🤑 Weekly Recap: Web3 Market Momentum Continues

Our resident DeFi degens show you how to earn yields of up to 13% from SOL through recursive lending on Kamino Finance. Plus, we recap all of the hottest yields across DeFi and analyze the latest market movements in web3.

Tegan Kline was joined by Arjun Bhuptani, the founder and CEO of Connext Labs, the team behind the cross-chain interoperability protocol, Connext Network.

The discussion touches on how Connext approaches security, Vitalik Buterin's opinions on bridging, the growth of rollups-as-a-service, and what makes Connext unique within the increasingly crowded cross-chain bridging sector.

With Snaps, developers can create custom plugins to extend MetaMask's capabilities beyond its core functionalities. These could include features like new token support, specialized dApp interactions, enhanced security features, or any other innovative utilities that can enhance the user experience within the MetaMask wallet.

• Starknet Unveils Token Launch Plans Starknet, a leading Ethereum Layer 2 network, said it will allocate more than 1.8B STRK tokens to drive adoption and growth across its ecosystem. An initial distribution of 900M STRK was earmarked to reward past and future contributions from its users and community.
• Tether’s USDT Market Cap Hits New Record as Stablecoins Recover USDT’s market capitalization climbed to $90.4 billion on Friday, a new all-time high. The milestone coincides with an uptick in trading volume for the leading stablecoin.
• Chainlink Holders Staked Tokens Worth $650M Hours After Early Access Launch LINK holders flocked to stake their tokens on the blockchain oracle provider’s upgraded staking system. An initial cap of roughly $650M worth of LINK was quickly filled, leaving other tokenholders stuck waiting for existing stakers to exit their positions.
• The Convergence of AI and Blockchain The rapid advancement of AI has shocked many and is quickly becoming a part of everyday life. Being digital brethren, many feel that AI and blockchain can benefit greatly from each other.

• Waste Of Block Space Or Egalitarian Issuance Mechanism? Inscriptions Divide Web3 Community Bitcoin Ordinals-inspired inscriptions are spreading across web3, with transaction volume and fees on several Layer 1 networks abruptly surging amid the launch of inscription protocols in recent weeks.
• LayerZero To Launch Token In 2024 LayerZero, a leading cross-chain messaging protocol, confirmed that it will launch a token in the first half of next year. The team said it will distribute the token in the first half of 2024.
• Jito Briefly Surpasses Lido's Valuation at Launch Jito, the dominant liquid staking protocol on the Solana blockchain, launched its highly anticipated JTO governance token earlier. JTO is already trading at a fully-diluted valuation of more than $3B.
• Eight Trends That Excite a16z For 2024 Andreessen Horowitz, the leading crypto VC firm, published a list of eight trends it expects to drive bullish momentum and web3 innovation in 2024.
• Arbitrum Greenlights Grants To Fuel Incentives For 26 Ecosystem Projects The Arbitrum DAO has voted in favor of distributing 21.52M ARB to 26 ecosystem projects that missed out on grants in October despite receiving approval for Short-Term Incentive Program funding.

• Brazil’s Crypto Rails Get Boost from Itau and Nubank Two of Brazil’s largest banks announced plans to offer digital assets to their combined 195M users. Itau Unibanco launched a cryptocurrency trading platform, while Nubank began rolling out support for USDC.
• HNT Rallies 50% After Helium Expands Mobile Service Nationwide Helium Mobile, a crypto-based wireless cellular service provider, has expanded its unlimited plan, which offers data, text, and talk for $20 a month across the U.S., by leveraging T-Mobile's telecommunications infrastructure.
• DeFi Loan Volume Climbs to Highest Since August 2022 Outstanding borrows on the top seven DeFi lending platforms has swelled to $6 billion as of Nov. 30, a new year-to-date high. Aave accounts for half of the total with $3B, followed by Compound with $887M.
• Bitcoin Miner Backed By Jack Dorsey Confirms It Will Censor Ordinal Inscriptions Bitcoin Ordinals are in the spotlight again after Ocean Mining, a decentralized mining pool backed by Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, confirmed late last night that it would censor Ordinal inscriptions.
• Mantle Jumps On T-Bill Bandwagon With mUSD Stablecoin On Dec. 4, Mantle deployed its mUSD stablecoin, comprising a rebasing version of USDY from Ondo Finance. USDY is a yield-bearing stablecoin described as a “tokenized note secured by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank demand deposits.”
• BEAM Surges 277% In Six Weeks Following Chain Migration and GameFi Recovery Beam, the gaming-focussed Avalanche subnet from the gaming guild, Merit Circle, is the top gaining top 100 cryptocurrency over the past 24 hours with a 37% rally. The bullish momentum comes after Merit Circle announced a strategic partnership with Pantera Capital.

