CFTC Sees ‘Significant Risks’ From Digital Assets 

Rocket Pool Launches rETH On zkSync Era

 Up to 18% APR on Stablecoins, 6-14% on ETH and BTC

DeFi Alpha is a weekly newsletter published for our premium subscribers every Friday, contributed by Defiant Advisor and DeFi investor at 

. It aims to educate traders, investors, and newcomers about investment opportunities in decentralized finance, as well as provide primers and guides about its emerging platforms.

Two years ago, DeFi investors could easily name every yield farming opportunity without much effort. It was a simpler time, when only a handful of teams had launched with any liquidity to trade, lend, borrow, provide liquidity, or even demonstrate new primitives such as no-loss savings by PoolTogether.

But times have changed! Before the current bear market took hold, DeFi liquidity had grown to hundreds of billions of dollars across Ethereum with new burgeoning DeFi economies taking shape on EVM-compatible chains such as Polygon and Avalanche and non-EVM chains such as Cosmos and Solana. Any given day, a new DeFi or NFT project is launched.

So, after writing and creating countless DeFi guides and tutorials since 2019, we at The Defiant agreed it’s time we publish a more detailed weekly guide on all you need to know to keep up with new opportunities.

Any information covered in DeFi Alpha should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions. Any mention of a token or protocol should not be considered a recommendation or endorsement.

Each week we will provide options to earn yield on ETH, WBTC, stablecoins, and other major tokens.

 -13.98% APR with wETH/sETH LP staked in Velodrome on Optimism 

To participate, one must deposit and stake in 

 – 5.82% projected vAPR with Curve tBTC2 LP staked in Convex 

This yield is accrued in CRV, CVX, and trading fees.

To participate, one must first deposit tBTC, renBTC, sBTC and/or WBTC into this 

 – 8.62% APR with AVAX in Vesper Grow Pools 

This yield is issued in 8.14% AVAX + 1.38% VSP.

To participate, one must deposit into the AVAX pool 

There is a 0.6% fee on withdrawal from Vesper Grow pools and a 15% platform fee on yield generated by the deposited assets.

 – 11.62% APY lending stSOL on Tulip Protocol 

This yield is backed by 6.12% APY paid by borrowers on Tulip + 5.5% APY in staking rewards thanks to Lido.

To participate, one must deposit stSOL in the 

To obtain stSOL, one can trade on a Solana DEX or mint it 

 – 15.87% APY with 50/50 MaticX-WMATIC LP on MeshSwap 

The yield is backed by validator rewards using the MaticX liquid staking derivative + MeshSwap trading fees + MESH rewards + SD rewards.

 – 19.8% APR staking ATOM with Keplr Wallet on Cosmos Hub 

rank by APR, choose a validator, and click 

Then, I specify how many ATOMs and follow the prompts to 

 – 4.7% APY staking sFTMx liquid staking derivative by Stader 

The yield is issued in FTM rewards, as sFTMX is earning FTM via validator rewards to support Fantom’s PoS network.

To participate, one must deposit FTM to receive sFTMX 

 – 10.36% APY staking with HBARX liquid staking derivative by Stader 

The yield is issued in HBAR rewards, as HBARX is earning validator rewards.

To participate, one must deposit HBAR to receive HBARX 

 – 18.41% APY with sUSD in an auto-compounding vault strategy on Reaper Farm on Optimism 

To participate, one must deposit and stake 

Caution: This farm is in a higher risk protocol that launched on Fantom in summer 2021 and has since suffered a $1.7M exploit in August 2021.

The DeFi Alpha call is held every Monday at 2pm ET in Discord.

check out the recording of this week’s call

Earn ETH Yield on zkSync L2 with Argent Wallet and Potentially Earn a zkSync Airdrop

One of the most promising and respected teams in the Ethereum L2 race is 

. zkSync is a zkRollup-based L2 scaling solution, that currently includes low gas transfers of ETH and ERC20 tokens, including atomic swaps and limit orders. zkSync has been responsible for 98% of the last 4-5 Gitcoin Grants rounds.

