Recap: DeFi Week of Sept. 9 🦄

Hello defiers! Hope you’re having an awesome weekend.

Summing up this past week: There were many developments to make trading more seamless. UMA, a protocol that lets anyone create synthetic assets launched on testnet, TokenSets added a new token pegged to a trading strategy, Staked released a robo-advisor for yield, and KyberSwap integrated a fiat on-ramp. Traditional financial firms also made news with Banco Santander issuing and settling a $20 million bond on Ethereum, while Nasdaq created a rather odd DeFi index. Dapper Labs is creating what some like to call an “Ethereum killer,” and Bancor announced a huge airdrop and a change to its token’s incentive mechanism and governance.

Interview

A Faulty Oracle Will be Behind The Next Big Crypto Hack

Sergey Nazarov, CEO of Chainlink, which provides oracle networks for large corporations like Google, SWIFT, and dozens of blockchain companies says Chainlink’s most recent development, Mixicles, could eliminate the need for enterprise blockchains by making smart contract transactions private. He says the next big crypto hack might happen because of a faulty oracle. And he drops the scoop that staking with Link tokens is coming soon. (Read more here)

News & Views

Friday

• CryptoKitties Team is Building its Own Blockchain: Many in the Ethereum gang criticized the move to create yet another blockchain. There’s not much substance to those objections.
• Santander Issued and Settled a $20 Million Bond on Ethereum: The 14th largest bank in the world by assets is experimenting on the Ethereum blockchain with real-life transactions.
• KyberSwap Adds a Fiat On-Ramp: KyberSwap partnered with Coindirect.com, a fiat on-ramp backed by MakerDAO, for users to buy crypto with fiat currencies and debit/credit cards.
• DeFi Now Has a Robo Advisor for Yield: Staked is launching a Robo-Advisor for Yield, or RAY, for a holders of ETH, DAI or USDC to seamlessly transfer their digital assets to the highest yield-generating platform in decentralized finance.(Read post)

Thursday

• Coinbase is Pouring 2 Million of USDC Into DeFi: Coinbase is depositing 2 million of USDC in Compound and dYdX. But much more liquidity will be needed to lower rates and attract non-speculative borrowers.
• A New Trading Strategy Wrapped in a Token Just Launched: TokenSets, which makes single digital assets that track complex trading strategies, released a new token that rebalances based on ether’s 12-day exponential moving average.
• Soon Anyone Will be Able to Build Synthetic Tokens: UMA launched a platform that lets anyone create tokens tracking the price of anything on Ethereum’s Rinkeby testnet.(Read post)

Tuesday

• Nasdaq Lists a DeFi Index With a Weird Composition: Nasdaq partnered with London-based brokerage firm EXANTE to list DeFix, a DeFi index. It’s good news except a little-known token with hardly any volume has a 20% weight in the index.
• Tether Releases Ethereum Stablecoin Pegged to the Chinese Yuan: Tether launched an an Ethereum-based ERC20 token that it says will be backed by Chinese yuan called CNHT. (Read post)

Monday

• Bancor is Airdropping the Entire BNT Token’s Ether Reserve: The decentralized liquidity network plans to airdrop all of BNT’s ether reserve to BNT holders, according to a Bancor statement shared exclusively with The Defiant.
• MakerDAO Stability Fee Cut to 14.5%: MakerDAO’s stability fee was cut by two percentage points to 14.5%. The interest rate to borrow Dai is now lower than Compound v2 for the first time ever.
• ETHBoston DeFi Winners: The sixth Ethereum hackathon this year, ETHBoston, just wrapped up. Two of the six winners were DeFi-focused; SwanDAI and ZeroPool.(Read post)

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