Weekly DeFi Index

This week, the market capitalisation increased by +3.22%, while the volume and volatility indices dropped by -23.08% and -3.91%, respectively.

• Grayscale's Chainlink ETF, trading under the ticker GLNK, listed on NYSE Arca, marking the first US ETF tied to Chainlink.
• Yield-aggregation protocol Yearn Finance (YFI) was hacked last Sunday with attackers draining approximately $9 million from its yETH stableswap pool through a sophisticated exploit that minted infinite yETH tokens. Yearn recovered approximately $2.4 million worth of assets (857.49 pxETH) with help from Plume and Dinero teams.

Chart of the Week

HumidiFi is a Solana-based decentralised exchange (DEX) that uses proprietary ‘prop automated market maker (AMM)’ dark-pool style execution to limit spread and slippage while enabling private order execution. This approach has helped it rapidly become the second largest DEX by volume on Solana since launching in mid‑2025.​ Data shows that it accumulated trading volumes of over $40.9 billion and $36.7 billion in October and November, respectively.

A ‘dark-pool’ style DEX routes trades to vault-based, privately managed liquidity rather than to open public AMM pools, favouring execution quality and privacy for larger flows. This model targets minimal information leakage and reduced MEV and front‑running risk compared to public AMMs.

HumidiFi is integrated with Solana’s major aggregator Jupiter, allowing order flow to find HumidiFi quotes seamlessly, which amplified its early liquidity capture and utilisation by high-volume traders and bots.

News Highlights

• Yorkville Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: MCGA) confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-4 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of its proposed business combination with affiliates of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (DJT) and Crypto.com. This combination aims to establish Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, Inc., a digital asset treasury company focused on acquiring Cronos ecosystem’s native token, CRO.
• Uzbekistan will introduce stablecoins as an official payment method starting 1 January 2026, through a regulatory sandbox that also permits tokenised securities trading.
• Amundi, Europe's largest asset manager with approximately $2.3 trillion in assets under management, tokenised shares of its money market fund and launched Amundi Funds Cash EUR - J28 EUR DLT share class on Ethereum. This marks a significant step in bringing traditional finance to distributed ledger technology.
• Sony Bank, the online banking arm of Sony Financial Group, is planning to issue a USD-pegged stablecoin in the US as early as fiscal year 2026. The stablecoin is expected to be used for transactions related to games and anime, potentially offering lower fees compared to current credit card usage.
• Kalshi began offering tokenised versions of its event contracts to be traded on the Solana blockchain.
• Cosmos outlined a structured, community-driven initiative to redesign ATOM’s tokenomics for long-term sustainability and enterprise alignment. The initiative focuses on creating a data-driven, revenue-based economic model based on real ecosystem usage. A five-step roadmap includes an open request for proposals, selection of research firms, data gathering, publication of findings, and final governance votes.
• MegaETH announced that it will refund all funds from its Pre-Deposit Bridge campaign, calling the execution ‘sloppy’. The campaign, which took place about a month after the completion of its sold-out initial coin offering (ICO), had users deposit USDC to mint USDm, MegaETH’s native USD stablecoin. This move follows the pre-deposit chaos due to technical issues and a multisig transaction mishandling.
• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) of the UK proposed a new tax framework for DeFi transactions, introducing a ‘no gain, no loss’ approach. The proposal would apply to lending out tokens, borrowing arrangements, and moving tokens into liquidity pools. Taxable gains or losses would be calculated when liquidity tokens are redeemed, based on the number of tokens received compared to the original contribution.
• S&P Global Ratings downgraded Tether's USDT stablecoin to the lowest stability rating, citing concerns over its ability to maintain its dollar peg. The downgrade was attributed to Tether's reliance on higher-risk assets such as Bitcoin, gold, loans, and corporate bonds, as well as a lack of sufficient audits or proof-of-reserve reports.

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