🦄 Recap: DeFi Week of April 19

Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend. Summing up the past week: It was a volatile week in crypto markets with ETH climbing to a new all time high of over $2,600 only to slide down closer to $2,300. Our Defiant Weekly video goes into liquidato...

Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend.

Summing up the past week: It was a volatile week in crypto markets with ETH climbing to a new all time high of over $2,600 only to slide down closer to $2,300. Our Defiant Weekly video goes into liquidators who profit off this volatility. Beyond the rollercoaster ride, we caught up on Ethereum’s strengthening fundamentals. Wyoming passed a bill that addresses the legal treatment of DAOs, while Kevin Nielsen of Boardroom wrote the must-read ecosystem map on decentralized organizations, and Jake Ryan of Tradecraft Capital wrote a very actionable piece on what gives governance tokens value.

Booming activity finally stretched the limits of Binance Smart Chain, causing its most popular app PancakeSwap to slow down. Also in BSC, the latest of the chain’s pump and dump coins Safemoon made it all the way to TikTok, whiplashing buyers as it soared and crashed. And speaking of going viral, meme-makers are finally able to cash out on their popularity by selling NFTs of their images — the woman in the “Overly Attached Girlfriend” meme and the makers of Nyan Cat are just two of many getting hefty paychecks.

There were a few projects updates, with Balancer V2 launching, Ampleforth releasing the FORTH token, Synthetix adding syntheitx assets of FAANG stocks, Curve launching on Polygon (Layer 2), Liquity attracted $2B in two weeks, and NFTHub releases a landing pad for the metaverse. We have guides on how to join the Gyroscope testnet in our Tuesday Tutorials, and how to yield farm on BarnBridge in this week’s Defiant Degens.

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).

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🙌 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: Liquidators, The Silent Killers of DeFi

📺 First Look: EPNS, Ethereum Push Notifications

📺 Quick Take: Redeem Money From The Future with Flashstake

Tutorials

🧑‍🏫 Defiant Degens: How to Master Tranche Lending and Farm Yield on BarnBridge

Opportunities: BarnBridge offers 4 tranche lending products for stablecoins and 3 farming opportunities to earn BOND. Be aware all these estimated rates change constantly, unless you purchase senior bonds and get a guaranteed fixed rate for the life of the bond.

4.52% APY -> USDC Senior
6.78% APY -> DAI Senior
4.47% APY -> USDC Junior
6.68% APY -> DAI Junior
45.57% APY -> SMART Yield staking (for USDC Juniors only)
54% APY -> Staking BOND in BarnBridge DAO
133% APY -> Staking BOND/USDC LP

👉 READ THE FULL TUTORIAL HERE, IN THEDEFIANT.IO 👈

📺 Tutorial: How to Join the Gyroscope Testnet

DeFi 101

🗺 What is a DAO? Mapping Out the Ecosystem

Kevin Nielsen of Boardroom writes an in-depth introductory piece on what DAOs are, why they are important, and what the ecosystem looks like today, including the different projects and their categories, and the infrastructure stack. It should be the starting point for anyone wanting to learn about this radical new way of human coordination.

👉 READ IT HERE, IN THEDEFIANT.IO 👈

🗳 Governance Tokens: Investing in the Building Blocks of a New Economy

Jake Ryan of Tradecraft Capital writes an introductory oiece of governance tokens, the tools that allow individuals to participate in DAOs via governance, gain exposure to a protocol’s success, and sometimes even directly benefit from their revenue. The piece dives into the different characteristics that make governance tokens valuable.

👉 READ IT HERE, IN THEDEFIANT.IO 👈

📬 Inbox Dump #5

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.

Friday

Dives

Wyoming is Turning Into the Delaware of Digital Assets: Governor Mark Gordon signed bill SF38 into law on Wednesday, making Wyoming the first state in the country to address the legal treatment of decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs. SF38 addresses liability concerns around DAOs by applying a limited liability company (LLC) status to them, effective July 1st.

Markets

ETH Roller-Coaster Frays Nerves as Fundamentals Strengthen: It’s been a wild week for the DeFi traders, with ETH experiencing a mini bear-bull cycle over the course of just a few days.

Bytes

Safemoon Not So Safe? BSC Token Jumps By Over 10 Times, Then Halves: Safemoon, a Binance Smart Chain token, soared by 16 times in the past week driven by TikTok videos, only to immediately whiplash holders as it went on a dizzying ride that has halved its value.
BSC Congestion is Slowing Down PancakeSwap: PancakeSwap, the leading Binance Smart Chain application in terms of market capitalization, blamed recent performance woes on an overloaded blockchain.
Ampleforth’s Forth Governance Token Rallies After Launch: Ampleforth, the rebasing token which aims to create a currency with stable purchasing power by programmatically managing supply, has launched its FORTH governance token.

Links

Wednesday

Markets

DeFi is Deleveraging After Liquidations: Decentralized lending markets experienced tumultuous action during the weekend. On-chain activity points to markets deleveraging and investor repositioning from lenders to yield aggregators amid the crash.

