in a unanimous decision, following confirmation from Polkadot founders Gavin Wood and Robert Habermeier that the network could support such initiatives.

Token performances

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked has increased 3.85% across the week to a figure of $174.76 billion.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization performing considerably well across the last seven days.

Loopring’s LRC secured the podium’s top spot with a seismic 179%. Basic Attention Token (BAT) came in second with 16.5%, while Avalanche’s AVAX came third with 7.95%. The fourth and fifth places were claimed by Chainlink’s LINK and Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), with 5.23% and 3.8%, respectively.

Analysis and hot topics from the last week:

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Read more
Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

Crypto Trader Says Three Altcoins Are His Golden Tickets, Flips Bullish on One Memecoin With ‘Monster’ Chart

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