Prior to zkSync’s implementation, Gitcoin suffered from lower participation due to a challenging UI with high gas fees. zkSync was a major breakthrough for enabling fast, cheap, easy payments.

 on July 20th, the next major milestone is upon us with the launch of zkSync 2.0, meaning the first-ever zkEVM, a virtual machine that executes smart contracts in a way that’s compatible with zero-knowledge-proof-computation. This zkEVM will mean we can benefit from a zkRollup-based architecture while enjoying the myriad of applications built with EVM-compatibility. It’s a big deal!

For a long time, we’ve known a token is coming to zkSync based on their documentation. It’s never been a secret. The Matter Labs team has specified in the zkSync documentation, “when zkSync becomes fully decentralized, the token will be used for staking in order to become a validator in the zkSync network.”

In preparation for the launch of zkSync 2.0, anticipating a token could come in the near future, today I’ll cover how I’m earning ETH with one of 3 options thanks to the seamless support of zkSync 1.0 (and soon 2.0) of the smart contract wallet 

, with the potential (not guarantee) to possibly earn an airdrop from zkSync.

Before we get started, please be aware of these risks.

Smart contract risk in Argent wallet, Yearn, Lido, Curve, Aave, and/or Set Protocol

Front-end spoof attack on the argent.xyz website

Governance attacks or admin key compromise

Pegged assets like stETH can potentially de-peg

First, I need to download the Argent wallet and set it up on my iOS or Android phone. I won’t cover this in detail but you can go to the 

 Once I’ve set up my Argent wallet, I’ll need to connect it to zkSync 1.0 (as of October 23, 2022). I can find the option to switch from the Ethereum Mainnet to zkSync in the top left.

, and choose from the 3 yield-earning options based on my farming preferences.

3.9% APY with the Yearn Curve stETH yVault

Bored Apes Dealt Marketing Jackpot by Bicycle Playing Cards

Blur NFT Marketplace Goes Live And Airdrops ‘Care Packages’ To Active Traders

, an NFT marketplace and aggregator that raised over $14M from Paradigm and a slate of serious NFT collectors, is open to the public after being in private beta for the past few months.

Blur doesn’t currently charge trading fees.

The marketplace has airdropped ‘Care Packages’ to “everyone who’s stuck around in the bear market.” These packages contain allocations of $BLUR tokens that will be claimable in January 2023.

If you’ve traded NFTs on major marketplaces in the last six months, check your eligibility 

 will be forthcoming in November for users who actively use the marketplace.

Reminder: list on Blur to get our second Care Package drop coming in November. Care Packages contain 

 (launching January), so by listing on Blur you get to own a piece of Blur in the future!

— Blur (@blur_io) 

As can be expected, the project is trying to attract active NFTs traders, so the airdrop has been designed to reward those who make Blur their marketplace of choice.

Listing ‘blue chip’ and active collections

Listers who include royalties will get a larger airdrop (creator fees are optional on Blur)

Conducting at least 3 NFT sweeps (buying multiple NFTs in a single transaction)

Loyalty – Listing more on Blur compared to other platforms increases the odds of getting rarer Care Packages that will contain more tokens.

In this tutorial, we’re going to check our eligibility for Airdrop 1, claim our Care Packages, and list some NFTs in anticipation of Airdrop 2.

You’ll be asked to sign a transaction to verify ownership of your wallet, after which you’ll be able to see your unrevealed Care Packages (if eligible).

Step 2: List an NFT to reveal the Care Packages.

Yields: Up to 18% APR on Stablecoins, 6-14% on ETH and BTC



DeFi Alpha is a weekly newsletter published for our premium subscribers every Friday, contributed by Defiant Advisor and DeFi investor at 4RC, DeFi Dad, and our Degen in Chief yyctrader. It aims...

⍺ DeFi Alpha: Earn ETH Yield with Argent Wallet and Potentially Earn a zkSync Airdrop