🪂Weekly Recap: ZkSync Finally Announces Airdrop

Happy weekend Defiers!

ZkSync unveiled its long-awaited airdrop, with 17.5% of the token’s supply set for distribution to early adopters. However, predictably, some segments of ZkSync’s user base are unhappy with their allocations.

Michael Egorov, the founder of Curve Finance, lost 141 million CRV tokens to liquidation as the asset’s price tumbled. The news has ignited drama within the web3 community, with Egorov appearing relatively unscathed after borrowing $95.7 million worth of stablecoins against his CRV holdings and buying a second mansion.

The Ethereum community was buoyed by Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, telling a U.S. Senate hearing that spot Ether ETFs should receive final approval by fall. Gensler was also grilled by Republican Senator Patrick Hagerty over its pattern of hostility towards the web3 sector. “This is an innovative and constructive industry that is getting pushed offshore,” Hagerty said.

In other Ethereum news, the network’s forthcoming Pectra upgrade may take place over two separate hard forks. Ether ETPs posted their strongest inflows since March. Institutional investors piled $69 million into the assets class in one week.

Memecoins have taken a beating as digital assets fell this week. Many leading meme tokens have suffered double-digit pullbacks over the past seven days.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump continues to court the crypto industry ahead of the 2024 election. The Republican candidate met with executives from Bitcoin mining firms, proclaiming he wants every remaining BTC to be mined in the United States.

Terraform Labs, the company behind the disgraced Terra network and failed UST stablecoin, has settled with the SEC. Terraform Labs agreed to pay around $2 billion, while Do Kwon, the company’s co-founder, will cough up roughly $400 million.

Bitcoin Layer 2s are booming, with the sector’s TVL pushing above $2 billion for the first time. Leading Bitcoin L2s posted triple-digit TVL growth over the past week.

Competition in the restaking space is heating up. Mellow, an LRT protocol leveraging Symbiotic — a restaking platform seeking to compete with EigenLayer — joined the Lido Alliance. The move comes shortly after Lido established the coalition in a bid to promote a restaking ecosystem to rival Eigenlayer.

Plus, Uwu Lend suffered two exploits in four days, Uniswap acquired Crypto: The Game, Bitcoin Suisse issued tokenized bonds on Polygon, and the Polkadot community backs its JAM overhaul.

And don’t miss our latest podcast with Johann Kerbrat, the crypto general manager at Robinhood.

Enjoy!

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ALPHA INTEL

Pendle Liquid Restaking Leverage Vaults by Contango

Our resident DeFi degens teach you how to loop a leveraged position using Pendle’s fixed yield Principal Tokens via Contango’s vaults.

Plus, our analysts share their in-depth technical analysis covering the latest price action and market moves.

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

Robinhood's Big Bet on Crypto: Crypto GM Johann Kerbrat Explains

In this week’s podcast, Tegan Kline was joined by Johann Kerbrat, the crypto general manager at Robinhood. The popular stock trading app recently announced its forthcoming acquisition of the Bitstamp crypto exchange in a major move to expand its digital asset operations outside of the United States.

The discussion explores Kerbrat’s journey with Robinhood Crypto, his thoughts on the future trajectory of the digital asset industry, and Robinhood’s growing presence within the crypto space.

Self-Custodial Crypto Payments with Gnosis Pay: Everything You Need to Know

The Defiant sat down with Marcos Nunes, the co-founder of Gnosis Pay, during Money2020 in Amsterdam.

Gnosis Pay is a payment provider bridging the gap between self-custodial crypto wallets and traditional payment methods. The project recently launched a Visa card allowing users to spend their cryptocurrency through traditional payment rails without any fees.

Marcos discusses the technology behind Gnosis Pay, the challenges of bridging crypto with mainstream finance, and the future of web3 payments.

VIDEO & TUTORIALS

DeFi Founders Buying Mansions with DeFi Isn't the Problem

Cami Russo explores all of the top web3 headlines from the week and gives her take on the recent drama surrounding the founder of Curve Finance and his huge CRV liquidation.

Memecoin Mania: The Explosive Rise and How We Got Here

Jack Dunham dives into getting the surging and controversial memecoin sector. With influencers regularly tweeting to spruik their tokens and recent reports finding that memecoins were over 4 times more profitable than any other token segment in Q1, we can’t ignore them.

Memecoins Are Actually Cypherpunk. Here's Why

Cami Russo explores all of the controversy surrounding memecoins. On one side, memecoins are celebrated as an expression of web3 culture on-chain. On the other, prominent developers and analysts have criticized the sector for promoting tokens that are prone to pump-and-dumps and often offer little utility.

