🦄 Recap: DeFi Week of April 12
Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend. Summing up the past week: The big news this week was the Coinbase listing and we covered how while BTC shaped Coinbase’s past, DeFi will shape its future. It was also all about the rising crypto market, w...
By:
Weekly RecapHello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend.
Summing up the past week: The big news this week was the Coinbase listing and we covered how while BTC shaped Coinbase’s past, DeFi will shape its future. It was also all about the rising crypto market, with both bitcoin and ether touching new records, while TVL in DeFi is also at new highs.
This time though, a rallying market didn’t bring record high gas fees — we covered the flashbots that may be behind this. And speaking of fees, details on scaling solution zkPorter were unveiled, with the team behind it promising it will increase Ethereum throughout by thousands of times. Rising gas fees has also fueled BSC-based AMM PancakeSwap’s rise to overtake even Uniswap in terms of TVL and trading volume.
We also focused on Magic Money this week with a tutorial on how to get your future yield now with Alchemix, 20% fixed-rate yields on Anchor, and a stablecoin that’s supposed to withstand all market conditions with Gyroscope Protocol. We dove deep into the Terra ecosystem, the makers of Anchor, in this week’s podcast episode with cofounder Do Kwon.
And there was more! There’s a lot going on, but we’ve got you covered :)
The open economy is taking over the old one. Subscribe to keep up with this revolution. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button below ($15/mo, $150/yr).
🙌 Together with:
- Zerion, a simple interface to access and use decentralized finance
- Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/!
- Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
- Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets.
Video
📺 Defiant Weekly: The Mystical World of Magic Money
📺 First Look: Meme V2 is Live! What’s New?
📺 Quick Take: Cross Asset Swap
📺 Tutorial: How to Bridge Assets From Ethereum to Polygon
Interview
"We're Lifting Barriers For Outside Users; If You Allocate Capital in a Vacuum, It's Kind of Meaningless:" Terra's Do Kwon
In this week’s episode, we interview Do Kwon, cofounder of the Terra ecosystem, which includes a payments network, a stablecoin, a lending protocol and a synthetic assets platform. We talk about how he was able to achieve what most crypto companies can’t: Get a broad non-crypto native user base. Terra’s Chai payments system, which uses the Terra stablecoin, has about 2.6M active users in Korea. Kwon says there’s so much money to be made without bringing new people in, that many developers just settle with looking inwards in crypto.
🎙Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:
Op-ed
NFTs Will Be Far Bigger as Digital Clothes Than as Collectibles: By Blake West
Blake West of Goldfinch argues that digital clothes, not collectibles, will be the way for NFTs to really reach the masses. Clothes are much more than how we protect against the elements; they’re how we express ourselves, and as our world becomes increasingly digital, these “skins” for our online avatars will be crucial to how we interact with the world. NFTs will allow us to actually own these wearables, and to support the creators behind them. Read this interesting take on how the future of NFTs might play out.
Inbox Dump #4
Only for paid subscribers: The Inbox Dump is where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to our content platforms. At The Defiant we cover the most important DeFi-related news and developments but I know many of you are hunting for projects before they are fully developed and before they are newsworthy. The goal with this installment of the newsletter is to help you find them. Look at this as the starting point to DYOR. We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.
Thursday
Markets
- It’s “Up Only” For ETH and DeFi: Ether and the most popular DeFi metrics are all smashing through new records. Ether continues to push higher, hitting a record of $2487 earlier today, according to CoinGecko. Rising ETH prices is pushing total value locked in DeFi to a new high in dollar terms of $55.9B
Dives
- Low-ish Ethereum Gas Fees Point to Flashbots Adoption: As ETH reaches new highs and the larger DeFi market booms, average gas prices have remained surprisingly stable throughout April, and that may be all thanks to Flashbots Alpha, a project working at the very core of the Ethereum chain.
- MakerDAO to Hold Real-World Assets as Collateral: A MakerDAO proposal to accept an ERC-20 token which represents shares in a pool of real estate assets as collateral in the Maker protocol passed yesterday. The use of real-world assets in DeFi is a first and is a major step in bringing the trillions of dollars worth of physical assets into the open finance ecosystem.
