Weekly DeFi Index

This week, market cap and volume indices increased by +7.51% and +13.80%, respectively, while the volatility index dropped by -60.63%.

• Liquid staking protocol Lido launched an "EarnUSD" stablecoin vault, expanding its product offerings beyond ETH staking into stablecoin yield optimization.
• Ethena proposed replacing sUSDe’s fixed 7-day unstaking period with a dynamic cooldown to improve capital efficiency for users while maintaining protocol stability.
• World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a DeFi protocol linked to the Trump family, passed a proposal granting individuals who stake over $5 million direct access to the core team. This highlights a growing trend of tiered access and exclusive utility for high-value stakeholders in celebrity-led crypto projects.

Chart of the Week

Tokenized equities surpassed US$1 billion in on-chain value, a milestone primarily driven by platforms like Ondo and xStocks. These two platforms now control over 80% of the market, benefiting from regulatory clarity and superior liquidity. Specifically, Ondo holds approximately 59% of the tokenized stock market, and xStocks accounts for around 23%, while Securitize trails at 8%. Furthermore, the tokenized stock value for Ondo and xStocks saw significant year-to-date growth of 57% and 31%, respectively, while Securitize's value declined sharply by 39%.

News Highlights

• The U.S. SEC issued its first-ever formal definitions regarding which crypto assets qualify as securities. This provides long-sought regulatory clarity that could fundamentally shift compliance requirements for digital asset issuers in the U.S.
• Ethereum Foundation introduced a new mandate outlining its role and principles, sparking industry debate between those who see it as a valuable reaffirmation of core values and critics who argue it signals a hands-off approach at a critical time.
• • The mandate positions the Foundation as a “neutral steward” rather than a centralized authority, emphasizing the “CROPS” framework: censorship resistance, open-source development, privacy, and security.
  • Some argue the document is overly philosophical and fails to address real-world adoption, business development, and competition for institutional capital.
• Moody’s Ratings is integrating its credit assessments on-chain via the Canton Network. This move bridges traditional credit analysis with DeFi, increasing transparency for institutional real-world asset (RWA) protocols.
• Mastercard agreed to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK , for up to $1.8 billion. The acquisition signifies a major investment by traditional finance into crypto-native payment and settlement rails.
• Asset manager BlackRock launched ETHB, a staked Ethereum ETF that allows investors to gain exposure to Ethereum’s staking yield within a traditional regulated fund structure.
• Wells Fargo filed a trademark for "WFUSD," indicating a move into proprietary stablecoins and digital asset services. This reflects the growing commitment of major U.S. banks to integrate blockchain-based settlement into their core services.
• A trader suffered a massive loss of $50.4 million in USDT after a swap for AAVE tokens yielded only $36,000 worth of the asset. Both Aave and CoW Swap have examined the incident, attributing the significant loss to illiquidity and technical failures, respectively.
• • Aave attributes the loss to extreme price impact in an illiquid market, noting the user was warned and confirmed the near-total loss before executing.
  • CoW Swap identifies a chain of failures: a legacy gas limit blocked better quotes, a solver failed to submit winning bids, and a suspected mempool leak enabled MEV exploitation.

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