📈DeFi Assets Outperform: DeFi Week of July 16

DeFi tokens are riding high despite the broader crypto markets pulling back.

Happy weekend Defiers!

It was a bullish week for DeFi tokens, which make up half of the 10 best-performing assets among the top 100 crypto assets for the past seven days, despite the broader crypto markets pulling back.

DeFi assets were still riding high from last week’s ruling in the SEC vs Ripple case, when a U.S. court determined digital assets do not automatically comprise securities even if sold via a securities contract.

U.S. lawmakers are now preparing to review two important digital asset bills next Wednesday. The bills offer regulatory recommendations for stablecoins, guidance for determining when digital assets are securities, and propose a joint SEC-CFTC advisory commission.

Competition between Ethereum scaling teams continues to heat up, with Matter Labs shipping a new proving system for its flagship Layer 2, zkSync Era. Matter Labs said the new system improves decentralization by reducing provers’ computation load by 80%, adding that even CPUs can support the new system.

Polygon Labs published its final announcement outlining initial proposals for the “Polygon 2.0” roadmap. Polygon 2.0, a unified ecosystem of Polygon Layer 2s, will feature the project’s first foray into community governance, transitioning away from Delegated Proof of Stake. Polygon also announced it will replace MATIC with POL, a new token that would accrue staking rewards.

Lens, the social media protocol from Aave, launched its v2 iteration. The revamped protocol offers new functionality for developers, such as enabling external smart contract execution from within Lens v2.

MetaMask, the popular Ethereum wallet from Consensys, also hopes to court developers. In an exclusive interview, MetaMask told The Defiant its long-awaited Snaps protocol will launch before 2024. Snaps allows developers to build out new wallet experiences on top of MetaMask, such as cross-chain interactions with any network and advanced security features.

And in this week’s podcast, Nicolas Liochon, global lead for Linea at Consensys, walks us through what makes Linea different from other Layer 2 rollups.

Enjoy!

Podcast

Linea is a new ZK Rollup from Consensys - but how is it different from the others?

This week, Cami Russo was joined by Nicolas Liochon, the global lead for Linea, the new zkEVM rollup from Consensys.

Rollups play a crucial role in scaling Ethereum as they reduce computational load on the main network by processing transactions off-chain. The two leading types of rollup on Ethereum are Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups and Optimistic Rollups, and Linea is the latest ZK Rollup to launch.

In the conversation, we explore how Linea sets itself apart in the already highly competitive Ethereum Layer 2 landscape, in addition to Nicolas’s background in crypto and web3.

Friday

Upcoming Congressional Meeting To Review Two Digital Asset Bills U.S. lawmakers will convene for a “markup” on July 26 to discuss two bills concerning digital assets and stablecoins. The meeting follows a critical ruling in the Ripple vs SEC case.
MetaMask To Support Cross-Chain Interactions With 'Snaps' By 2024 MetaMask, the popular Ethereum wallet from ConsenSys, plans to launch its long-awaited Snaps protocol before the end of 2023, allowing wallet users to access new applications and execute cross-chain protocol interactions.
DEXs Account For 5% Of Global Stablecoin Trading: Kaiko Decentralized exchanges account for just 5% of global stablecoin trading, despite the figure spiking to 45% in March amid drama in the U.S. banking sector. Stablecoin trading also makes up 74% of total activity on centralized exchanges.

Thursday

Utopia Labs Enables USDC ‘Transfers’ to US Bank Accounts Utopia Labs, a Paradigm-backed payments firm, launched a new service allowing companies to send USDC to U.S. bank accounts on July 20. Utopia Labs hopes the service will reduce friction when transacting between the web3 and legacy financial ecosystems.
Lens Doubles Down On Developer-First Focus With v2 Iteration Lens, the highly-anticipated social media protocol from Aave, announced its v2 iteration on July 15. V2 to bolster Lens’ composability with external protocols and appsTs with the end goal of enabling “two-way [interactions] between any type of web application and Lens.”

Wednesday

Polygon Proposes Revamped Governance Model For 2.0 Roadmap Polygon Labs, a leading Ethereum scaling team, proposed a new governance strategy as part of its Polygon 2.0 overhaul. Polygon named managing its community treasury, system smart contracts, and core protocol as three core “pillars” of governance moving forward.

Tuesday

DeFi Assets Consolidate Gains As Market Cools Top DeFi assets are on a tear despite the broader markets pulling back since July 14, with $60M wiped from the combined cryptocurrency market cap in five days. SNX led the charge with a 30% gain, ranking as the second-best performing digital asset among the top 100 over the past seven days.
Uniswap Releases DEX Aggregator Protocol Uniswap Labs, the company behind DeFi’s leading decentralized exchange, unveiled its second major product in roughly one month. UniswapX is a DEX aggregator protocol offering gasless swaps and MEV protection.
OpenSea Suspends Trading Of EtherFi NFTs Liquid staking protocol EtherFi released an open letter condemning OpenSea after the NFT marketplace suspended trading for EtherFi’s staked ETH-backed NFT collection. EtherFi told The Defiant the collection was suspended despite the two firms collaborating on a marketing campaign for its launch.

Monday

Layer 2 Network zkSync Era Upgrades Proving System Matter Labs, the team behind zkSync Era, Ethereum’s third-largest Layer 2 network, shipped an upgraded proving system for the first time since launching zkSync Lite in mid-2020. Matter Labs said the new system will bolster decentralization by reducing provers’ computational requirements by 80%.
Polygon Introduces New POL Token to Replace MATIC Polygon Labs, an Ethereum scalability team, announced a revamp of its MATIC token – which boasts a $7B market cap. The new POL token would accrue staking fees from securing Polygon’s proof-of-stake chain.