😟 DeFi Insurer Nexus Mutual Weighs Whether to Pay Out on BadgerDAO Hack
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today,
News
DeFi Insurer Nexus Mutual Weighs Whether to Pay Out on BadgerDAO Hack
Upstart Silo Finance Preps Token Sale in Challenge to Aave and Compound
Weekend Read
Podcast
🎙Listen to this week’s podcast with Nick Johnson of ENS here:
Video
Links
Star Trek creator’s signature goes where no NFT has gone before: DNA: CoinTelegraph
Coin Center is educating policy makers about public blockchains: Grants
SEC denies WisdomTree's spot bitcoin ETF proposal: The Block
Like promised this morning here is my take on the @terra_money ecosystem: Remi Tetot
Trending in The Defiant
On First Anniversary Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain Solidifies Proof-of-Stake Shift
Push to Launch Layer 2 Liquidity Mining on Uniswap Gains Steam
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DeFi Hacks
😟 DeFi Insurer Nexus Mutual Weighs Whether to Pay Out on BadgerDAO Hack
ATTACK In the aftermath of the $120M hack of BadgerDAO on Dec. 1, Nexus Mutual, the insurance protocol, will not pay out to people who bought coverage if it was a frontend attack, according to the project’s Twitter.
IMPACTED “We’re waiting for full details from the BadgerDAO team, but this appears to be a frontend attack,” Nexus Mutual said. “If this is confirmed as a frontend attack, BadgerDAO’s smart contracts were not impacted & this would not be a covered event.”
INTERFACE A frontend attack is carried out at the user interface level rather than at the level of a project’s smart contracts. BadgerDAO is a Bitcoin-focused DeFi protocol.
SHOCKED The insurer’s announcement irked many. “As someone who spent years suing insurance companies when they failed to pay valid claims, color me shocked, absolutely shocked, that insurance ‘on the blockchain’ is the same old story,” tweeted Stephen Palley, a partner at the law firm Anderson Kill.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
DeFi Lenders
🤺 Upstart Silo Finance Preps Token Sale in Challenge to Aave and Compound
NEWS An upstart is about to take on DeFi lending giants Compound Finance, Aave and Rari Capital. It’s called Silo Finance and the protocol is opening a token sale on Dec. 6 in its bid to win web3 glory. Silo’s edge: a new model.
SILOS The main differentiator for the protocol is a design that places deposited and borrowed tokens in individual “silos” as opposed to in one pool, which is how Compound and Aave do it.
BAD DEBT In theory, Silo’s approach mitigates risks which stem from having many assets in one pool; a user can artificially inflate the value of their deposited token, allowing them to borrow a large amount of another token against the inflated one. If the inflated tokens’ value falls below that of the borrowed one, the borrower can simply not return the token, leaving the system with bad debt.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Airdrops
💸 Hybrid AMM DeversiFi Delivers Airdrop and Trading Rewards
AIRDROP DeversiFi, a decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Ethereum blockchain, has launched trading rewards for users who swap tokens on its platform and announced a retroactive airdrop for early adopters.
PROGRAM As many as 25,000 DVF tokens, currently valued at $300,000 will be distributed weekly to program participants who trade the following tokens on DeversiFi.
On Dec. 2, DeversiFi announced an airdrop for active users.
TREASURY Up to 7.2M DVF tokens may be claimed by eligible users until 2 March 2022, at which time any unclaimed tokens will be returned to the DAO treasury. The project identified active users through a series of snapshots and has released a blog post detailing the method used.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
DAOs Jumping
🚀 TVL in DAOs Almost Doubles to $15B in Q4 Surge
NEWS This quarter Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have grown dramatically, with the total value locked (TVL) of DAO Treasuries gaining 90% since the start of October to $15.2B.
MEMBERSHIP Citing data from DeepDao, Messari researcher Roberto Talamas recently tweeted that DAO membership has increased by 133% since August, with more than 1.6M entities spanning 164 organizations. The number of DAOs this year boasting treasuries valued at seven figures or greater has also increased almost 400%, to 58 from 12; DAOs with a membership of 100-plus have increased to 71 from 41 — a 73% jump.
TREEMAP Talamas created a treemap showing the top 30 DAOs by membership, led by Uniswap with 275,652, Kusama with 250,496, and MetaCartel Ventures with 244,104. Compound ranks fourth with 174,329, then Aave with 103,753, while all other DAOs have memberships below 60,000.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Weekend Read
💎 Loot Project Pursues Quiet Quest in NFT Gaming Following Splashy Debut
Now that the buzz around Loot Project has dissipated a bit, Brady Dale caught up with the effort to check on its progress. You may be surprised at what he learned…
ICO BOOM Is the Loot Project going to have a trajectory somewhat like Ethereum circa 2018? There are certainly parallels. Those outside of Loot are dismissing it right now, much the way the public became convinced that crypto was over after the ICO boom.
COMMUNITY In both cases, though, after the attention went away, a lot of work was getting done. The trouble is, like Ethereum back then, even enthusiastic community members still aren’t totally sure what Loot is going to be good for.
BURN Loot (for Adventures) was launched in late August by Vine co-founder Dom Hoffmann. It enabled Ethereum users to download a list of items in an NFT, LOOT, that would provide the basis of a game — some game. Then in September, Hoffman burnt the keys that would have allowed him to change the smart contract so that it truly had community control. Since then, he’s largely backed away.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
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The Tube
📺 SuperMassive NFT Show: Digital Fashion is going to blow everything else out of the water
Links
🔗 Star Trek creator’s signature goes where no NFT has gone before: DNA: CoinTelegraph
The signature of Star Trek producer Gene Roddenberry has gone boldly where no NFT has gone before — into the code for life itself.
🔗 Coin Center is educating policy makers about public blockchains: Grants
Based in Washington, D.C., Coin Center is the leading non-profit research and advocacy center focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency and decentralized computing technologies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
🔗 EVM384 – Can we do Fast Crypto in EVM?: Ethereum.org
This is a follow-up from the original proposal/specification, with initial results. We give a history of crypto in EVM and precompiles.
🔗 SEC denies WisdomTree's spot bitcoin ETF proposal: The Block
The Securities and Exchange Commission has rejected WisdomTree's proposal to list a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), making it the second rejection order to come down in this wave of applications for a spot-based bitcoin ETF.
Trending in The Defiant
On First Anniversary Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain Solidifies Proof-of-Stake Shift The Ethereum community is celebrating the first anniversary of the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain, which set the network’s roadmap toward Eth2 into motion with its launch on Dec. 1, 2020.
Push to Launch Layer 2 Liquidity Mining on Uniswap Gains Steam A Uniswap community member has called for the decentralized exchange (DEX) to launch a liquidity mining program and incentivize users to migrate to its Layer 2 deployments on Arbitrum and Optimism.
Surging Ether Hits 42-month High Against BTC Ethereum has made another leg up against Bitcoin, with the ETH/BTC chart tagging its highest level since May 2018.
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🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Brady Dale, Owen Fernau, Samuel Haig, DeFiDad, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader, and Camila Russo. Videos are produced by Robin Schmidt, Alp Gasimov and Daniel Flynn. Podcast is led by Camila, edited by Alp.
The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access, while free signups get only part of the content. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button above ($15/mo, $150/yr).