Weekly DeFi Index

This week, the market capitalisation dropped by -17.96%, while the volume and volatility indices increased by +14.98% and +33.33%, respectively.

• Aave DAO (AAVE) approved a proposal to make its AAVE token buyback programme permanent, allocating $50 million annually from protocol revenue to repurchase tokens.
• UBS and Chainlink (LINK) completed the on-chain redemption of a tokenised fund using Chainlink’s Digital Transfer Agent (DTA) on Ethereum, involving the UBS USD Money Market Investment Fund Token (uMINT).
• Chainlinkintroduced the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE), a new platform designed to help institutions deploy smart contracts across public and private blockchains with built-in compliance, privacy, and data integration tools.

Chart of the Week

Stablecoin velocity quantifies how often a stablecoin unit is used for transactions within a specific timeframe. The metric is determined by dividing the total stablecoin transfer volume by the stablecoin's total supply over the given period. 

Circle's USDC stablecoin demonstrated an accelerating velocity on Ethereum, significantly outpacing Tether's USDT, according to data from the Cambridge Digital Money Dashboard. The latest figures show USDC's monthly (30-day trailing window) velocity at 46.8, approximately 3.5 times higher than USDT's 13.3. Furthermore, USDC's market capitalisation has grown by 72% since January, a much higher rate than USDT's 32% increase. This robust performance by USDC is likely driven by its strong regulatory compliance, including adherence to frameworks like Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) in Europe, as well as its expanding integration across various payment and blockchain networks.

News Highlights

• Crypto.com and Hollywood.com partnered to launch a new entertainment-focused prediction market, allowing users to trade on event contracts related to movies, shows, awards, and more. The contracts will be offered by Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (CDNA), a CFTC-registered exchange, and will provide a secure, federally compliant platform for entertainment fans to express and trade their opinions.
• MyPrize, a fast-growing social gaming platform, partnered with Crypto.com to launch MyPrize Markets, a unified platform that combines social gaming, prediction markets, and livestreaming.
• Ethereum developers officially confirmed the Fusaka upgrade will be activated on 3 December, marking the second hard fork of the year. The upgrade introduces PeerDAS, a feature that allows validators to verify only portions of data, reducing bandwidth usage and costs for both validators and Layer-2 (L2) networks. This improvement aims to make Ethereum faster and cheaper for users and developers. The upgrade will activate when the blockchain reaches slot 13,164,544, expected at 21:49 UTC on 3 December.
• FTSE Russell partnered with Chainlink to publish key stock and digital asset indices on-chain. The initiative includes the Russell 1000, Russell 2000, Russell 3000, and FTSE 100 indices, among others, using Chainlink's DataLink service.
• Decentralised derivatives exchange dYdX plans to enter the US market by the end of 2025 and introduce spot crypto trading. dYdX President Eddie Zhang cited improved regulatory conditions under the current administration as a key factor in this move. The exchange also announced an open vote for users affected by a recent outage, proposing compensation from its insurance fund.
• ZKsync, an Ethereum L2 scaling solution, proposed changes to the tokenomics of its native token ZK, moving it from a pure governance token to a utility token. The update aims to generate value through on-chain interoperability fees and off-chain enterprise licensing revenue, which will fund staking rewards, ecosystem development, and buyback mechanisms.
• Maple Finance, a decentralised finance lending protocol on Solana and Ethereum, decided to sunset SYRUP token staking rewards and redirect a portion of platform revenue to a new DAO treasury called the Syrup Strategic Fund (SSF). SSF will hold SYRUP, bitcoin, and stablecoins for initiatives like token buybacks, ensuring long-term sustainability.
• Bank Indonesia (BI), Indonesia's central bank, plans to issue a ‘national stablecoin version’ backed by government bonds (SBN) and built on its digital rupiah CBDC. This initiative, announced by BI Governor Perry Warjiyo, aims to integrate blockchain into Indonesia's monetary system and support the country's broader digital finance strategy.
• Banco Inter, a Brazilian digital bank, successfully tested a blockchain-based cross-border trade finance system with the Central Bank of Brazil, Hong Kong's Monetary Authority (HKMA), and Chainlink. The pilot utilised Brazil’s Drex and Hong Kong’s Ensemble blockchain networks to simulate international trade settlements, demonstrating how distributed ledger technology can streamline cross-border transactions.
• AMM Balancer was exploited, resulting in an estimated $128 million worth of crypto stolen across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base. Consequently, the emerging blockchain network Berachain halted its operations and plans an emergency hard fork to address the issue. The exploit was attributed to a precision/rounding error in the Balancer V2 code, which allowed attackers to undervalue Balancer Pool Tokens (BPT) and profit from the discrepancy.

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