Recap: DeFi Week of Aug. 26 🦄

Hello defiers, hope you’re all having a great weekend, (long weekend for readers in the U.S.)!

Summing up last week: Ethereans packed their bags after ETHBerlin and I dug into submitted projects and past Ethereum hackathon numbers. Compound users started voting to add two new assets to the platform, which underwent an audit that highlighted the many different risks in DeFi. A $10 million transfer for 7 cents on Ethereum showed how much better banking without banks is, than banking with banks. Dharma launched a revamped version built on top of Compound. Total value locked in DeFi climbed to a new record in ETH terms.

1. DAOs and DeFi Dominated ETHBerlin Hackathon

ETHBerlin, Ethereum’s latest hackathon, attracted 730 people and 88 project submissions, this year’s second-highest number of projects after Denver. Out of the 88 projects, about one fourth were finance related. The next biggest category was DAOs. About 410 projects have been submitted at Ethereum hackathons so far this year, on track to beat last year’s 448. (Read more)

2. Don’t Underestimate DeFi Risk

Smart contract security firm Zeppelin audited Compound, the biggest decentralized lending platform after Maker, and published its findings yesterday. There was no critical vulnerability, but the report should serve as a reminder of the risks users are dealing with in decentralized finance. (Read more)

3. $10 Million Transferred on Ethereum for 7 Cents

10 million USDC, or $10 million, were transferred between two Ethereum addresses yesterday, Etherscan shows. The transaction took seconds and cost 7 U.S. cents, a small fraction of what it would cost using traditional financial firms. (Read more)

Interview

There's a Pipeline of ETF-Like Tokens About to Drop: Synthetix's Kain Warwick

Recently, Synthetix launched its first index token, a digital assets that replicates holding a basket of tokens, in this case, a basket of exchange tokens. Synthetix founder Kain Warwich said that’s just the start. More index tokens are coming and the next one, to launch in two to three weeks, will replicate holding a basket of DeFi tokens. He also talked about new leverage tokens launching soon, which will replicate going 2x and 3x long and short bitcoin, and about a major upgrade to the platform, which will introduce futures trading. (Read more)

Daily News

Friday

• The Race for Better UX in DeFi Just Got Tighter: Dharma wants to make it easier for anybody to gain interest (and later borrow), via crypto. To do that, it released a new version of its platform.
• Total Value Locked at Record in ETH Terms: Total value held in DeFi climbed to a new record of 2.64 million ETH yesterday, according to DeFi Pulse.(read post)

Thursday

• Vote on New Compound Assets Started: Compound Finance users are voting on which two new assets will be added to the protocol. Tokens added will be able to earn interest or be used as collateral to borrow other supported tokens, such as Ether or Dai.
• The Biggest Loan on Maker is for $8 Million in Dai: Etherscan added new functionality that compiles all outstanding collateralized-debt positions on MakerDAO. The biggest loan was created about a year ago and had issued about 8.3 million Dai, worth about the same in USD. (read post)

Wednesday

• Swapping Cash for ETH at Serverless ATM: Uniswap and TrueLevel built an ATM for an ETHBerlin to create a seamless way of onboarding users into crypto.
• Another Tool to Make Sure You’re Getting the Best DeFi Rate: DeFi Saver integrated Compound Finance, dYdX and Fulcrum in a single dashboard so that users can quickly move their loans to the protocol that’s offering the best rates. (read post)

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