Recap: DeFi Week Dec. 18

Hello Defiers! Happy Weekend!

Two weeks to go, and it’s safe to say many Defiers will be delighted to turn the page on this unhinged year. DeFi was tested like never before, and for all of the disasters that struck — the bear market, Terra, SBF — decentralized finance remains focused and industrious.

Breakthroughs

And let’s not forget the breakthroughs: The Merge, the advent of real world assets and DeFi + TradFi, and the resilience of a market that’s had everything thrown at it and continues to chug along.

To make sense of the madness, The Defiant produced our second annual tour of the year that was, and a look at the year to come. Our indomitable staff writers — Owen Fernau, Aleks Gilbert, and Sam Haig — have worked tirelessly this month to roll out a series of stories beginning Dec. 26 that will cover everything from Ethereum’s historic upgrade to the crypto rogues who stole the headlines to developments on the regulatory and technological fronts.

The Defiant will also unveil the Defier of the Year and the Founder of the Year next week!

News

In the meantime, the news rolls on and this week there was plenty to cover. Owen Fernau reported on how prevalent wash trades have become in the NFT game; Sam Haig covered how Binance’s U.S. affiliate is poised to take over the remnants of Voyager Digital; and Aleks Gilbert wrote about how Aztec’s $100M fundraise led by a16z shows the massive bets VCs are making on ventures that depend on crypto privacy, which is under increasing threat by regulators.

Audio-Visual

And… Defiant Chiefess Cami Russo sat down with Adam Cochrane, the notorious Twitter thread maestro and investor at Cinneamhain Ventures, to chat about his Christmas shopping list, FTX, and his shorting list.

The Defiant YouTube channel brimmed with episodes on — what else? — SBF’s extradition, Binance’s perils, and Grayscale’s game plan.

Great stuff! Enjoy!

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Defiant Podcast

Notorious Threadooor Adam Cochran Explains Crypto Shopping and Shorting List

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Adam Cochran, an investor at Cinneamhain Ventures, who’s probably most known for his extensive Twitter threads.

We kick off our conversation by asking Adam if he expected to turn into a meme in the crypto community for his long-winded tweets.

The primary driver behind crypto this year has been traditional macro markets. Crypto markets have been at the mercy of inflation and rising interest rates and the FED recently raised interest rates by half a point. Adam talks about where he thinks rates and inflation are headed and how will that impact crypto.

Finally, Adam shares some trade ideas for 2023.

Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:

Defiant Video

Recovering Cash Is Easy. Crypto, Not So Much

Can CZ’s Binance weather the storm?

Grayscale’s Got a Plan

Best of the Week

DAO Drama

Sushi Requires ‘Immediate Action’ To Bolster Revenue

Head Chef Grey Proposes Diverting Transaction Fees to Treasury From Stakers

By Samuel Haig

No sooner had Sushi found its footing after a crazy year when it happened again — drama. A governance proposal by Jared Grey, the No. 5 decentralized exchange’s new head chef, has divided the community as its members vote on Monday.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Privacy Front

Aztec Bets Financial Privacy Will Weather Crypto War

Andreessen Undeterred by Regulatory Threats as His Firm Leads $100M Round in ‘VPN for Ethereum’

By Aleksandar Gilbert

Aztec founders Zac Williamson and Joe Andrews got the venture firm they wanted. They’re counting on it for the fight ahead. “Marc Andreessen, he’s fought this battle already,” Williamson said, referring to the founder of venture capital firm a16z. “He fought the first generation of this battle in the 90s when basic cryptography was legally considered a munition.”

Read the full story in The Defiant

NFT Marketplaces

Wash Trading Accounted For Over Half Of NFT Volume in 2022: Report

Token Incentives From LooksRare and X2Y2 Drove Surge In Activity

By Owen Fernau

January of 2022 could be called the glory days of NFT trading. Trading volumes spiked to roughly $20B on the month, an all-time high and level that many participants in the space undoubtedly wish to return to.

However, new findings by hildobby, a pseudonymous researcher known for their proficiency with on-chain analytics, tell a different story about that time — roughly 80% of trades in January 2022 were wash trades.

Read the full story in The Defiant

FTX Crisis

FTX Finds $1B in Hundreds of Company Bank Accounts

New Management Corral Assets Under Bankruptcy Process as SBF Returns to U.S.

By Samuel Haig

FTX, the insolvent CeFi exchange, has unearthed $1B worth of assets including $720M in cash stored in hundreds of bank accounts, the company said in a court hearing on Tuesday.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Opinion

It May Take Time But Web3 is Coming — History Tells Us So

Technology Revolutions Take Time to Break Through and Web3’s Promise Remains Strong

By Jsson Xia

This year we’ve watched web3 morph from a hyped new chapter for the internet into an empty promise. The bear market and the series of crypto scandals — Terra, Celsius, FTX — did much of the damage.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Friday

News

• Real World Assets Poised to Be DeFi Growth Engine: Coinbase The push to marry DeFi with real world assets just got a big boost.

• Gensler Vows to Intensify Crypto Crackdown Calling crypto a casino, Gary Gensler, the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, warned Thursday that the crypto crackdown is just getting started.

