🧐 Christensen Calls For MakerDAO to Float Stablecoin
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DAO Governance
🧐 Christensen Calls For MakerDAO to Float Stablecoin
Outspoken Founder Says U.S. Clampdown Closing ‘Window of Opportunity’ for DeFi
By Samuel Haig
REVERSAL In what would mark a dramatic strategic reversal, Rune Christensen, the founder of MakerDAO, is calling for the DeFi stalwart to reduce its exposure to real-world assets and freely float the value of its stablecoin, DAI, against the dollar.
DEPEG The move would depeg the currently stable DAI token from the U.S. dollar and prevent holders from redeeming it on a one-to-one basis for other stablecoins. It would also do away with one of DAI’s core value propositions, and could result in the token trading below the dollar.
CRACKDOWN Christensen argued that MakerDAO may not have a choice. Invoking the U.S. government crackdown and the meltdown of major crypto platforms, Christensen said MakerDAO, along with the rest of decentralized finance, was facing an existential crisis.
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DEX Drama
😅 SushiSwap Members Rejoice as Whale Bails from Token
After Shaping Sushi’s Reform Plan Arca Hits the Exits
By Samuel Haig
SOLD Arca, a crypto-focused asset manager, appears to have sold its $3.1M position in SushiSwap’s token. And many of the crypto exchange’s community members couldn’t be happier.
STAKING On Aug. 30, a transaction from a wallet associated with Arca was flagged in the SushiSwap community Discord for withdrawing more than 3.1M SUSHI from staking and transferring the tokens to FTX, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange.
INFLUX A sudden influx of volume was spotted on FTX shortly after, with the price of SUSHI abruptly sliding from $1.10 to $1.07 over the course of a single three-minute candle. The asset has since traded between $1.02 and $1.07 in the past 24 hours
SUPPLY On July 17, 2021, Arca’s chief investment officer, Jeff Dorman, tweeted that the firm was “one of the largest xSUSHI holders” and controlled 7.5% of its circulating supply.
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Exploits
🦹🏻♂️ FBI Says ‘Complexity’ Makes DeFi Vulnerable to Hacks
Feds Cite Chainalysis Report in Issuing Consumer Warning
NEWS The FBI warned investors on Monday to approach decentralized finance with caution, citing the growing share of crypto hacks that target DeFi protocols. Pointing to analysis from crypto forensics firm Chainalysis, the FBI said that 97% of crypto stolen in the first three months of 2022 came from DeFi platforms, up from 72% in 2021.
CODE The bureau said the vulnerabilities in DeFi platforms stem from the “complexity of cross-chain functionality” and the fact that projects are largely open source, meaning their code is publicly available.
WEAKNESSES Open-source code makes it possible for white hat hackers to sift through code and identify weaknesses on a project’s behalf, for which those hackers typically earn bounties. But it also means criminals can do the same and exploit DeFi software.
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The Tube
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DeFi Explainers
⚖️ Market Cap vs. Circulating Supply
A Step-by-Step Guide to Two Key Metrics in Crypto
SUPPLY The most common way to rank cryptocurrencies is by using their market capitalization. This is the value of all the coins or tokens available for purchase on the market. In other words, a market cap is not calculated by a cryptocurrency’s total supply, but by its circulating supply.
COINS Every cryptocurrency has different circulating supplies, and some don’t limit maximum supply. Such a dynamic makes all the difference on how traders approach certain coins over others.
How To Calculate Market Cap?
ALTERNATIVE Market cap is best viewed as cryptocurrency’s total tradeable value. We calculate it by multiplying the number of tradable coins by the price of each coin. For example, the Ethereum alternative smart contract platform, Avalanche (AVAX), has 284,926,959 tradable AVAX coins.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Elsewhere
🔗 Top execs from Genesis and Galaxy are raising a $500 million fund: The Block
Top executives from crypto trading and investment firms Galaxy Digital and Genesis are set to launch a new crypto fund, according to an SEC filing.
🔗 OpenSea Adds Polygon Support to Expand Features, Accept MATIC: Decrypt
OpenSea, the number one NFT marketplace by volume, announced today the integration of the layer two scaling solution Polygon into its Seaport protocol implementation.
🔗 Given the Sanctions on Tornado Cash, Is Ethereum Censorship Resistant?: Unchained
Andrew Hinkes, partner at K&L Gates and adjunct professor at NYU, and Martin Koeppelman, cofounder of Gnosis, talk about the sanctions on Tornado Cash, how they will impact Ethereum on the base layer, and the likelihood of having two chains.
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Coinbase Launches cbETH Liquid Staking Token A new token representing staked Ether just hit the blockchain.
🧑💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Aleksandar Gilbert, Samuel Haig, 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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