🪂DeFi Lending Posts 15-Month High

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TLDR DeFi lending activity is at a 15-month high after pushing above $6B. Aave accounts for half of outstanding loans with $3B, followed by Compound $887M.

SO WHAT The uptick in web3 lending corresponds with new year-to-date highs for leading crypto assets, indicating traders are using DeFi protocols to fund speculation. The trend follows the high-profile CeFi blowups of last year, meaning many traders are engaged in DeFi-native trading.

READ MORE: DeFi Loan Volume Climbs to Highest Since August 2022

TLDR Leading Brazilian financial services providers are making moves to embrace crypto. Itau Unibanco, the country's largest bank by assets, launched a crypto trading platform supporting BTC and ETH. Nubank, a top Latin neobank, also teamed up with Circle to roll out USDC.

SO WHAT Nubank and Itau Unibanco service 195M customers throughout Latin America combined, opening the door to new users embracing web3 assets. The news coincides with great efforts from Brazilian regulators to reign in tax evasion through crypto assets.

Read More: Brazil’s Crypto Rails Get Boost from Itau and Nubank

TLDR Ocean Mining, a Bitcoin mining pool backed by Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, launched Bitcoin client software censoring transactions involving Ordinal inscriptions. The pool likened the popular tokens to a Denial-of-Service attack exploiting a vulnerability in Bitcoin's code.

SO WHAT The news comes as inscription tokens surge in popularity, driving rampant congestion on Bitcoin while posting new all-time price highs. Ordinals allow the creation of fungible and non-fungible tokens on Bitcoin.

Read More: Bitcoin Miner Backed By Jack Dorsey Confirms It Will Censor Ordinal Inscriptions

TLDR The Arbitrum community approved a proposal to extend its Short-Term Incentives Program grants to distribute 21.5M ARB to 26 additional projects. The grantees passed the required voting threshold to receive funding in Arbitrum's first STIP round, but the 30-most popular applicants exhausted its 50M ARB allocation.

SO WHAT Arbitum hopes to "win the L2 wars" by fostering growth across its ecosystem. While Arbitrum boasts more than 50% of Layer 2 TVL, the network is facing increasing competition from zero-knowledge-based rivals by transaction throughput.

Read More: Arbitrum Greenlights Grants To Fuel Incentives For 26 Ecosystem Projects

TLDR Helium's HNT token rallied 50% in a single day after the project launched a mobile plan offering unlimited data, text, and talk for $20 per month leveraging T-Mobile's telecommunications infrastructure. HNT is now up 150% in 30 days.

SO WHAT Helium aims to leverage web3 incentives to offer unrivaled coverage throughout the United States. Users can earn MOBILE tokens as rewards for providing mobile hotspots expanding the range of Helium's reception.

Read More: HNT Rallies 50% After Helium Expands Mobile Service Nationwide

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