Recap: DeFi Week of Nov. 23 🦄

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

Summing up: The past week was rough for DeFi as the broader crypto market pulled back after rallying for much of November. Market volatility was especially high on Thanksgiving, causing the most collateral ever to be wiped out of DeFi protocols. The biggest hit was Compound Finance, which had $88.6M in Dai collateral liquidated after the stablecoin jumped on Coinbase and Uniswap, the only exchanges where the lending protocol gets its prices.

On better news, the threshold of ETH deposits for Ethereum’s proof-of-stake chain to launch next week was met, prompting ETH2 to already be among one the largest PoS blockchains. Yearn is on its way to becoming a DeFi conglomerate after merging with Pickle and Cream, but YFI isn’t celebrating. Gnosis and Idle announced their plans to decentralize governance. 12 digital NFTs linked to The Rug Pull experiment were sold in an auction; there’s a bitcoin in one of them and none of the owners have taken a peek to see if it’s in theirs (yet). This week’s podcast was with Mona El Isa, who revealed plans for Melon’s v2, and also the project’s new name.

We also kicked off our DeFi 101 series! We’ll be dropping 30 episodes, 2 minutes each explaining the DeFi basics, every two days. Subscribe so you never miss one.

That was just one week. Subscribe to get the latest DeFi news and analysis straight to your inbox and you don’t miss a thing. Free-signups get partial content, paid subscribers get everything. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button below ($10/mo, $100/yr).

Subscribe now

🙌 Together with Zerion, a simple interface to access and use decentralized finance, and 1inch.exchange v2, which aims to provide the best rates by discovering the most efficient swapping routes across all leading DEXes.

Interview

"You Can Wake Up With an Idea for a Fund and Deploy it in Minutes:" Melon's Mona El Isa

This weeks podcast episode is with Mona El Isa, the co-founder of Melon, a decentralized asset management protocol. Mona tells the story of how she started her career at Goldman Sachs trading equities, derivatives, and all kinds of financial instruments, for a decade. She then went to work with one of Goldman’s hedge fund clients, where she managed a long-short portfolio.

With all that experience and $20 million dollars from a seed investor, she ventured on her own to launch a hedge fund —but failed. The time, costs and administrative hassle were too much to handle even with an investment of millions, which in that world, is actually pretty tiny. She came to the conclusion that the next step for her would be to build a blockchain-based protocol so that nobody would have to experience what she did when trying to set up an investment fund. A platform that made the process so much cheaper, faster and easier, that anybody could become a hedge fund manager. That’s how Melon Protocol came about.

🎙Listen to this week’s podcast episode with Melon’s Mona El Isa here:

Friday

Dives

Traders Have Poured Over $200M Into New Risk Hedging DeFi Protocols in Two Weeks: There’s a new investment category rising in DeFi: yield optimized by risk level.
At least two projects, Saffron Finance and Barnbridge, have started to offer investors the ability to earn differing yields in accordance with their risk tolerance.
Yearn is Becoming a DeFi Mega Bank as YFI Slumps: Yearn Finance announced a partnership with Cream, the latest of a series of mergers and partnerships that’s making Andre Cronje’s project into a multi-purpose DeFi platform —but token holders aren’t celebrating.
Thanksgiving Day Selloff Triggers Record DeFi Liquidations: The most collateral ever was wiped out from DeFi protocols yesterday amid a broader market sell-off —so much for gloating about crypto at the Thanksgiving table.

Bytes

GnosisDAO Community Now Controls Most of its Treasury: Gnosis joins a wave of DeFi companies launching decentralized autonomous organizations to give control of their communities over governance.
Idle is Latest DeFi Protocol to Unveil DAO and Token: Idle Protocol yesterday announced it will be managed by a decentralized autonomous organization powered by the IDLE token.

Wednesday

Dives

NFT Collectors Snatch Up “Rug Pull” Art for $65k: 12 non-fungible tokens were sold for $65k in an auction yesterday. But there’s more to this collection than cool digital crypto art: There’s 1 BTC hidden in one of the pieces. Nobody, not even the owners, knows which one.

Tuesday

Dives

Eth2 is Already Among the Largest PoS Chains: Phase 0 of Eth2 is set to kick off on its targeted launch date of Dec. 1 now that more than 584,224 ETH (or about $350M) is staked in the deposit contract.
Yearn and Pickle Merge After a $20M Attack: Yearn Finance and Pickle Finance today announced a merger where the teams are consolidating resources and technical stack. Just a few days earlier, Pickle was attacked and ~$20M Dai was drained.

Bytes

Evil Pickle Jars Makes Off with $20M: The latest affected project in a series of DeFi exploits is Pickle Finance - an automated yield aggregator with a mission to make stablecoins stable.