• MetaMask Swap Expands To Arbitrum and Optimism Leading Web3 wallet provider MetaMask’s inbuilt swap feature now supports two Layer-2 blockchains: Arbitrum and Optimism. Swaps are also integrated into its recently launched Portfolio dApp.

• Stablecoin Volume Hits Record High of $7.4T in 2022 Despite the crypto market turmoil of 2022, stablecoins set a new record total settlement volume this year, beating out every major credit card provider except for Visa, according to data from CoinMetrics.

Thursday

News

• Wash Trading Accounted For Over Half Of NFT Volume in 2022: Report January of 2022 could be called the glory days of NFT trading. Trading volumes spiked to roughly $20B on the month, an all-time high and level that many participants in the space undoubtedly wish to return to.

• SBF’s Inner Circle Is Cooperating with Prosecutors Two of the closest confidants of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried are cooperating with federal prosecutors and have pleaded guilty to criminal charges, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said Tuesday night.

Wednesday

News

• FTX Finds $1B in Hundreds of Company Bank Accounts FTX, the insolvent CeFi exchange, has unearthed $1B worth of assets including $720M in cash stored in hundreds of bank accounts, the company said in a court hearing on Tuesday.

• ApeCoin DAO Set to Cut Ties with Administrator Over Fees Decentralized organizations run entirely on blockchains have been one of crypto’s most promising, but also most challenging applications.

• Uniswap Allies With MoonPay to Bolster Debit Card Transfers In a deal designed to grow its fiat business, Uniswap Labs, the team behind the No. 1 decentralized exchange by trade volume, joined forces with MoonPay, a crypto payments provider, the companies announced Tuesday.

Opinion

• It May Take Time But Web3 is Coming — History Tells Us So This year we’ve watched web3 morph from a hyped new chapter for the internet into an empty promise. The bear market and the series of crypto scandals — Terra, Celsius, FTX — did much of the damage.

Tuesday

News

• Sushi Requires ‘Immediate Action’ To Bolster Revenue No sooner had Sushi found its footing after a crazy year when it happened again — drama. A governance proposal by Jared Grey, the No. 5 decentralized exchange’s new head chef, has divided the community as its members vote on Monday.

• Grayscale To Consider Tender Offer If ETF Conversion Fails Grayscale Investments may seek to launch a tender offer for GBTC shares in the event a court rejects the company’s attempt to turn the world’s largest publicly traded crypto fund into an ETF.

• Binance Affiliate Poised to Acquire Stricken Voyager for $1B Binance.US, an affiliate of the No. 1 crypto exchange, has won the bidding for Voyager Digital, the digital assets company that went bankrupt in July, the company said on Monday.

• Solana DEX Raydium Hacked for $2.2M Raydium, a decentralized exchange on the Solana blockchain, was exploited Friday morning for more than $2M.

Privacy Front

• Aztec Bets Financial Privacy Will Weather Crypto War Aztec founders Zac Williamson and Joe Andrews got the venture firm they wanted. They’re counting on it for the fight ahead.

• Tornado Cash Passes First Governance Proposal Since Sanctions Tornado Cash, a privacy protocol which allows users to obscure the flow of crypto assets, has passed its first governance proposal since the U.S. Treasury Department levied sanctions on it in August.

DeFi+TradFi

• Visa Unveils Plans For Auto-Payments From Self-Custodied Wallets Paying bills with crypto while on holiday may soon be getting easier. On Dec. 19, payments giant Visa shared plans for auto-payments on StarkNet, a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum.

Shoutout

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Head over to Giveth to learn more and donate today. Follow them on Twitter for the latest updates!

Community Love

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

Our values at The Defiant transcend any one person✊

We're driven by the beliefs that:

🌐 The world will become increasingly decentralized

⛓️ Blockchains will be the underlying infrastructure of the global financial system

📶 Blockchains will add a value layer to the Internet pic.twitter.com/qte4OCuLwU

— The Defiant (@DefiantNews) December 17, 2022

Celebrate the holidays with The Defiant 🎄

Complete the quests and win this special Christmas themed NFT! ✨🎅

Details👇https://t.co/s2kOXsy0Hv pic.twitter.com/XIUbLpNgPE

— The Defiant (@DefiantNews) December 22, 2022

Got a great interview I did with @CamiRusso landing sometime this week.

Think it might be my favorite from this year, we talked a bit of FTX but mostly macro, long term thesis, last years shopping list, next years view.

Will be well worth watching!

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) December 17, 2022

DeFi Alpha Call Recap:https://t.co/5ZmRAmAppL

— The Defiant (@DefiantNews) December 22, 2022

gm pic.twitter.com/pvThNbtglQ

— Menyin Chang (@menyinchang) December 16, 2022

Great quick catch up on SBF arrest + congressional hearing here by @aleks_gilbert

👇https://t.co/G8eYbJCn9k@DefiantNews is pushing out daily 5min videos on the biggest news in crypto and DeFi, and you should push that subscribe button 🙂

— Camila Russo (@CamiRusso) December 15, 2022