Bytes
- ShapeShift and THORChain Enable BTC-to-ETH Trading: ShapeShift’s mobile platform has integrated with multi-chain liquidity protocol THORChain to offer native Bitcoin trading without KYC.
Links
Wednesday
Dives
- Coinbase Listing Highlights DeFi Will Shape the Crypto Exchange’s Future: While BTC has shaped Coinbase’s past, it will most likely be decentralized finance that makes the biggest impact on the largest US exchange’s future.
Bytes
- Ethereum Berlin Upgrade Ships Tomorrow: The Ethereum Berlin hard fork ships tomorrow. The upgrade contains four Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) mainly aimed at optimizing gas costs, and is the first of its kind since Muir Glacier shipped on Jan. 2, 2020.
- zkPorter Promises to Bring 20,000 TPS to Ethereum: zkSync introduced an Ethereum Layer 2 solution called zkPorter yesterday promising to push the blockchain’s transactions per second (TPS) capabilities to over 20,000. This would put Ethereum within striking distance of Visa, which says its network can handle 24,000 TPS.
Tuesday
Tutorials
- How to Get Your Future Yield Now With Alchemix: In TradFi, investors use interest and dividends as a source of income. However, these payments are usually quarterly at best. Alchemix is a DeFi protocol that flips this concept on its head by providing the ability to get your future yield now. Alchemix vaults act as the hub to generate yield advances in the form of a synthetic derivative called alUSD pegged to $1.
Dives
- PancakeSwap Total Value Locked Overtakes Uniswap’s: PancakeSwap, a Binance Smart Chain automated market maker, surpassed Uniswap’s total value locked for the first time yesterday hitting $7.87B, a mark $100M higher than the Ethereum AMM. That makes the BSC-based AMM the largest by assets locked and daily trading volume.
- DeFi is Becoming a Consumer Product: DeFi is catching the attention of the mainstream consumer, with more apps than ever launching with the end consumer in mind.
Bytes
- Buyout Period for Top-Notch NFT Bundle B20 is Live: The buyout contract for the B20 NFT bundle is live, meaning that 20 single-edition Beeple NFTs are back on the market in a winner-takes-all lot.
- Step Finance Raises $2M in Round Led by Alameda: Step Finance, a Solana app which aggregates users’ DeFi activities across the blockchain’s open finance ecosystem has raised $2M in a round led by Alameda Research, Three Comma Capital and others.
Links
- ConsenSys Raises $65M From JPM, Mastercard, and Others: Decrypt
- DeFi mutual fund Sheesha Finance raises $9.4M: Cointelegraph
- Ether Freakers Decentralized Game
💜Community Love💜
Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!
youtu.be🔮 The Mystical World of Magic Money: Anchor, Alchemix, and GyroscopeIn last week’s episode we ventured into the dark forest where nothing at all was what it seemed and unimaginable horrors lurked round every corner. Well this...3:32 PM ∙ Apr 18, 20215Likes1Retweet
Getty Hill @getty_hillLoving the addition of Inbox Dump by @DefiantNews3:37 PM ∙ Apr 18, 2021
i wish i could use my real name @iwishicoulduse1@DefiantNews @AlchemixFi @anchor_protocol @GyroStable @DirSchmidt Your videos are amazing! How are they not breaking the internet??3:14 PM ∙ Apr 18, 2021
The Defiant @DefiantNews🏦 20% fixed yield on $UST from @anchor_protocol 🧙 Loans that repay themselves from @AlchemixFi 🌀A stablecoin purportedly designed to weather all market conditions @gyrostable How is such monetary magic possible?🤔 @DirSchmidt dives in👇 https://t.co/1J8s8u15o81:47 PM ∙ Apr 18, 202147Likes4Retweets
ALP @alpgasimovEvery week we publish around 150 minutes of content on the @DefiantNews Youtube page covering #DeFi, #crypto, and the general #Blockchain space. Consider this thread a catalogue and a refresher of what we produce each week in chronological order:12:12 PM ∙ Apr 18, 202112Likes1Retweet