Friday

DeFi Founders Using DeFi to Buy Mansions is Not the Problem Cami Russo argues that lending protocols allowing Michael Egorov to borrow against 30% of CRV’s supply is the root cause of the latest drama embroiling Curve’s founder.
ETH Exchange Balances Hit Eight-Year Low as Investors Prepare For Rally Investors have been rapidly pulling their ETH out of exchanges, signaling they expect Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency to rally in the coming months.
Michael Egorov Promises To Develop Curve Amid Accusations Of Elaborate Cash-Out Curve’s founder says he is as focused on developing the protocol as ever despite suffering an enormous CRV liquidation.
Crypto Markets Slide Amid Heavy Bitcoin ETF Outflows Investors pulled $226 million from spot Bitcoin ETFs as digital assets declined on Thursday.
Polkadot Community Backs JAM Overhaul Polkadot is moving away from its parachain architecture in favor of offering advanced computation and smart contract execution from its base layer.
Insider Accused Of Perpetrating Holograph Exploit, Tanking HLG By 50% Analysts believe the exploit that inflated HLG’s supply by 66% may have been perpetrated by a “rogue developer.”
Memecoins Get Decimated Amid Market Downturn Leading memecoins have plunged, with market leaders PEPE and WIF dropping 15% and 25% in the past seven days, respectively.

Thursday

Bitcoin Layer 2 TVL Soars Above $2 Billion Bitcoin L2s and sidechains are attracting large inflows amid an uptick in activity.
ZapperFi to Build ‘Road to Onchain Literacy’ with Zapper Protocol The new on-chain data protocol will be powered by the forthcoming ZAP token.
U.S. Senator Tells Gary Gensler Crypto Desperately Needs Resources Senator Patrick Hagerty grilled SEC Chairman Gary Gensler over his agency’s efforts to regulate crypto, arguing that web3 innovation is being driven offshore.
Gensler Predicts Ethereum ETFs Approval by ‘End of Summer’ Crypto assets tumbled after the Federal Reserve said markets should expect only a single interest rate cut this year.
Arbitrum Plots Stage 2 Decentralization With Permissionless Transaction Validation The Arbitrum community greenlit the introduction of a new decentralized dispute resolution protocol.
Curve Finance Founder Michael Egorov Suffers Massive Liquidations Egorov’s CRV holdings were liquidated after borrowing $95.7 million worth of stablecoins against Curve’s governance token.
UwU Lend Suffers Second Exploit In One Week, Bringing Losses To $23 Million Uwu Lend lost $3.72 million in its second exploit in four days.

Wednesday

SushiSwap Creates Sushi Labs Council and Multi-Token Model After extended internal infighting Sushi has adopted a centralized “Labs” structure to drive development moving forward.
Terraform Labs Settles With SEC For $4.4 Billion Terraform Labs, the company behind the Terra network and failed UST stablecoin, agreed to pay a $4.47 billion settlement with the SEC.
Mellow Finance to Help Lido Hold On To Its Place As Largest DeFi Protocol Shots have been fired in the burgeoning restaking war, with Mellow, an LRT protocol leveraging Symbiotic, joining the Lido Alliance.
Bitcoin Surges as Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged Global markets were buoyed as U.S. inflation data for May came in cooler than expected.
Brazil’s Itau Bank Expands Bitcoin and Ethereum Trading Services The bank’s 60 million customers can now buy BTC and ETH through the leading Latin bank’s Ion app.
Consensys Eyes Lido’s Lunch With No-Minimum Pooled Staking Consensys is targeting the liquid staking sector with its MetaMask Pooled Staking service.
ZkSync Airdrop Allocations Leave DeFi Community Split Many community members are unhappy with the token allocations for ZkSync’s long-awaited airdrop.
Trump Wants All Remaining Bitcoin Mined In The United States Trump met with Bitcoin mining execs on June 11 in the former President’s latest efforts to court the crypto industry.
ProShares Quickly Emerges As Spot Ether ETF Contender ProShares’ prospective spot Ether ETF is already listed on the SEC’s website after the firm filed 19b-4 and S-1 forms with the SEC over the past week.

Tuesday

Ethereum Funds Draw Highest Inflows Since March Investors piled $69 million into Ethereum ETPs over seven days.
Crypto Game Pirate Nation’s Activity Soars Ahead of Token Launch Pirate Nation’s user base rocketed as the web3 game prepares to issue a token.
Bitcoin Tumbles 5% as Dollar Spikes to 4-Week High BTC suffered its worst daily drawdown since April.
ZkSync to Airdrop 3.6 Billion Tokens to Early Users Matter Labs will airdrop 17.5% of the token’s supply to early ZkSync adopters.
Bitcoin Suisse Issues Tokenized Bond on Polygon The bond was issued in partnership with Obligate, a firm that has brought multiple real-world assets from mainstream businesses on-chain.
Uniswap Acquires Crypto: The Game In On-Chain Gaming Play The Survivor-inspired game has quickly amassed a cult following since launching in January.

Monday

Loopring's ‘Most Secure’ Smart Wallet Breached For $5 Million The attacker took advantage of vulnerabilities in Loopring’s two-factor authentication service, highlighting the risks associated with account abstraction.
Crypto Markets Tread Water as Traders Await Fed's Interest Rate Decision Digital assets opened the week with sideways market action.
Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade May Be Split Into Two Forks Developers have already penciled in nine EIPs for inclusion in Ethereum's next upgrade, with at least five others under consideration.