🦄 Weekly Recap: Uniswap Overtakes Coinbase

Happy weekend Defiers!

Bitwise published data showing that Uniswap beat Coinbase, the top U.S.-based centralized exchange, by quarterly spot volume for both Q1 and Q2 of 2023.

Uniswap extended its lead over Coinbase last quarter, hosting $110B worth of trades compared to roughly $90M on Coinbase. The data evidences the stickiness of top DeFi protocols, with spot volume on Coinbase down 83% from its all-time high compared to 50% for Uniswap.

The throughput of Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem tagged new all-time highs, with L2s now processing more than five times as many transactions as the Ethereum mainnet.

Activity on Base shot to a record high of nearly 16 transactions per second (TPS) on Aug. 21 as airdrop hunters converged on Friend Tech, the rocketing social trading app. While Base’s daily throughput has since cooled more than 50%, zkSync Era’s also rallied back with a new all-time high throughput of 15 TPS on Aug. 26.

However, Web3 remains in U.S. regulators’ sights, with the Treasury Department proposing changes to tax laws that would explicitly categorize decentralized exchanges, wallet providers, and NFT marketplaces offering digital asset trading services and “brokers.”

The classification would require that said protocols comply with reporting obligations, including collecting information on their customers. Some analysts are tipping that DeFi may choose to shun U.S. users entirely should the regulations take effect.

The U.S. Department of Justice also charged two of the three founders behind the sanctioned coin-mixing protocol, Tornado Cash.

EigenLayer absorbed $160M in just two hours after raising its limits, bringing its TVL to $240M. EigenLayer is a pioneering restaking protocol, a controversial practice allowing stakers to generate additional revenue by securing third-party services in addition to Ethereum.

Lido also completed its last major token unlock this week, leaving less than 1% of LDO’s supply vesting.

And in this week’s podcast, Jon Hills, the creator of Cabin, discusses his project’s vision for creating a DAO-based community of remote workers.

Enjoy!