💜Community Love💜

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

Digital Currency Group @DCGco 2/ A few of our picks: 👀BASICS: All by @aantonop- bit.ly/3fvK05i 📺WATCH: Why BTC is Better Than Gold- bit.ly/39iI3rI 📑READ: Deep-dive on BTC origin & impact from @danheld - bit.ly/2IZ3Da9 ✅COMMIT: Newsletters @DefiantNews @mikejcasey @BanklessHQ

bit.lyPlanting BitcoinBitcoin’s origin is akin to planting a tree. Satoshi’s selection of the species (code), the season (timing), soil (distribution), and gardening (community) were essential to its success.10:26 PM ∙ Nov 25, 202010Likes2Retweets

Raphael ꙳(Rezo) 👾🌶️🦩 | ₿R Capital @rezoshmAs a bonus, whoever is interested to learn basics, seek at the epic video from @DefiantNews

youtube.comThe Defiant guide to Digital Art and NFTsFollowing the great DeFi summer many have been predicting NFTs to be the tricky second album. This is a monumentally large subject with competing viewpoints ...3:03 PM ∙ Nov 29, 20204Likes1Retweet

EJ Rogers @ej__rogersGet tranched or get rekt @Barn_Bridge

The Defiant @DefiantNewsTranched yield is coming to DeFi led by @saffronfinance_ and @Barn_Bridge How these complex protocols work and a potential reason why SFI is outperforming BOND by @n2ckchong https://t.co/Ua76KP0ye0 11:24 PM ∙ Nov 27, 20207Likes1Retweet

Saffron.Spice.Defi© @SpiceDeFiReally interesting read on the 2 projects looking to give more #DeFi options in the space, Risk adjusted tranches with higher yields for the ape's, and the not so risky tranches for the grandpa's, safeguarded from potential rug's/platform failures. $SFI and $BOND helping #DeFi

ALP @alpgasimov30 films, all about DeFi, every other day

The Defiant @DefiantNewsAnd check out the kickoff of our DeFi 101 series! by @DirSchmidt, @DeFi_Dad, @alpgasimov We'll be uploading new episodes with bite-sized DeFi basics every couple of days https://t.co/Ou7LNSgbNC 8:54 PM ∙ Nov 27, 202012Likes3Retweets

DeFi Dad ⟠ defidad.eth 👁⚡️👁 @DeFi_Dad👀 Keep an eye out for this. @DirSchmidt and @alpgasimov are the dream team behind the @DefiantNews videos. 👇🏼 This will be a 30-part series (2 mins each) to bookmark and send all newcomers to #DeFi!

Richard Burton @ricburton@NathanLands @BanklessHQ and @DefiantNews is the best place to start to really learn it all properly 8:30 PM ∙ Nov 27, 2020

Monportefeuille.digital @monportefeuille Loved this conversation between @Mona_El_Isa & @CamiRusso for the @DefiantNews podcast. Fully supporting @melonprotocol in the transition to version 2, and looking forward to manage @monportefeuille 's Genesis fund on En.. argh sorry, the new platform ! 😉 shary.io/tCpwpJl

shary.io“You Can Wake Up With an Idea for a Fund and Deploy it in Minutes:” Melon’s Mona El Isa by The Defiant • A podcast on AnchorThis weeks podcast episode is with Mona El Isa, the co-founder of Melon, a decentralized asset management protocol. Mona tells the story of how she started her career at Goldman Sachs trading equities, derivatives, and all kinds of financial instruments, for a decade. She then went to work with one …4:55 PM ∙ Nov 26, 202013Likes1Retweet

BUIDLer @NonseOdionWanna stay DeFi updated? Subscribe to @BanklessHQ and @DefiantNews newsletters, watch their videos and listen to their podcasts.1:15 PM ∙ Nov 28, 2020

sanjiv ⛓ @mylastburnerthis is awesome https://t.co/PMEyite6uk

The Defiant @DefiantNewsThe Rug Pull NFT collection sold for $65k on @DontBuyMeme, with 1 BTC hidden inside By @DirSchmidt "Once you own an NFT the juice kind of goes away, how can you keep the experience of owning it alive and exciting?" This is how. Read👇 https://t.co/MNfDNPoGQ3 11:47 PM ∙ Nov 25, 2020

ET @etesenairBy far this is one of the coolest projects I've built on @ethereum. Huge credit is due to @DirSchmidt and @IAMSIMONWAN for this idea.

David Prince @RiskObscurityReally enjoyed listening to this. Thank you @Mona_El_Isa and @DefiantNews /cc @melonprotocol

Mona El Isa @Mona_El_IsaReally enjoyed this interview with @DefiantNews ... and @CamiRusso even managed to squeeze out some info our of me regarding the upcoming @melonprotocol rebrand 🤫 https://t.co/bne3wAIiW7 12:08 AM ∙ Nov 25, 20202Likes1Retweet

Amplify @A_mplify Just watched youtube.com/watch?v=7Wcz7Z… And wow I underestimated NFT's and their potential as art. 👏@DefiantNews 👏

youtube.comHe gave 50 strangers his private keys. You won’t believe what happened next.In the previous episode of The Defiant there was a QR code embedded in the video. Had you scanned that code it would have brought you into a week-long NFT-ba...10:13 PM ∙ Nov 25, 2020

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 at $10/month or $100/year, while free signups get only part of the content.

Subscribe now

About the founder and editor: Camila Russo is the author of The Infinite Machine, the first book on the history of Ethereum, and was previously a Bloomberg News markets reporter based in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires. She has extensively covered crypto and finance, and now is diving into DeFi, the intersection of the two.