DeFi & L1L2 Weekly (23/08/2023)

New Ethereum testnet Holesky scheduled to launch in September. Tether stops support for USDC on three blockchains. Shibarium resumes block production after a brief pause after its mainnet launch.

Aug 23, 2023
DeFi Weekly

Weekly DeFi Index

This week’s market cap index was negative at -16.84%, while volume and volatility indices were positive at +10.48 and +65.70%, respectively.

Crypto.com DeFi Index 23 Aug

Chart of the Week

Launched on 10 August, Friend.Tech (Beta) is an invite-only Web3 social app built on Layer-2 blockchain Base. Users have shares, or ‘Keys’, tied to their X (formerly Twitter) account, which can be bought or sold on the platform.

Shareholders can also access a private chat room owned by the account whose shares they bought. Aside from linking their X account, users are also required to provide their email via Google or Apple during registration. 

Friend.Tech has reached over 100,000 users, and on 21 August, its fees climbed to US$1.68 million. This rapid growth can be attributed to a surge in trading volumes as of 18 August, accumulating over 19,000 ETH (worth approximately $34 million as of writing) in tokens bought. Within this period, the community has raised questions about issues relating to data retention, privacy, and regulation.

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Crypto.com DeFI Index Token Performance 23 Aug

Crypto.com TVL of Top Chains 23 Aug

Crypto.com Top DEX by Chain 23 Aug

News Highlights

  • In its latest meeting on 17 August, Ethereum core developers discussed updates around a new testnet named Holesky, scheduled to launch on 15 September. Holesky will initiate a new stage of experimentation within the Ethereum ecosystem as developers transition to the Sepolia tesnet after the Goerli testnet is retired in 2024. 
  • Stablecoin issuer Tether said that it will discontinue support for its stablecoin from 17 August on three blockchains — namely Omni Layer, Kusama, and Bitcoin Cash SLP — citing a lack of demand. Redemptions will continue for the next 12 months. 
  • Following its official mainnet launch on 16 August, Shiba Inu’s Layer-2 Shibarium Network has resumed block production following a pause that lasted nearly a day. This was reportedly triggered by an unexpected surge in traffic, which prompted the network to activate a fail-safe mode to protect user funds. 
  • Curve Finance has entered a strategic partnership with TRON DAO, which saw a $2 million CRV investment from TRON DAO Ventures and plans for Curve’s integration into the Tron Network. Curve has also stated that it will be launching on the BitTorrent Chain (BTTC), a peer-to-peer blockchain scaling solution for file and data sharing. The alliances follow a recent security breach on the Curve platform. 
  • Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase took a minority stake in Circle Internet Financial. As part of the move, Circle will bring USDC issuance and governance fully in-house, dissolving the Centre Consortium partnership. 
  • On 22 August, Balancer notified its community of a critical vulnerability affecting a number of its v2 pools, pausing several pools as a proactive measure. The team then issued an update two hours later to confirm that the Balancer ecosystem had been secured and that no vulnerability had been exploited in the process. 
  • Crypto lending protocol Exactly and interchain stablecoin protocol Harbor were reportedly exploited on 18 August in two unrelated attacks. The attacker targeted the DebtManager periphery contract from Exactly, and 4,323.6 ETH (worth nearly $7.3 million at the time of writing) had been stolen. The Harbor attack led to the loss of funds in its stable-mint, as well as its stOSMO, LUNA and WMATIC vaults, with the total amount lost still yet to be confirmed.

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