Dives

EasyFi Loses Over $60M in Admin Key Hack: EasyFi, a Compound Finance fork launched directly on the Polygon Layer 2 Network, suffered a major hack on Monday, losing over $60M of the project’s EASY tokens and also $6M of users’ provided liquidity.

Bytes

Synthetix to Add Tokens Linked to FAANG Stocks: Synthetix, the synthetic derivatives protocol, will launch its Alnilam update tomorrow which includes three Synthetix Improvement Proposals (SIPs) and adds support for eight new assets, including tokens tracking prices for FAANG stocks –– Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google
Injective Protocol Raises $10M at $1B Valuation: Injective Protocol, a decentralized derivatives exchange, said it raised a $10M at a $1B valuation from investors including Pantera Capital, BlockTower, Hashed, Cadenza Ventures (formerly BitMex Ventures), among others.

Links

Tuesday

Dives

Meme-Makers Cash in On Internet Fame With NFTs: Before, going viral offered didn’t much more than internet fame. Now, it’s providing the humans behind the memes with hefty paydays, thanks to NFTs.
Ether Locked in DeFi at All-Time High After Market Crash: An all-time high of 11.2M Ether is locked in DeFi protocols, despite a weekend sell-off. Liquidations spiked, while tokens continue sliding.
Liquity Attracts Over $2.4B in Assets in Two Weeks: Liquity Network, relatively unknown before its April 5 launch, now has $2.4B of ETH locked, placing it 11th among all Ethereum protocols, ahead of open finance mainstays Synthetix and Bancor.

Bytes

Curve Finance Launches on Layer 2 Solution Polygon: DeFi projects’ moves to Ethereum Layer 2s are coming weekly now with Curve Finance joining Polymarket and Aave in the quest for scalability.
Balancer V2 is Now Live Along With $2M Bug Bounty: Balancer Protocol’s updated smart contracts, which allow for users to further customize token pools, are now public and open source. The project is offering a 1k ETH bug bounty to spot vulnerabilities in the code.
NFThub Launches Landing Pad for NFT Metaverse: NFThub, which describes itself as a landing pad to navigate the NFT metaverse, emerged from “stealth Beta” this week with the launch of its governance token $gNFT.

💜Community Love💜

Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!

Naseon Mieos @NMieos Incredible job @DefiantNews Magic Money: the mystical world of Anchor, Alchemix, and Gyroscope youtu.be/Qjly4GAbwq0 via @YouTube

youtu.beMagic Money: the mystical world of 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...12:51 PM ∙ Apr 25, 20216Likes3Retweets

DeFi Resources 👨🏼‍🌾 apyvision.crypto 🚀 @DeFiResources Here's an excellent article that maps out the DAO ecosystem - it can certainly help communicate use cases to those unfamiliar with these novel entity structures. bit.ly/3aCI61g #DeFi #DeFiNews #governance #DAO #DAOs @kevinknielsen via @DefiantNews

bit.lyWhat is a DAO? Mapping Out the Ecosystem - The Defiant - DeFi NewsThis article offers a 10,000ft view on the ‘Decentralized {Autonomous} Organization’, or DAO tooling and project landscape. It’s intended to be complementary to introductory posts like Linda Xie’s ‘A beginner’s guide to DAOs’. The goal is to help contributors and participants better acclimate themse…1:00 AM ∙ Apr 25, 202110Likes3Retweets

Jake Ryan @TradecraftJake My new piece in @DefiantNews is on what gives governance tokens value and how to invest in the building blocks of a new #economy — Take a read! 👇thedefiant.io/governance-tok…

thedefiant.ioGovernance Tokens: Investing in the Building Blocks of a New Economy - The Defiant - DeFi NewsOne of the most important building blocks in DeFi is the governance token. When blockchains have on-chain governance, there is no built-in central entity that controls how any given upgrade is managed.11:14 PM ∙ Apr 24, 202119Likes6Retweets

Zemm @Zemm_NFT Coordinape representing on the "DAO Infrastructure Stack," thank you @kevinknielsen & @DefiantNews - great article covering all the bases of this soon to be ubiquitous field. thedefiant.io/what-is-a-dao-… 🙊 @coordinape

4:41 AM ∙ Apr 24, 20219Likes2Retweets

Jonathan Lieberman @JonathanLiebermBinance Not-So-Smart Chain. Great piece from @DefiantNews on #BSC overload, quoting @peter_szilagyi on the geth fork, @PancakeSwap and spamming arbitrage bots.

thedefiant.ioBinance Smart Chain Congestion is Slowing Down PancakeSwap - The Defiant - DeFi NewsPancakeSwap, the leading Binance Smart Chain application in terms of market capitalization, blamed recent performance woes on an overloaded blockchain.10:47 PM ∙ Apr 23, 202129Likes4Retweets

NiftyTable @TableNiftyThose few include @NFTSiblings, @garyvee and @DefiantNews, the last of whom are the visionary creators of The Greatest NFT Film That Will Be Ever Made (that's not an exaggeration, you really have to watch this film)

youtube.comThe Greatest NFT Film Ever MadeIt’s official. NFTs have exploded. Prompting a wild free for all on one side with numbers you can scarcely believe and deep and justified skepticism on the o...4:02 PM ∙ Apr 23, 202148Likes1Retweet

🤖 Leshner @rleshner🚨 EOA addresses make dangerous admins. Avoid at all costs. ⚙️ Multi-sig admins decrease the risk of a compromised EOA. ⏳ Timelock contracts decrease the risk of compromised admin, and allow users to ragequit. 🗳️ On-chain governance systems add the most robustness.

