🛒Grocery Chain Sues Decentralized Exchange Over Trader Joe Name
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Trader Joe, the prominent Avalanche-based DEX, is facing another lawsuit from Trader Joe's, the U.S. grocery chain. The company wants Trader Joe to shut down its websites and hand over all profits generated plus compensation.
Voting for Arbitrum grant allocations has closed, with Lido narrowly missing out on 4M ARB. Lido critics are praising the outcome, warning against the protocol further extending its staking dominance.
MetaMask, the popular Ethereum wallet tapped Stripe to launch a fiat on-ramp for U.S. users. The news follows increasing integrations between MetaMask and PayPal.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charged the former CEO of the bankrupt centralized lender, Voyager Digital. The complaint accuses the previous chief executive of commingling customer assets.
Goldfinch, a real-world asset-based lending protocol, is writing down $7M of its $20M loan to Stratos, a U.S. credit fund. The company behind Goldfinsh will backstop losses suffered by affected users.
Plus, Farcaster opened its doors to permissionless onboarding, allowing any users to access the Optimism-based decentralized social protocol.
✍️ In today’s newsletter:
- Trader Joe sued over branding
- Lido left out of Arbitrum grants
- Stripe provides fiat on-ramp for MetaMask
- Former Voyager CEO charged
- Goldfinch backstops losses from Stratos loan
- Farcaster opens up to all users
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DeFi
Grocery Chain Trader Joe's Sues Avalanche DEX Again
TLDR Trader Joe's the U.S. grocery chain, is suing Trader Joe, an Avalanche-based decentralized exchange, alleging trademark infringement, cybersquatting, and unfair competition. The company hopes to force Trader Joe to shut down its website and cough up damages.
SO WHAT The news marks the second time that Trader Joe's has brought legal action against Trader Joe. A previous attempt to sieze the exchange's domain was rejected by the World Intellectual Property Organization last year.
READ MORE: Grocery Chain Trader Joe's Sues Avalanche DEX Again
Governance
Lido Misses Out As Arbitrum Grants Vote Closes
TLDR A proposal from Lido requesting 4M ARB to fuel incentives on the Arbitrum network fell short, with 43.6% of delegated votes cast in favor. Lido was among nearly 100 projects that applied for funding under Arbitrum's Short-Term Incentive Program.
SO WHAT Lido critics are celebrating the rejected proposal and decrying the project for seeking to expand its already enormous staking dominance. Lido currently controls more than 31.5% of staked Ether, with researcher warning it could threaten Ethereum's decentralization if Lido dominance exceeds 33%.
Business
MetaMask Taps Stripe For Fiat On-Ramp Servicing US Users
TLDR U.S. users can now use Stripe to purchase crypto assets with USD via the popular Ethereum wallet, MetaMask. the news comes a year and a half after Stripe first began experimenting with digital assets.
SO WHAT The news comes one month after PayPal expanded its partnership with MetaMask, signalling nascent competition among leading payments firms over web3 market share, despite being in the infancy of their digital asset foray.
READ MORE: MetaMask Taps Stripe For Fiat On-Ramp Servicing US Users
SPONSORED POST
Smart Contracts Now Live on Stellar Testnet
On Wednesday, September 20 at 1500 UTC, the Stellar Testnet successfully upgraded to Protocol 20, which introduces support for Soroban smart contracts. Developers worldwide can now access Soroban’s Turing-complete functionality to deploy and invoke DeFi protocols in a common, widely used sandbox environment.
The Stellar network has long been known for supporting connections to real-world financial infrastructure. With the Protocol 20 upgrade, the access those connections provide will combine with the innovation potential created by smart contracts to allow for something unique: cash to DeFi.
Many Stellar ecosystem projects are already poised to take advantage of the cash-to-DeFi opportunity. In a demo featured at Meridian, the annual Stellar conference, Beans, a user-friendly, consumer-facing Stellar network wallet, showed what it might look like to integrate with Blend, a Soroban-built lending protocol, to allow a user in Malawi to cash into a USDC balance via Moneygram and, in one click, deposit that balance into an interest-generating account. These types of interactions have the potential to open access to the next generation of financial infrastructure.
The Testnet upgrade is the last step before validators vote on a Mainnet upgrade, and if that vote goes through, the upgrade is immediate. The Stellar network will likely have smart contracts before the end of the year.
Regulation
CFTC Charges Former Voyager CEO With Fraud
TLDR The Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought charges against Stephen Ehrlich, the past CEO of Voyager Digital, the insolvent centralized lender. Ehrlich is accused of misrepresenting the firms operations and misappropriating client funds for risky lending activities
SO WHAT The complaint is the latest saga in the fallout from last year's catastrophic CeFi failures, with FTX's brass also on trial at the moment. Ehrlich faces separate charges from Federal Trade Commission.
Read More: CFTC Charges Former Voyager CEO With Fraud
DeFi
RWA Protocol Goldfinch Writes Down $7M of $20M Stratos Loan to $0
TLDR Goldfinch has written down $7M of a $20M loan issued to the U.S. credit fund, Stratos, with the balance now sitting at $0. However, the team behind Goldfinch will backstop losses suffered by protocol users as a result of the move.
SO WHAT While real-world assets have enjoyed a recent uptick in DeFi integrations, the drama surrounding Goldfinch's loan is a reminder of the challenges associated with bringing the asset class on-chain.
Read More: RWA Protocol Goldfinch Writes Down $7M of $20M Stratos Loan to $0
SocialFi
Farcaster Launches Permissionless Onboarding
TLDR Lido, the leading liquid staking protocol, suffered a 20 ETH slashing penalty after some of its validators managed by Launchnodes went offline. Launchnodes said the validators remain offline pending an investigation.
SO WHAT Lido will shrug off the fine, estimating 20 ETH equates to 2.25% of its daily rewards or 0.00023% of its TVL. However, the ease with which Lido can shrug off the loss will not help assuage critics of the project's sizable staking dominance.
Read More: Farcaster Launches Permissionless Onboarding
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🌍 ELSEWHERE
- Coinbase Sounds Alarm on IRS Crypto Tax Proposal (CoinDesk)
- Drama in U.S. Congress over Speaker of the House leaves crypto legislation on pause (The Block)
- French regulator sees DeFi as ‘disintermediated,’ not ‘decentralized’(Cointelegraph)