BNB Chain announced its own Layer 2 chain — opBNB, while Polygon proposed to convert the PoS chain to zkEVM. Read on to find out the latest DeFi news and alpha!
BNB Smart Chain makes an announcement for their Layer 2 solution, opBNB, and Polygon Labs proposes a shift for the Polygon Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain to the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) validium, which would be the first-of-its-kind upgrade in the crypto space. Finally, Optimism-based automated market maker (AMM) and Solidly fork, Velodrome, launches its much anticipated Velodrome V2 upgrade.
Let’s see what went down this past week in DeFi.
Overview:
Total value locked (TVL) across all chains jumped more than 8% as the crypto market made a strong recovery, riding on the news of the filing for a Bitcoin ETF by traditional finance giants: BlackRock, WisdomTree and Invesco. Notable rises in TVL include Cosmos-based chain, Neutron, and Bitcoin L2, Stacks, which saw increases in the 40% and 20% range respectively.
Source: DeFiLlama
Welcome to Alpha Central
Ethereum block explorer, Etherscan, releases an AI-powered code reader, enabling users to use their own OpenAI API keys to power an AI-generated interpretation of smart contracts on Ethereum.
Louis shares six narratives he’s watching for the next bull run, including passive income, zero-knowledge tech and liquid staking derivative DeFi (LSDFi).
KindaHangry dives deep into the newly launched Ambient Finance (formerly Crocswap) and what makes it stand out against other decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in the space.
Ethereum: WETH for CrvUSD Soon
Pegged-asset AMM, Curve Finance, has set up governance proposals to deploy Wrapped ETH (WETH) collateral for their native stablecoin, crvUSD, with 200 million initial cap.
Decentralized non-custodial staking solution, EtherFi, opens up its full validator service to the public, allowing anyone to stake with them provided they meet the 32 ETH minimum requirement. Stakers who join in this period will be granted the Gold tier in EtherFi’s loyalty program.
DAI stablecoin issuer, MakerDAO has deployed Savings DAI (sDAI) a new tokenized version of DAI Savings Rate (DSR) enabled DAI. SDAI allows holders to earn yield on their DAI holdings, when tokenized as sDAI, providing them more flexibility on their holdings. SDAI can be lent on MakerDAO’s money market platform, Spark, as collateral.
Stablecoin protocol, Reserve Protocol, makes $20 million in strategic investments in Curve Finance (CRV), Convex Finance (CVX) and Stake DAO (SDT) tokens, in a bid to increase liquidity on their natively-issued tokens such as hyUSD, ETH+ and eUSD.
L2s: BNB Chain’s OpBNB and Polygon PoS ZkEVM
BNB Chain announces their very own Layer 2 solution, opBNB, an Optimistic rollup built based on the Optimism stack to scale the chain. The rollup is expected to be able to process 4,000 transactions per second, with low fees of $0.005 per transaction.
Polygon Labs releases a proposal to convert the existing Polygon PoS chain to a zkEVM chain. The move will enable all of Polygon’s existing assets and contracts to shift seamlessly into a zkEVM environment. The change is expected to complete in Q1 2024, if the proposal is accepted.
Unidex unveils Unidex V3: the first “real” perpetuals DEX aggregator across chains. Unidex V3 enables traders to tap into 16 liquidity sources across seven different chains, optimizing trade execution based on fees and spread from each source.
Arbitrum-based options protocol, Dopex, releases Scalps V2, enabling short-term options trading from one minute up to four hour time frames, with leverage of up to 110x. Scalps are now open for ETH/USDC.e and ARB/USDC.e pairs on Arbitrum.
Arbitrum DEX and launchpad, Camelot, has relaunched their V3 concentrated liquidity AMM after detecting issues with their code earlier this month. The relaunch has also integrated Paraswap with the protocol as their first supported aggregator.
Exotic peg hedging protocol, Y2K Finance, introduces a whitepaper for a novel futures marketplace on pegged-assets, named “Wildfire.” This creates increased flexibility for traders on Y2K as hedges and speculative bets can now be made at any point, as opposed to Y2K’s current vault system. Moreover, Wildfire will allow for leveraged trading on pegged-assets as well as more sophisticated trading strategies on said assets.
Balancer yield-boosting protocol, Aura Finance, is now live on Arbitrum, supporting a range of LSD, LSDFi, stablecoin pools, as well as Boosted Pools from a variety of lending markets.
Hybrid orderbook exchange Vertex Protocol, introduces Spot Pools, allowing users to deposit liquidity to supplement the orderbook. These liquidity pool positions can also be used for leverage on the platform.
Protected perpetuals DEX, Good Entry, launches on Arbitrum with three ezVaults, ETH-USDC, GMX-USDC and ARB-USDC, with 50K caps each. All three ezVaults are now full.
GMX fork, Vela Exchange, opens up to deposits for their Hyper VLP 2.0. Hyper VLP 2.0 can be minted with USDC.e for the next 2 weeks for zero fees, with minters receiving a special esVELA incentive during this period.
GND Protocol introduces gETH, a basket of LSD tokens: wstETH, rETH, gmdETH, sfrxETH, as well as, ETH and WETH. gETH can be staked to earn yields from the underlying LSD staking rewards or used to provide liquidity in liquidity pools.
Liquidation-free lending market, Ghast Protocol, deploys on Arbitrum, with pools open for GMD Protocol’s gmdBTC, gmdETH and gmdUSDC.
Optimism AMM, Velodrome, deploys Velodrome V2, bringing to the platform concentrated liquidity support and dynamic fees and emissions. Users can now migrate their existing VELO and veVELO to V2.
StarkNet wallet, Braavos, introduces Stake+, a feature allowing users to stake their ETH from within their wallet via Lido, with the option to provide liquidity with the receipt token, wstETH as well through Stake Boost.
Lido Finance proposes a collaboration with BitDAO’s Mantle Network, proposing a deposit of 40,000 ETH from BitDAO’s treasury to stETH and a first-of-its-kind revenue sharing agreement between Lido and Mantle for 12 months.
Cross-chain bridging solution, Synapse, teases the upcoming launch of their own chain, Synapse Chain.
Solana: Jet Fixed
Money market protocol, Jet Protocol, releases Jet Fixed, allowing for fixed term borrowing and lending on the platform.
Avalanche: New Vaults on Struct Finance
Avalanche structured product platform, Struct Finance, launches their two new vaults: 1-month and 3-month USDC vaults, with fixed APRs of 10-15% and variable APRs of 70-80%.
Cosmos: Osmosis 2.0
Osmosis Zone reveals details on Osmosis 2.0, a roadmap to pave the way for sustainability for the chain. Osmosis 2.0 reduces emissions by 50% and extends the emissions runway for Osmosis. Additionally, emissions will be focused on stakers instead of liquidity pools to secure the network.
Another Week, Another Airdrop
Optimism announces RetroPGF Round 3, an airdrop to reward the development of public goods for the Optimism ecosystem. 30 million OP tokens will be distributed in this round, with registration and voting taking place in the upcoming months.
The market roars back to life amidst the hopes of institutional interest in the crypto space. Stay updated and stay tuned for next week’s edition, and keep supporting your favorite projects, degens!
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