Weekly DeFi Index

This week, the market cap and volume indices decreased -4.11% and -9.74%, respectively, while the volatility index surged +118.71%.

• Maple Finance (SYRUP) released its Q2 Ecosystem Update, showing notable performance  growth.
• Aave (AAVE) Labs launched Stable Vaults, an infrastructure enabling fintechs, digital wallets, and payment providers to embed fixed-rate stablecoin yields into consumer applications. The product abstracts complex decentralized lending mechanics by converting Aave’s variable onchain rates into predictable, fixed yields for end-users, with partner operators retaining any excess yield generated.
• Ethena Labs (ENA) updated its USDe synthetic dollar protocol to allow whitelisted, KYC/KYB-compliant users to mint and redeem USDe using USDC at zero fees. This eliminates previous conversion costs for approved participants, tightening USDe’s peg to the U.S. dollar and reducing slippage in secondary markets.

Chart of the Week

The permissionless, builder-deployed HIP-3 markets on decentralized perpetuals platform Hyperliquid, featuring real-world assets (RWAs) like stocks, commodities, and indices, are gaining significant momentum. As of July 14, the aggregated trading volume (7-day moving average) reached $3.0 billion, nearly matching the $3.1 billion volume of Hyperliquid’s native crypto perps.

Among HIP-3 markets, stocks were the dominant category, accounting for over 60% of the volume, followed by indices and commodities.

News Highlights

• The Cronos network officially integrated with Dune, making its onchain data fully queryable, visualizable, and verifiable. This marks a significant step toward transparency for the ecosystem, which serves as a purpose-built settlement layer for stablecoins and tokenized assets.
• EthSystems, an Ethereum Foundation spinout, is targeting traditional banks with their new blockchain privacy tools. The initiative aims to equip commercial banking institutions with privacy-preserving infrastructure, bridging the transparency of decentralized networks with the stringent confidentiality requirements of traditional banking.
• PayPal’s USD stablecoin (PYUSD) launched natively on the Polygon blockchain. Issued directly by Paxos — the OCC-regulated entity behind PYUSD — this integration avoids bridging or wrapping, ensuring PYUSD on Polygon is a first-class asset within the network.
• Japanese asset management firm SBI Holdings partnered with the Solana Foundation to build a Japan-based onchain financial market. The joint venture, SBI Solana Global, will leverage the high-speed Layer-1 network to issue yen-pegged stablecoins and tokenize RWAs.
• South Korean conglomerate Hyundai completed a proof-of-concept treasury settlement pilot using Tether (USDT) on the Avalanche blockchain. The trial settled a $20,000 payment between its U.S. and Mexican subsidiaries in seven minutes.
• Bonzo Lend, a Hedera-based lending protocol, suffered a $9.05 million, draining roughly 77% of its TVL. The attacker leveraged a verification flaw in a third-party Supra oracle contract to artificially inflate the price of minimal SAUCE token collateral by 12 orders of magnitude, allowing them to borrow millions in USDC and wrapped HBAR.

Recent Research Reports

Interested to know more? Access exclusive reports by signing up as a Private member, joining our Crypto.com Exchange VIP Programme, or collecting a Loaded Lions NFT. The latest crypto market insights are also available via the dashboard.

We’re all ears.

Your feedback has always helped us provide insightful crypto market trends. Tell us how we can improve this newsletter further by taking a quick survey below (it will only take less than a minute). Thank you!

Take our survey now

Author

Research and Insights Team

Get the latest market, DeFi & NFT updates delivered to your inbox:

Be the first to hear about new insights:

Disclaimer

The information in this report is provided as general market commentary by Crypto.com and its affiliates, and does not constitute any financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other advice. This report is not intended to offer or recommend any access to products and/or services. While we endeavour to publish and maintain accurate information, we do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information in this report, nor do we adopt nor endorse, nor are we responsible for, the accuracy or reliability of any information submitted by other parties.

This report is not directed or intended for distribution to, or use by, any person or entity who is a citizen or resident of, or located in a jurisdiction, where such distribution or use would be contrary to applicable law or that would subject Crypto.com and/or its affiliates to any registration or licensing requirement.

The brands and the logos appearing in this report are registered trademarks of their respective owners.