Weekly DeFi Index

This week, the market capitalisation, volume, and volatility indices dropped by -5.05%, -32.10%, and -43.02%, respectively.

• Lido (LDO) launched the Identified Community Staker (ICS) application on the Ethereum mainnet which verifies individuals with priority terms in the Community Staking Module. The ICS uses a points system to rank experience, engagement, and humanity, with applicants requiring at least 15 points to qualify. Approved ICS applicants will receive benefits such as a 6% reward share, a 1.5 ETH bond, and priority deposits for the first 10 keys. The programme aims to route early capacity to verified individuals while preserving controls around validator performance and strike policies.
• Aave Labs (AAVE) launched Horizon, a new platform that enables institutions to borrow stablecoins using tokenised real-world assets (RWAs) as collateral.dYdX (DYDX) updated its 2025 roadmap with plans to launch Telegram-based trading in September.

Chart of the Week

Ethena's USDe stablecoin reached a total supply of US$12 billion, representing 17% of USDC’s supply on 1 September, positioning it as a strong contender against USDC and USDT. Concurrently, its supply surged by 44% in August, which was higher than the 12% and 2% seen by USDC and USDT, respectively. USDe’s growth could be driven by leveraged yield loops on Pendle and Aave, allowing users to achieve high returns through delta-neutral hedging strategies. However, the leverage-dependent nature of the ecosystem raises concerns about sustainability in unfavourable market conditions.

News Highlights

• Underdog, a sports gaming company, partnered with Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (CDNA) to offer sports event contracts to its customers. This partnership allows Underdog’s users to express and trade their opinions on sports events in real-time across major sports leagues such as the NFL, NBA, and MLB. 
• Cronos released its new 2025-2026 roadmap, with key highlights including the development of a mature decentralised finance (DeFi) ecosystem, a partnership with Crypto.com to build an institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure, and efforts to drive retail adoption through direct integration with Crypto.com's product suite. The goal is to make Cronos a unified platform for tokenised markets that is accessible to billions, and to achieve significant adoption by the end of 2026.
• The Ethereum Foundation outlined a multi-track roadmap to enhance Ethereum's performance and interoperability. Key initiatives include the Open Intents Framework, the Ethereum Interoperability Layer, and research on zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs for faster Layer-1 finality. The goal is to make Ethereum feel like "one chain again" while maintaining the values of censorship-resistance, privacy, and security.
• The US government partnered with Chainlink and Pyth Network to publish economic data on-chain, aiming to increase transparency in government spending. The data includes gross domestic product (GDP) and the consumer price index (CPI), which will be made available on-chain to boost accountability and facilitate the development of automated trading strategies.
• Avalanche and Toyota Blockchain Lab are collaborating on a blockchain-based infrastructure for autonomous robotaxi fleets called Mobility Orchestration Network (MON). MON aims to enable secure data sharing and streamline ownership transfers for secondary markets. This on-chain business model will allow investors to raise funds and track robotaxis, potentially paving the way for fully autonomous fleets. 
• The Stargate community voted to approve a $110 million bid by LayerZero, with 95% of voting power supporting the deal. The acquisition will dissolve the Stargate DAO and swap STG tokens for LayerZero's ZRO tokens at a fixed ratio of approximately $0.169 per STG. 
• Offchain Labs, the developer behind the Arbitrum Layer-2 network, partnered with Succinct Labs to integrate ZK proofs into the Arbitrum ecosystem. Known as the Tandem initiative, this collaboration aims to provide faster asset withdrawals, enhanced interoperability, and improved security. 
• Tether plans to roll out its USDT token on RGB, a protocol anchored to Bitcoin, to enable native stablecoin support. This integration aims to make USDT transfers on Bitcoin faster, cheaper, and more private. 
• XStocks, a tokenised stock product, is launching on Ethereum with about 60 tokenised stocks following its initial launch on Solana.

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