The Defiant @DefiantNewsThe latest #DeFi hack saw over $60M taken from @EasyfiNetwork🦹 According to the team, the protocol's admin keys were compromised, allowing the attacker to access $60M of $EASY tokens and $6M of users' liquidity☹️ Read the whole story👇 https://t.co/VsgsX9ZwfS https://t.co/HbBB8XgUBK 8:29 PM ∙ Apr 21, 202143Likes8Retweets

Other Mike 🌖 @OtherMike2This is the video that started the ball rolling for me in Terra. I started with earn's 20% fixed APR. Next I learned about staking anc/ust. Then I learned how the money market works with borrowing. Been hooked since. I suggest this to anyone who is new to defi.

The Defiant @DefiantNewsIt's sometime in the near future. We're on the 🌜, in a Lambo. Yes, we made it. But now what? 🤔 Are we going to cash out into fiat or cling onto another bear market? Or maybe there's another way, something more sensible... #DeFIRE 🔥 Watch now👇🏽5:00 PM ∙ Apr 21, 202140Likes8Retweets

DeFi Dad ⟠ defidad.eth @DeFi_Dad Learn how to lock in fixed rates lending stablecoins with @Barn_Bridge and for those in junior tranches earning variable rates, earn $BOND up to 44% APY. 🌉4 lending products 🌉3 farms ⚡️To become a BOND/USDC LP, go to @zapper_fi: zapper.fi/invest?protoco…

The Defiant @DefiantNews🎙️ In today's Defiant: #TuesdayTuts 👨‍🌾Yield Farming on @Barn_Bridge #DefiantDegens 🌀 @GyroStable testnet ⚡️ @CurveFinance launches on @0xPolygon ⚡️ @LiquityProtocol attracts $2.4B TVL ⚡️ @BalancerLabs V2 goes live ⚡️ @NFThub launches $gNFT Read more👇 https://t.co/rE4qVFmf0n https://t.co/PZXzK6mFMG2:47 PM ∙ Apr 21, 202159Likes10Retweets

BarnBridgΞ 🌉 @Barn_Bridge Great write up by @DefiantNews on @Barn_Bridge 🙌 thedefiant.io/defiant-degens…

thedefiant.ioDefiant Degens: How to Master Tranche Lending and Farm Yield on BarnBridge - The Defiant - DeFi NewsBarnBridge has made waves launching their first tranche lending product just over a month ago and since then have attracted a little over $52M TVL, aside from the hundreds of millions deposited prior to this as part of a liquidity mining program for their governance token BOND.9:26 PM ∙ Apr 20, 202149Likes19Retweets

jorn @jorndegen @DefiantNews shows how to do it: FLASHSTAKE !!! youtube.com/watch?v=csEvTa… see -> @Flashstake

youtube.comRedeem Money From The Future with FlashstakeLinkshttps://flashstake.iohttps://xord.com/publications/flash-ecosystem-an-in-depth-explanationhttps://medium.com/bombx/the-tokenization-of-time-rise-risks-a...8:12 PM ∙ Apr 19, 2021

Zachary Dash $XIO 🚀 @ZacharyDashI get really particular with how people describe @Flashstake but @DefiantNews + @DirSchmidt hit this one out of the park. Perfect amount of structure and tech puns 👏 Well done and well researched team!

The Defiant @DefiantNewsTomorrow's yield paid today? #DeFi projects continue to test the boundaries of behavioural economics with advances on future yields🤯 In this #QuickTake, @DirSchmidt explores @Flashstake, which offers a fixed yield up-front when you lock your assets👇 https://t.co/VhuWNoA8uM 8:05 PM ∙ Apr 19, 202125Likes6Retweets

Joe Saul-Sehy @AverageJoeMoney Do You Really Own Your Virtual Investments? During our @SBenjaminsCast headlines segment we'll discuss a @DefiantNews article explaining why some #TopShot users are experiencing several days of delays in the withdrawal of funds from the dapp. 🎧 →buff.ly/2QccSHm

3:56 PM ∙ Apr 19, 20215Likes1Retweet

Other Mike 🌖 @OtherMike2I've been shilling this one alot the past few days. I missed something the first time. There is gold here in here: @d0h0k1 doesn't see IBC/Cosmos as an interoperability solution as much as a scaling solution. What does that mean? 👇 🧵 1/7

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/Tdq8rH8m1w 3:13 PM ∙ Apr 19, 202160Likes14Retweets

R. @atomizedbitsIf you're into DeFi, 💯 without Q. you need be be following @CamiRusso and @DefiantNews - So excited to see them grow their reach, content and influence. A platform to watch! 🚀🚀🚀8:22 AM ∙ Apr 19, 202134Likes3Retweets

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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).