DeFi & L1L2 Weekly (09/08/2023)

PayPal to issue a new stablecoin in the US.Tether unveils new software to improve Bitcoin mining.Cypher Protocol suffered an exploit with close to US$1 million in losses.

Weekly DeFi Index

This week’s market cap index, volume index and volatility index were all negative at -2.61%, -8.68% and -11.54%, respectively.

Check the latest prices on Crypto.com/Price

Chart of the Week

DAI stablecoin deposits on the MakerDAO protocol have surged as the interest rate for the Dai Savings Rate (DSR) reached 8%. The MakerDAO community approved a temporary increase in annual returns for depositing DAI into the protocol. Since the activation of the Enhanced Dai Savings Rate (EDSR) proposal on 4 August, the total amount of DAI deposited in the DSR contract has skyrocketed by 164% to reach 891 million DAI. The total supply of DAI has also increased by 13% from US$4.44 billion to $5.02 billion.

News Highlights

• PayPal is launching a new stablecoin called PYUSD that will be pegged to the US dollar and based on the Ethereum blockchain. PayPal users in the US can transfer PYUSD between PayPal and supported external digital wallets. The stablecoin will be issued by Paxos Trust Company. 
• Stablecoin issuer Tether unveiled new mining software to improve the efficiency and capacity of Bitcoin mining operations. The software is designed to facilitate the transmission of commands and signals to mining hardware, including WhatsMiner, AvalonMiner, and Antminer.
• Cypher Protocol, a DeFi platform based on Solana, recently suffered an exploit that resulted in the loss of nearly $1 million and the freezing of its smart contracts. The exploit was caused by a code vulnerability, allowing an attacker to generate unlimited tokens and disrupting the contract’s functionality.
• Steadefi, a DeFi leveraged yield aggregator, has been targeted in an ongoing attack, resulting in a loss of at least $334,000. The attacker gained access to the private key of the team’s deployer wallet, enabling them to perform owner-only functions such as allowing any wallet to borrow available funds from the lending vaults.
• Curve Finance has reportedly recovered 73% of the funds stolen in a recent hack. Over $18 million in stolen funds are remaining, with Curve opening up the bounty to the public last Sunday night.

Recent Research Report
Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [July 2023]	Real-World Assets: Bridging Real-World Value to DeFi	Crypto Market Sizing Report H1 2023

• Crypto Market Sizing Report H1 2023: Global crypto owners reached 516 million by the first half of 2023.
• Real-World Assets: Bridging Real-World Value to DeFi: Real World Assets is a promising application for blockchain technology that is gaining traction. We explore notable projects like Centrifuge, Ondo, Tangible, and Toucan.
• Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [July 2023]: Risk assets continued their positive price action in July, although BTC dipped slightly. Macro calendar is quiet up until mid-August when we have the US CPI and release of FOMC minutes.

Recent University Articles
What Are Layer-0 Protocols? Infrastructure for Customised Blockchains	Top Governance Tokens to Know in 2023	The Future of Ethereum: What to Expect in the Coming Years

• What Are Layer-0 Protocols? Infrastructure for Customised Blockchains: Layer-0 protocols are the infrastructure on which customised Layer-1 blockchains are built. We explore notable projects like Cosmos, Polkadot, and Avalanche.
• Top Governance Tokens to Know in 2023: Discover the top crypto governance tokens making waves in the decentralised finance and blockchain sectors.
• The Future of Ethereum: What to Expect in the Coming Years: Exploring the upcoming upgrades and developments that will shape the Ethereum network’s future.

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