🤝 Weekly Recap: Binance Settles With DoJ

Happy weekend Defiers!

It was a big week for web3, with Bitcoin retesting its 2023 highs despite Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, agreeing to a $3.4B settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Binance and its now former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, pled guilty to money laundering and illicit financing charges, bringing the DoJ’s five-year investigation into the exchange to a close. Zhou is currently awaiting sentencing and is expected to face up to 18 months behind bars.

In other regulatory news, Kraken became the latest exchange to receive a lawsuit from the SEC. The suit alleges that the exchange offered unlicensed securities to retail investors and commingled customer assets. Kraken vowed to fight the lawsuit.

BTC is retesting its year-to-date highs as ETF speculation continues to swirl. The SEC met separately with prospective spot Bitcoin ETF issuers BlackRock and Grayscale earlier in the week, with Grayscale also submitting an updated filing two days later.

However, the week wasn’t entirely bullish for Bitcoin, with on-chain researchers flagging six Bitcoin blocks excluding transactions from wallets sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, calling the network’s censorship-resistance into question. The blocks were mined by the China-based miner, F2Pool.

Blast, a forthcoming Layer 2 network from Blur developers, made headlines for attracting more than $500M in deposits after launching a one-way bridge contract on Nov. 20. The project garnered widespread criticism for locking user funds until the launch of its Layer 2 in February, and for driving up the dominance of Lido by staking bridged ETH via the protocol.

Ethereum validators are now queuing up to exit the network, defying expectations that ETH staking could absorb half of Ether’s supply by May. Staked ETH now represents 22.88% of Ether’s supply, down from 23.45% earlier in the week.

Solana enjoyed bullish momentum this past week, with volume on Solana-based DEXs tagging record highs alongside a new year-to-date high for its native SOL token. SOL is up 171% since the start of October.

The Tron-native JustLend is now the largest web3 money market by total value locked. JustLend is now the third-largest DeFi protocol with more than $6B in TVL, edging ahead of Aave’s $5.9B.

The Swiss city of Lugano tapped Polygon for its payments app, MyLugano. Citizens will be able to pay taxes, fines, and other municipal fees using BTC, USDT, or LVGA — a local stablecoin issued by the city — via the application in the future.

The Aragon DAO voted to take legal action against the Aragon Association, the team maintaining Aragon’s products. ANT tokenholders believe they are getting a raw deal on token redemptions as part of the association's plan to dissolve, noting that the redemption plan wasn’t put to a governance vote and accusing the association of trying to retain $50M worth of treasury funds for itself.

Pyth launches its highly anticipated airdrop. The campaign distributed $75M worth of tokens to web3 community members and DeFi traders.

And in this week’s podcast, the dYdX Foundation’s David Gogel joins us to discuss his project’s migration onto its newly launched dYdX Chain.

Enjoy!

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Why dYdX Ditched Ethereum | dYdX Chain Explained by David Gogel

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David discussed dYdX’s recent migration from an Ethereum Layer 2 to its newly-launched Cosmos-based appchain, dYdX Chain. He dove into the intricacies of planning the launch, including revamping dYdX’s tokenomics, and gives us a sneak peek into what’s next for the protocol.

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Why 2024 Could Turn Out To be a Pivotal (Bullish) Year for Crypto

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DeFi Needs Economic Risk Ratings for Better Decision-Making

Kate Kurbanova, the co-founder of DeFi risk management firm, Apostro, believes the decentralized finance sector needs to develop native risk assessment metrics to help demystify the users. Kurbanova cites the threat of protocols or developers engaging in pump-and-dump attacks, market manipulation, and poor protocol liquidity as risk factors that should be easier for users to assess.

Saturday

Blast Attracts Widespread Criticism Despite Surging TVL Blast, the forthcoming Layer 2, is attracting condemnation from across the web3 community as its total value locked skyrockets. The protocol attracted around $500M since launching a one-way bridge on Nov. 20.

Friday

Bots, Terminals, and LLMs — Crypto UX is Getting a Makeover Top trading bots like Maestro, Banana Gun, and Unibot facilitated more than $4B in trading volume over the past year and a half. And over the past 30 days, Maestro and Banagun have burned more gas than all but two Ethereum-based projects.
Non-US Bitcoin Miner Gets Caught Censoring Transactions The Bitcoin community is up in arms after news broke that a non-US mining pool was excluding OFAC-sanctioned transactions. This appears to be the first time a non-U.S. actor has complied with U.S. sanctions and has drawn many to speculate about whether the Bitcoin blockchain is, in fact, censorship-resistant.
BTC Tests Year-To-Date Highs Amid Spot Bitcoin ETF Progress BTC is retesting its year-to-date high as spot Bitcoin hopefuls BlackRock and Grayscale make progress on their applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC met with both ETF hopefuls this past week.

