📈 The Merge Drives Value of ETH Options Past Bitcoin
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we’re covering today:
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🎙Listen to the Exclusive Interview with UMA’s Hart Lambur in this Week’s Podcast:
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Elsewhere
Why DeFi Giants Aave, Curve May Want Their Own Stablecoins: CoinDesk
CryptoPunk Ethereum NFT Sales Jump 248% After Tiffany Launch: Decrypt
Thanks to everyone at @lollapalooza for another great weekend: Solana
Trending in The Defiant
SushiSwap ‘Head Chef’ May Pocket a Third of All Tokens Paid to Staff
The Merge Draws Ever Closer as Ethereum Passes Another Critical Test
Defiant Data Dive: Airdrops are Mostly Fool’s Gold…But They Have Their Uses
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Market Action
📈 The Merge Drives Value of ETH Options Past Bitcoin
By Owen Fernau
RALLY If investors needed any more evidence The Merge is driving a rally in Ethereum here’s one more compelling datapoint: Open interest on ETH options just leapfrogged Bitcoin. On July 28, the total amount of put and call contracts on ETH surpassed BTC for the first time, according to data provider Glassnode.
VALUE Open interest is the notional value of the puts and calls of a given asset that haven’t been settled yet. Puts are usually a bet a security will decline in value, and calls a wager the value will increase. The put/call ratio on ETH options is 0.26, according to the trader who goes by Chang, a partner of the Derebit options platform. This indicates a heavy weighting toward people looking to go long on Ethereum’s token.
OVERHAUL With developers expecting Ethereum to merge its Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake blockchains on Sept. 19, ETH has soared more than 47% in the last 30 days, according to CoinGecko. The Merge marks the most significant overhaul of Ethereum. The switch is expected to dramatically reduce gas fees and improve efficiency for the leading system of smart contracts and dApps.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Stablecoins
🏃🏻♀️ New Aave Stablecoin Clears First Hurdle
By Samuel Haig
VOTES In a move that may disrupt the stablecoin market, Aave, the leading money market protocol, is poised to create a fully collateralized stable token called GHO. On July 31, more than 99.9% of Aave’s community members voted to launch the coin. It was the first of three governance votes that will take place over coming weeks to determine the design and roadmap for the token.
DISCOUNT RATE Aave will now engage a security firm to audit the code for GHO. Its community will next vote on a proposed starting interest rate GHO and discount rate for AAVE stakers that mint GHO.
LOANS Aave is the third-largest DeFi protocol by cross-chain total value locked (TVL) with $6.55B, according to DeFi Llama. Users can earn a yield on assets deposited into the protocol, and also use their deposits to back self-managed, overcollateralized loans on the platform.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
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Exploits
🦹🏻♂️ Nomad Bridge Hacked With $45M Stolen
HACKED Nomad, a protocol allowing users to move digital assets between different blockchains, is being actively hacked on Monday evening. As of 7:15 p.m. New York time, attacker(s) have drained $45M in wrapped Bitcoin, Ether and various stablecoins from the protocol, and more than $100M in cryptocurrency remains at risk.
ISSUE The Nomad team is looking into the issue.
HEAVYWEIGHTS The Moonbeam network has been essentially paused while the team investigates. The hack comes just days after Nomad unveiled the full list of investors who participated in its $22M seed round, with heavyweights Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute, 1kx and Polychain Capital.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
NFTs
💰CryptoPunk Holders Unfazed By Meebits’ Move To Add Royalties
By Owen Fernau
SHOCKWAVES Yuga Labs doesn’t appear to be printing money the same way they were in 2021. Meebits, a popular NFT project, sent shockwaves through the NFT space when it activated a 5% royalty fee on secondary sales of its NFTs on July 28. The fee change leaves Meebits’ sister project, CryptoPunks, as the only major NFT collection that doesn’t collect a slice of resales..
FEES Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, acquiintellectual property (IP) rights to both Meebits and CryptoPunks in March. The addition of royalty fees represents the most significant change to Meebits since the acquisition.
DISGRUNTLED Some collectors were disgruntled at what they felt was a lack of activity on Yuga’s part before enacting the fees. “Sounds like we are getting a lot of promises of things to come but are getting a 5% royalty as of now,” tweeted VonMises, a major NFT collector.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
The Tube
📺 Quick Take: Yuga adds royalties to Meebits, what's next?
📺 The Defiant Weekly: Ben Mauro spent 10 years bringing Huxley to life. WORTH IT. (with Steven Ilous -Feature)
Elsewhere
🔗 Why DeFi Giants Aave, Curve May Want Their Own Stablecoins: CoinDesk
Stablecoins could drive users and revenue to platforms in a similar way that governance tokens did during the “DeFi Summer” of 2020.
🔗 CryptoPunk Ethereum NFT Sales Jump 248% After Tiffany Launch: Decrypt
The sales volume of the CryptoPunks NFT collection has spiked over 248% in the last 24 hours, sparked by an exclusive offer from iconic luxury jewelry and specialty retailer Tiffany & Co. for CryptoPunks NFT holders, according to data from CryptoSlam.
🔗 Open Source Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain Explorer: Beaconchain
The Ethereum Beacon Chain is currently undergoing genesis. Please prepare your validators and send your deposits.
Trending in The Defiant
SushiSwap ‘Head Chef’ May Pocket a Third of All Tokens Paid to Staff The proposed new “head chef” of SushiSwap could pocket more than a third of the crypto exchange’s total SUSHI coins allocated to staff over the next four years, according to an analysis of the compensation package by The Defiant.
The Merge Draws Ever Closer as Ethereum Passes Another Critical Test Passing the latest in a series of critical tests ahead of The Merge, Ethereum completed the tenth mainnet shadow fork on July 27. The result: It went off without a hitch.
Defiant Data Dive: Airdrops are Mostly Fool’s Gold…But They Have Their Uses Who doesn’t love free money? Airdrops have become one of the most popular features of crypto. By giving away free tokens to investors, they epitomized the easy money to be made in the blockchain world. Airdrops also became a potent way to draw users and build critical mass on platforms.
🧑💻 ✍️ 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.
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