• Jito Unveils JTO Airdrop Eligibility and Allocation Solana-based liquid staking protocol Jito has planned a retrospective airdrop of its upcoming JTO governance token. Jito is the second largest DeFi protocol on Solana, with $390M in total value locked.
• Code is Law Question Raised Again as French Court Rules 'Yes' A French court cleared all charges against exploiters of the Platypus Finance automated market maker. The court argued that the hackers were not guilty of receiving stolen goods as they interacted with openly available smart contracts according to how their code was written.
• SEC Postpones Decision on Grayscale's Ethereum Spot ETF Listing The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced an extension for its decision on Grayscale's proposed spot Ether ETF. The SEC now has until Jan. 25 to deliver a verdict.
• Bitcoin Rockets To $44,000 The digital asset markets are on fire, with Bitcoin trading above $43,000 for the first time since April 2022 and ETH crossing $2,300. Bitcoin dominance also tagged hitting a new high for the year at 55%.
• Crypto Data Company Shadow Raises $9M in Seed Round Led by Paradigm Crypto data company Shadow raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Paradigm. The company specializes in creating private execution environments, with the Ethereum Foundation, Coinbase Ventures, and Electric Capital also backing Shadow.
• Gods Unchained Launches To 200M Amazon Prime Gaming Subscribers Gods Unchained, the popular web3 trading card game from Immutable, launched on Amazon Prime Gaming to its 200M subscribers on Dec. 4. The news follows the launch of the second season of Gods Unchained.
• ORDI is the First BRC-20 Token to Top $1 Billion Market Cap ORDI's market cap rallied past $1B for the first time following a 10x gain since early November. The milestone comes as inscription tokens are spreading onto other Layer 1 networks.
• Hashflow Launches 2.0 Iteration Featuring Solana Support and DEX Aggregation Hashflow, a decentralized exchange offering trade execution via professional market makers, launched the initial stage for its 2.0 iteration on Dec. 5, introducing DEX aggregation services and support for Solana.
• Folks Finance Launches DeFi Services For Gold and Silver Tokens Folks Finance, the top DeFi protocol on the Algorand network, launched tokenized representations of gold and silver on Dec. 4. Each token is backed by one gram of physical gold or silver.
• Safe and Web3Auth Collaborate To Simplify Web3 Onboarding Safe and Web3Auth teamed up to reduce barriers to web3 onboarding leveraging account abstraction. users who create a SafeAuth account will be able to access crypto applications without needing to secure a seed phrase.

• Fantom Foundation Launches Accelerator Program with Andre Cronje as Mentor The Fantom Foundation is launching an accelerator program to incubate the development of up to five selected projects​​​​. The program offers grants totaling 1,000,000 FTM (roughly $294,000) for developing each project's Minimum Viable Product.
• Bukele Announces El Salvador's Bitcoin Gamble is Now Profitable El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced that the country's controversial Bitcoin holdings are now in the black. Bukele said selling the BTC at the current market price would net a $3.6M profit.
• BTC and ETH Surge To New 2023 Highs Leading crypto markets rallied into new 2023 highs, tagging their highest level in 19 months. ETH and BTC are now up 34% and 50% respectively since the start of October.