Thursday

PancakeSwap Adopts Vote Escrow Tokenomics PancakeSwap, the largest decentralized exchange on the BNB Chain, has successfully passed a proposal that introduces veCAKE and gauge voting to the protocol. VeCAKE lockers will be able to vote on governance proposals and will direct CAKE token emissions to their liquidity pools of choice.
Binance Slapped With Hefty $4.3B Fine – Can It Actually Pay It? Cryptocurrency behemoth Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), pled guilty to charges of money laundering, settling with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $4.3B. But does it have the cash?
Avalanche Transactions Skyrocket 2,000% On ASC-20 Hype Ordinals fever is spreading beyond Bitcoin, with Avalanche becoming the latest chain to develop its own token standard enabling arbitrary information to be inscribed onto the blockchain. Avalanche’s on-chain activity spiked 2,000% following the launch of ASC-20 tokens.

Wednesday

CrvUSD Proposal Aims to Increase Rates and Restore $1 Peg The Curve community is currently voting on a proposal to raise interest rates for its decentralized stablecoin, crvUSD, in a bid to restore the token’s peg. The move is intended to drive the price of crvUSD back up to $1 in response to the token trending toward $0.99 throughout November.
Circle Launches Bridged USDC Contract For EVM Chains Circle has deployed a bridged token contract for USDC, the second-largest centralized stablecoin, in a bid to service emerging and future networks. The bridged USDC standard allows EVM-compatible chains to quickly and permissionlessly migrate the stablecoin onto their network.
Swiss City of Lugano Embraces Crypto With Polygon Integration MyLugano, the payments app of the Swiss city of Lugano, has integrated support for Polygon as part of the municipality’s broader mission to embrace crypto. Local residents will be able to pay taxes, fines, and social service fees using BTC, USDT, and LVGA in the future.
KyberSwap Dex Hacked for $48M KyberSwap, a decentralized exchange and aggregator deployed across 15 blockchains, has been exploited. The protocol lost $48M from its Arbitrum, Optimism, and Ethereum deployments.
Solana is Having its Best Month Ever Decentralized exchanges on Solana reached $5.1 billion in monthly volume for November, according to DefiLlama, marching past its previous peak of $2.8 billion during November 2022. Weekly volumes also climbed to a new high of $2.1 billion, outperforming the same week last year by more than 33%.
Aragon Tokenholders Vote To Sue Aragon Association The Aragon DAO has voted in favor of initiating legal action against the founding team behind the Aragon project as tensions flare over the planned dissolution of the Aragon Association. ANT tokenholders passed two proposals, one outlining plans for the legal action and a second allocating 300,000 USDC to fund the lawsuit.
Upstart Layer 2 Blast Draws In $100M With Airdrop Scheme Blast, an upcoming Layer 2 network, has pulled in over $100M of ETH and DAI deposits since unveiling an airdrop program on Nov. 20. Set to launch as an optimistic rollup in February 2024, Blast touts native yield for bridged assets by depositing ETH to Lido and stablecoin to MakerDAO.

Tuesday

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao to Step Down and Agree to $4.3B Settlement Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has agreed to step down from his position and plead guilty to violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws, the Wall Street Journal reported. This decision is part of a major settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice involving a fine of $4.3 billion.
Tron’s JustLend Surpasses Aave As Largest Web3 Lending Market JustLend, the Tron-based web3 lending market, has overtaken Aave by total value locked to emerge as the sector’s leading protocol. Data from DeFi Llama shows JustLend ranking as the third-largest DeFi protocol overall with a TVL of $6B after growing by 12% in 30 days.
Pyth Network Token Goes Live With $75M Airdrop For DeFi Users Oracle provider Pyth Network has launched its highly anticipated PYTH token with a retroactive airdrop for community members and DeFi traders. Pyth Network is the second-largest oracle provider by the number of protocols secured with 120, while Chainlink — the sector’s leader — boasts 361.
SEC Sues Kraken Alleging Unlicensed Securities Trades and ‘Commingling’ of Customer Funds Kraken, the popular U.S.-based centralized exchange, is the latest web3 entity to face legal action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC accused Kraken of illegally offering unlicensed securities to retail investors and commingling customer assets. Kraken vowed to fight the lawsuit.

Monday

Tamagotchi-Like Fren Pet is Crushing it on Coinbase's Base Network A Tamagotchi-like game is crushing it on Base. The top trending token pair on Coinbase's Layer 2 network Base on Monday was Fren Pet against wrapped ETH. The Fren Pet token gained more than 38 times over the past weekend.
Ethereum Validators Are Now Queuing To Exit The Network Ethereum validators are now lining up to exit the beacon chain, defying expectations that Ethereum’s consensus layer would steadily absorb Ether’s supply. Nearly 650 entities are waiting to offboard the network, while there is zero wait time for validators seeking to onboard.
Web3 Community Slams dYdX For ‘Centralized’ Response to Alleged Market Manipulation Attack The dYdX team is copping flak from decentralization devotees over its handling of a recent “market manipulation attack.” DYdX promised to pay bounties to sleuths that help identify the attacker and promised to forward its findings to the FBI.