Dom @dimelodom@Panterra0x My favorite right now is @DefiantNews interview with Do- simple & effective vision from the Terra squad7:49 PM ∙ Apr 17, 2021
youtu.be🔮 The Mystical World of Magic Money: Anchor, Alchemix, and GyroscopeIn last week’s episode we ventured into the dark forest where nothing at all was what it seemed and unimaginable horrors lurked round every corner. Well this...11:35 PM ∙ Apr 16, 2021138Likes24Retweets
tinyurl.comMakerDAO Will Soon Hold Real-World Assets as Collateral - The Defiant - DeFi NewsA MakerDAO proposal to accept an ERC-20 token which represents shares in a pool of real estate assets as collateral in the Maker protocol passed yesterday. The use of real-world assets in DeFi is a first and is a major step in bringing the trillions of dollars worth of physical assets into the open …5:09 PM ∙ Apr 16, 202131Likes8Retweets
The Defiant @DefiantNews🎙 "We're Lifting Barriers For Outside Users; If You Allocate Capital in a Vacuum, It's Kind of Meaningless" says @d0h0k1 #DeFi can be daunting for beginners, but @terra_money has managed to attract non-crypto users. How did they do it? 📺Listen now👇 https://t.co/Tdq8rH8m1w12:50 AM ∙ Apr 17, 2021
youtube.com🔮 The Mystical World of Magic Money: Anchor, Alchemix, and GyroscopeIn last week’s episode we ventured into the dark forest where nothing at all was what it seemed and unimaginable horrors lurked round every corner. Well this...8:44 PM ∙ Apr 16, 20217Likes3Retweets
Lt. C⬢l. Linkarski @LtColLinkarskiIf you still read @Cointelegraph you’re NGMI All my frens read @decryptmedia and @DefiantNews4:42 AM ∙ Apr 16, 202140Likes1Retweet
Samantha Yap 叶惠玲 @samanthawyapNow that @coinbase’s $COIN is public, the tide will turn to #DeFi ✨ @The_True_DanK articulates it well here 👇🏻 via @DefiantNews thedefiant.io/coinbase-listi…
thedefiant.ioCoinbase Listing Highlights DeFi Will Shape the Crypto Exchange’s Future - The Defiant - DeFi NewsWhile BTC has shaped Coinbase’s past, it will most likely be decentralized finance that makes the biggest impact on the largest US exchange’s future.8:34 PM ∙ Apr 14, 20214Likes1Retweet
thedefiant.ioNFTs Will Be Far Bigger as Digital Clothes Than as Collectibles - The Defiant - DeFi NewsIf we want NFTs to go mainstream, we need to think much bigger, past digital collectibles, towards the far, far larger opportunity of digital clothes.11:13 AM ∙ Apr 14, 202138Likes12Retweets
thedefiant.ioDefiant Media Raises $1.4M to Build the Financial Information Platform for Web3 - The Defiant - DeFi NewsDefiant Media Inc., the creator of The Defiant, closed a $1.4M pre-seed round to build the leading information company at the intersection of tech and finance, from investors including IDEO CoLab Ventures.2:12 AM ∙ Apr 14, 2021246Likes19Retweets
NG @Ng888888Ng❤️@CamiRusso and her team at @DefiantNews https://t.co/XXNDZg8r40
The Defiant @DefiantNewsWouldn't it be nice to have a platform that combines the @DefiantNews content that you know and love, with all the #DeFi data and metrics a Defier could ask for? 🙏🙏We have closed a $1.4M preseed round from amazing investors and angels Funding secured👇 https://t.co/fObtcOloa68:41 PM ∙ Apr 13, 2021
George Boya @BoyaGeorgeA great presentation of Artvatars by @DefiantNews🚀 @artvatars is launching tomorrow, Wednesday April 14 7am PST | 10am EST | 4pm CET Info: artvatars.com discord.gg/artvatars #artvatars #NFT #NFTs youtube.com/watch?v=jQCXmi…
youtube.comHow to bridge assets from Ethereum to Polygon // A look into Artvatarshttps://polygon.technology/Our sponsorshttps://balancer.finance/https://solana.com/defiantFollow The Defianthttp://thedefiant.substack.comhttps://twitter.co...5:45 PM ∙ Apr 13, 20216Likes1Retweet
The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access, while free signups get only part of the content. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button below ($15/mo, $150/yr).
