Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
September 19, 2025

Happy Friday, Defiers!

Today’s big story:

Wallets are becoming DeFi’s browser — what does that mean for their upcoming token launches?

In other news:

Plasma reveals launch date for mainnet beta and token
Avalanche metrics are soaring on DAT anticipation
Aster token surged on CZ shilling and perps DEX hype
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What is Whisk? Exploring the Stellar Network’s latest protocol 23 upgrade [SPONSORED]
Treehouse Finance: Bringing fixed income infrastructure to DeFi [SPONSORED]

Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

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The Stellar network has always been one of the cheapest, but now it looks like the network upgrades will halve block time and increase throughput by parallelizing Stellar core. With planned upgrades, the Stellar network will incorporate new core advancement protocols that bring this performance even closer to reality.

We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today

📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$115,975	-1.53 %
Ethereum	$4,479.28	-2.87 %
XRP	$3.01	-3.20 %
BNB	$984.07	-1.01 %
Solana	$238.39	-4.31 %

Today’s Big Story

As MetaMask Prepares Its Token, Wallets Are Becoming the Browsers of DeFi

As MetaMask and Rabby gear up for what looks increasingly inevitable —a token launch— it’s worth asking what the long-term vision for crypto wallets really is. At first glance, wallets are a place to hold tokens, sign transactions, and manage keys. But the latest product upgrades across some of the biggest players show wallets evolving into something much more ambitious: the central gateway for DeFi itself. If browsers became the window to the web, wallets may become the front door to all of decentralized finance.

A telling signal came today, when MetaMask announced it’s integrating perpetual futures via Hyperliquid. That means the world’s most widely used crypto wallet is increasingly shedding its start as passive interface and becoming closer to a trading terminal. MetaMask users could already swap in the wallet (it’s facilitated almost $40B in swap volume). Now they can trade perps.

MetaMask isn’t alone. Phantom, Solana’s leading wallet, added perps via Hyperliquid in July. Trust Wallet followed in August, rolling out perpetuals, prediction markets, and expanded token utility for its native TWT token. Together, these moves point to the same conclusion: wallets are converging on functionality that used to belong exclusively to DEXs.

It’s not hard to make the leap that they won’t limit to DEX functionality and will soon start becoming an interface to lending, borrowing and any other onchain action.

Why This Matters

The DeFi boom of 2020–21 trained users to think of DEXs as the beating heart of the industry. Uniswap, dYdX, Curve, their interfaces and composable protocols defined what it meant to “use” DeFi. But wallets will start to change that framework. By integrating trading, lending, prediction markets, and more directly into their apps, wallets are becoming less like static key managers and more like super apps.

This is power. The effect will likely be the same as it was for browsers: regardless of the seemingly infinite number of websites and services the web offers, users need to coming back to the same handful of sites. Whoever controls that interface sits on top of the value chain.

The Token Angle

This makes MetaMask’s long-rumored token even more significant. Many were quick to throw shade.

ok i’ll bite

why do wallets need a token?

— nairolf (@0xNairolf)
1:47 PM • Sep 19, 2025

But I agree with Zach Rynes, aka @ChainLinkGod, “If something has the ability to generate revenue and direct that value to a token, then there is value in having a token, no need to overcomplicate it.”

Sure, a wallet token is about rewarding early users (brace yourselves for another bout of airdrop drama btw) and potentially decentralizing governance (unlikely imo). But I think the real value is that it could become the currency of an entire platform where DeFi flows begin. It’s as if Chrome issued a token that accrues value every time you open Gmail, search on Google, or make a payment.

The Risks

But is this the future we really want? That’s unclear to me. First, wallets risk becoming choke points of power, effectively gatekeeping which protocols users see or access. This disintermediates DeFi protocols themselves, with Uniswap and Aave reduced to backend infrastructure.

Also, the integration of high-risk products like perpetuals and prediction markets directly into wallets raises questions about user protection. Wallets are traditionally seen as neutral infrastructure; once they embed speculative products, they are essentially rubber-stamping them.

The Endgame

Zooming out, the trajectory is clear. As more protocols fight for liquidity and users, wallets are positioning themselves as neutral distribution platforms. Instead of each DEX fighting for eyeballs, the action is moving to the wallet layer. Protocols will plug in via integrations, and wallets will curate or route users to the best execution.

If that vision pans out, that would mean fewer hops, fewer approvals, and a more seamless experience. For protocols, it could mean their brand gets buried under the wallet’s. And for wallets, it signals a winner-takes-most dynamic: the interface that becomes default wins the market.

MetaMask’s upcoming token is a milestone, but the bigger story is that wallets are moving further and further away from a place to self-custody keys. custodians anymore. They’re becoming the browsers of DeFi.

With love,

Cami, founder of The Defiant

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🎬WATCH

$100 Million DeFi DAT Chooses ETH | Ryan Zurrer

On the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, Vinny sat down with crypto pioneer Ryan Zurrer to explore the strategy behind Game Square, the Jerry Jones-backed media powerhouse that bet $100 million on Ethereum instead of Bitcoin.

Ryan, who co-wrote the MakerDAO whitepaper and now leads Dialectic, shares why Ethereum dominates 5 out of 6 real-world crypto use cases, from stablecoins to DeFi, and how it’s emerging as the financial substrate of the future. The conversation dives deep into the evolution of DeFi, the lessons learned from past crypto cycles, and the importance of decentralization and fair launches in building sustainable ecosystems.

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