😠 StarkNet Testers Fume After Token Announcement
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News
DeFi Explainers
Podcast
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Elsewhere
Huobi’s version of wrapped bitcoin has a transparency problem: the Block
NFTs Are Now Collateral for Secured Loans. Are You Legally Protected?: CoinDesk
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Token Launches
😠 StarkNet Testers Fume After Token Announcement
NATIVE TOKEN StarkWare, the company behind Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution StarkNet, plans to launch a native token designed to decentralize control and maintenance of the network.
UNVEILING The token is also intended to reward developers and investors, and its unveiling comes a day after Su Zhu, the enigmatic founder of failed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, slammed the fund’s liquidators for their alleged failure to claim StarkWare tokens before a July 5 deadline.
BOTCHED AIRDROP But early adopters of the nascent L2 took to its Discord to fume that they were left out of the equation, and some compared it to Optimism’s botched token airdrop last month.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Crypto Lending
😮 Crypto Lender Celsius Files for Bankruptcy Protection
User Withdrawals to Remain Halted
By Camila Russo
NEWS Celsius, the crypto lender that last month halted withdrawals, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company said in a press release. User withdrawals will remain halted.
DECISION “This is the right decision for our community and company,” Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky wrote in the statement. “We have a strong and experienced team in place to lead Celsius through this process.”
RESTRUCTURING Celsius filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to start a financial restructuring process, the company said on its website.
MOTION Celsius has $167M in cash to support certain operations during the restructuring process, according to the press release. Celsius has filed a motion to request to pay employees and continue their benefits.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Sponsored Post
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The famous DeFi app first started off as CDP Saver in early 2019 as a tool to help users protect their Maker CDPs (now Vaults) from liquidation and the dreaded 13% liquidation penalty. As DeFi started growing, they pivoted to DeFi Saver and over the past 3 years integrated protocols such as Aave, Liquity, Compound, Reflexer, Yearn, mStable and as of latest Convex.
As a complementary protocol to Curve, Convex brings users enhanced yield on their liquidity, and is the latest addition to DeFi Saver’s Smart Savings dashboard. With simple 1-transaction asset supply to the most famous yield farming protocols, it offers an easy access to some of the most popular DeFi protocol liquidity pools. The option to move your funds between pools and integrated protocols in a single transaction makes the dashboard especially convenient.
With an ever more expanding set of features, DeFi Saver is slowly becoming a truly robust solution for DeFi asset management with a safe and low-risk approach.
Check out this essential piece of anyone’s DeFi toolkit at DeFiSaver.com.
Crypto Funds
👀 Multicoin Raises New $430M Web3 Fund
By Jason Levin
RAISE Despite the bear market, venture capitalists are still raising money and looking to deploy capital. On July 12, crypto venture capital fund Multicoin Capital said it has raised $430M to invest anywhere between $500K-$25M in early-stage opportunities and up to $100M in mature projects.
TOOLING The fund will make investments in web3 infrastructure, DAOs and DAO tooling, consumer products, new IP-based business models, and creator monetization. Multicoin is looking for protocols that offer “proof of physical work” – ones that incentivize communities to “do verifiable work that builds real-world infrastructure.”
PORTFOLIO Multicoin Capital began investing in crypto five years ago and their portfolio includes early investments in Ethereum, Solana, blockchain explorer Dune Analytics, crypto-IoT network Helium, crypto exchange FTX, and DAO accelerator Seed Club.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
DeFi Explainers
🦄 What Is Ethereum?
A Step-by-Step Primer on Ethereum's Blockchain, Gas Fees, Scalability and dApps
VALUELESS When Bitcoin first launched in January 2009, it was effectively valueless. In fact, it took two years for Bitcoin to reach $1. It took many subsequent years for the cryptocurrency to popularize the concept of blockchain assets, paving the way for other types of blockchain networks.
ALTERNATIVE The most important alternative to Bitcoin is Ethereum. Only, it’s not really an alternative but an entirely different proposition. Unlike Bitcoin, which is designed to be a form digital money, Ethereum is a network that enables software developers to create decentralized programs, called dApps, and smart contracts which automate agreements. Ether, Ethereum’s native token, is an intrinsic part of its operational program.
NODES As with any blockchain network, Ethereum relies on multiple computers, known as nodes, to maintain a distributed database on the internet. This public ledger is not just synced up with other nodes for data redundancy, but each record in the database is chained together and time-stamped. This creates a data blockchain that is immutable because no record could be forged without creating another blockchain branch.
As of July 2022, there are 1,224 Ethereum nodes in operation across the world. Each one holds an entire Ethereum ledger. Source: Etherscan.io
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Shoutout
Zebu Live is an immersive two-day Web 3 conference that brings the London crypto community together to showcase 80+ change-making leaders from the top web3 brands, including entrepreneur and investor Steven Bartlett. The conference will host 1,000’s of people worldwide, with discussions on DeFi, NFTs, the Metaverse, DAOs, and Gaming led by industry leaders.
Elsewhere
🔗 DeFi Worked Great: Pantera Capital
There’s a huge misconception that DeFi – Decentralized Finance – failed. It didn’t – it worked great!
🔗 Huobi’s version of wrapped bitcoin has a transparency problem: the Block
Huobi’s version of wrapped bitcoin isn’t living up to the transparency that it promised. The $800 million of assets that are backing the crypto exchange’s token are supposed to be sitting in clearly market wallets; except they’re not.
🔗 NFTs Are Now Collateral for Secured Loans. Are You Legally Protected?: CoinDesk
Regardless of personal views, it has grown near impossible not to take notice of non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Trending in The Defiant
Three Arrows’ Su Zhu Breaks Silence Accusing Liquidators of Playing Dirty Su Zhu, the co-founder of Three Arrows Capital, has accused the hedge fund’s liquidators of operating in bad faith, breaking a month-long silence during which his firm suffered a stunning fall from grace.
WZRDS Project Punishes Flippers By Burning Listed NFTS Ritual sacrifices are being carried out on the blockchain. An NFT collection called WZRDS has implemented a novel burn mechanism that allows NFT holders to vote to burn WZRDS NFTs listed below a certain price.
What Are Layer 1 and Layer 2 Blockchain Networks? As the smart contract wars heat up, Layer 1 vs. Layer 2 blockchains are differentiating. From Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake blockchains, each has its own way to scale to accommodate transaction volume.
🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Aleksandar Gilbert, Claire Gu, Samuel Haig, Jason Levin, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader and Camila Russo. Videos were produced by Robin Schmidt and Alp Gasimov. Podcast was 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.