🌊Regulatory Tide Turns: DeFi Week of July 23

Lawmakers in the U.S. advanced two landmark crypto bills this week.

Happy weekend Defiers!

The regulatory tide appears to be turning for crypto, with the House Financial Services Committee advancing two landmark bills dealing with digital assets.

On Wednesday, six Democrats crossed the floor to support a Republican-introduced bill proposing regulations for crypto exchanges and custodians, including the creation of a joint CFTC-SEC committee on digital assets. The committee’s Republican members then passed a bill offering regulations for stablecoin issuers and stable tokens the next day.

Italy is also making moves to embrace web3, with Bank of Italy tapping Polygon to launch an “institutional DeFi” pilot. Polygon will work with Milano Hub, Bank of Italy’s innovation hub, to develop a regulated platform for security tokens.

Securitize also announced plans to issue and eventually facilitate trade for shares in a real estate investment trust as part of a sandbox pilot overseen by Spanish regulators. The firm predicted it will receive securities licenses in Spain and the EU following the pilot.

The news follows Avalanche launching a $50M fund to foster tokenized assets on its network. Avalanche said it will deploy the funds to purchase on-chain assets including real estate, equity, and credit.

In other news, the launch of Worldcoin was met with caution and intrigue. The controversial project from OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, is airdropping tokens to users who scan their retinas to prove they are a unique person.

And crypto degens’ quest to find the absurd market has culminated in wagering on pre-recorded animal races involving rodents and snails. Hamsters.gg led the charge, but now faces rugpull accusations from blockchain sleuths.

Plus, we cover all of the action from the EthCC conference in Paris, interviewing founders and builders in attendance to find out what’s next for web3.

Enjoy!

EthCC Recap

EthCC [6] Recap - Narratives That Will Shape Ethereum's Future

This week, The Defiant recapped all of the action from the ground floor of the sixth Ethereum Community Conference in Paris. We spoke to founders and builders to learn what narratives they believe will shape the web3 landscape moving forward.

Video

👁️Worldcoin👁️ - Privacy FIRST or END of privacy?

Sam Altman’s world coin is live and has divided the crypto community once again over issues like centralization and privacy. That hasn’t stopped the project from trading at a fully diluted valuation north of $20B, however.

The Worldcoin project was announced over three years ago with the promise of increasing economic opportunity, enabling global democratic processes, and paving the way to AI-funded Universal Basic Income. With the rapid advance of AI, it’s arguably becoming more difficult to distinguish human activity from algorithms. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks Worldcoin is the solution.

So, let’s see what the eyeball-scanning crypto project known as Worldcoin has managed to achieve with the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in launching the project.

Friday

Markets Unfazed As Fed Raises Rates To 22-Year High Global markets have remained resilient despite the latest 25 basis point hike by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday pushing US interest rates to their highest level since 2001. Major equity indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are consolidating near yearly highs, while the VIX, a widely watched measure of stock market volatility, continues to trend downwards.
Collectors Snap Up Vera Molnár’s Generative NFTs On July 26, generative art pioneer Vera Molnár released an NFT collection called “Themes and Variations” in collaboration with Martin Grasser on the Sotheby’s Metaverse digital art platform. Originally minted at 1.23 ETH ($2,300), the project has taken off on secondary markets with numerous sales on OpenSea at 10 ETH ($18,750).

Thursday

U.S. House Financial Services Committee Advances Landmark Crypto Bill The House Financial Services Committee approved the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, a bill proposing clear guidelines and consumer protections for the cryptocurrency industry on July 26.
PancakeSwap Launches On ZkSync Era PancakeSwap, the leading decentralized exchange on Binance Chain, has launched on zkSync Era, an Ethereum Layer 2 network. “By leveraging Layer 2 scaling solutions, PancakeSwap is paving the way for the mass adoption of DeFi,” PancakeSwap said.

Wednesday

Bank of Italy Taps Polygon for Institutional DeFi Pilot The Bank of Italy has partnered with Polygon in a pilot program creating a regulated platform for “institutional DeFi.” Polygon Labs will work with Milano Hub, the innovation center of Italy’s central bank, to launch the “Institutional DeFi for Security Token” ecosystem.
Conic Finance Users Flee After Hackers Steal $4M Conic Finance, a protocol offering diversified exposure to liquidity pools on Curve, a popular DEX, has lost two-thirds of its deposits since suffering two exploits late last week. In a July 23 post-mortem, the team said it lost $4.1M in two separate attacks.
Avalanche Doubles Down On Asset Tokenization with $50M Fund Avalanche, a Layer 1 blockchain, has unveiled a new incentive scheme to promote asset tokenization on the network. The initiative allocates $50M to purchasing Avalanche-based tokenized assets, including real estate, equity, and commodities.
MakerDAO Considers Boosting DAI Savings Rate To 8% MKR, the governance token of MakerDAO, has surged over 25% to $1,170 in the past seven days. A post on Maker’s forum by Rune Christensen, the controversial founder of the protocol, is pushing for an increase in the DSR from 3.19% to 8%.

Tuesday

HamstersGG Faces Rug Pull Accusations Bored traders have resorted to wagering crypto on hamster racing for thrills, but blockchain sleuths are sounding the alarm that the project’s founders could be pulling the rug out from underneath its tokens’ investors.
Worldcoin Launch Greeted By Mix Of Skepticism and Curiosity On Monday, the Worldcoin Foundation, the company behind the identity-focused Worldcoin protocol, launched its WLD token and announced plans to significantly increase the availability of its iris-scanning Orb.