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⍺ DeFi Alpha Newsletter
DeFi Alpha is a weekly newsletter by The Defiant and DeFi Dad, packed with tutorials and tips on how to earn yield in DeFi. DeFi Alpha is exclusive to paid subscribers.
This Week:
⍺ DeFi Alpha: Using the Shardeum Testnet for a Potential SHM 0.00 Airdrop
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Binance Flex
🔦 CZ Strives to Show Binance is Different From FTX
Binance Begins Disclosing Wallet Assets in Transparency Push
By Samuel Haig
VULNERABLE Just like FTX, Binance maintains billions of dollars worth of its own tokens on its balance sheet. So is the globe’s No. 1 cryptocurrency exchange vulnerable to the same type of bank run that poleaxed Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange last week?
QUESTION That’s a pertinent question as Binance, which does $14B in daily trading volume, leans into playing the role of savior at a perilous moment for digital assets.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
DeFi Migration
📈 Crypto Users Jump to DeFi Platforms in Wake of FTX’s CeFi Crash
Nansen Data Show Double-Digit Jumps in Users at MakerDAO, Aave, and Other Protocols
By Owen Fernau
DOUBLE-DIGIT JUMPS Don’t look now, but the FTX collapse has spurred a wave of interest in decentralized finance platforms. DeFi protocols are experiencing double digit increases in the number of users over the past week, according to data from Nansen, the blockchain analytics platform.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Sponsored Post
Liquity's Chicken Bonds enhanced yield with DeFi Saver
DeFi Saver is an all-in-one dashboard for creating, managing and tracking positions with automatic liquidation protection and leverage management options for only the most trusted DeFi protocols, Liquity among them.
Liquity, interest-free borrowing protocol built on Ethereum, recently introduced a novel product offering The Defiant wrote about - Chicken Bonds. Chicken Bonds are a new, innovative form of bonding mechanism in DeFi.
Chicken Bonds are an innovative bonding mechanism offering several key benefits to those willing to bond their Liquity native stablecoin LUSD. In exchange for depositing and bonding LUSD, users accrue boosted LUSD (bLUSD), derivative token.
Primary benefit for bonding LUSD instead of supplying to Liquity’s Stability Pool is the amplified yield users get from Liquity’s internal liquidation mechanism as well as from other liquidity sources like the pools in Curve. Alongside improved liquidity for the LUSD stablecoin, the most important benefit to users is bonding with no time commitment or maturity. Users can withdraw principal LUSD fully and chicken out at any time, renouncing the accrued interest. The other option being to chicken in and claim accrued bLUSD, forgoing the initial LUSD deposit.
As the most comprehensive decentralized frontend for Liquity, DeFi Saver continues its devoted support with dedicated Chicken Bonds dashboard and advanced protocol actions and strategies. Alongside basic actions, DeFi Saver offers users options to Claim and Sell bLUSD or Rebond (Claim, Sell and create new bond). DeFi Saver team is even preparing automation options for the new Liquity innovation.
Get the most out of your Liquity experience with DeFi Saver.
TradFi + DeFi
🧪 As Skeptics Dance on Crypto’s Grave the Fed and Big Banks Launch Digital Ledger Project
Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and MasterCard Test DLT to Connect Deposits
By yyctrader
TEST Even as the crypto industry grapples with a year-long bear market and the collapse of FTX, global financial institutions just can’t say no to blockchain-related technology. On Tuesday, a lineup of top-shelf firms — Citigroup, HSBC, Wells Fargo, and MasterCard, among others — joined forces with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to explore using distributed ledgers to connect deposits.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Layer 2s
💰 Layer 2s Defy Market Angst as Matter Labs Raises $200M
Zero-Knowledge Powered Rollup Garnering Momentum in Race to Scale Ethereum
By Samuel Haig
SERIES C In a sign of momentum for Layer 2s, Matter Labs, the team behind the nascent zkSync 2.0 network, raised $200M in a Series C round led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly, the venture announced on Nov. 16.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Crypto Payments
🤳🏽 Businesses Can Now Accept USDC With Apple Pay
Circle’s Move Comes as Stablecoin Has Been Losing Market Share
FEATURE Circle, the issuer of the dollar-pegged USDC stablecoin, has unveiled an integration with Apple Pay, the payment service with over half a billion users around the globe. Merchants will be able to accept USDC as payment using this new feature.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Opinion
💪🏼 Let’s Revamp Tokenomics to Make DeFi More Useful and Valuable
It’s Imperative to Provide Real Value to Tokenholders, Not Just Governance Tools
Guest writer Mike Sall argues that it’s time for tokenomics to get real and prove it’s utility…
VALUE In the midst of a harsh bear market, crypto investors are asking tough questions: “What actually drives value to this token, and why would I want to own this?”
COMMUNITY I see it first-hand when people ask the same things about Goldfinch, the protocol I helped launch in 2021. The market downturn is forcing the crypto community to become much more discerning.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Defiant Video
📺 FTX Collapse: Mapping The Contagion
Podcast Video
📺🎙 Podcast: Robinhood is coming after MetaMask with Polygon Web3 Wallets
Shoutout
BNB Chain is coming to NYC on Dec.3 and is calling for web3 start-ups to join and pitch their innovative ideas to our investors. Please fill out the short application!
DeFi Explainers
🤔 What is a DEX Aggregator?
A Step-by-Step Guide to This Important Swaps Tool
SWAPS When Uniswap popularized decentralized exchanges on the Ethereum network, it was a ground-breaking development. DEXs permissionlessly enable users to become liquidity providers for token pair swaps.
👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈
Trending in The Defiant
Unsecured DeFi Lenders Look Shaky in Face of FTX Contagion The fallout from FTX’s collapse is just starting and within decentralized finance, platforms enabling unsecured loans are the most exposed relative to collateralized counterparts with millions in loans on the line, while total value locked slides.
Markets Rally After Binance Proposes ‘Industry Recovery Fund’ Crypto markets rallied early Monday after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) proposed to create an “industry recovery fund” that would invest in companies struggling to stay afloat in the wake of FTX’s collapse.
Solana Discloses Losses From FTX Collapse The Solana Foundation and Solana Labs have disclosed their asset exposure and transaction histories linked to bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its sister trading firm Alameda Research.
Elsewhere
🔗 The Path Forward with Ryan & David: Bankless
This is the craziest moment we’ve experienced in crypto. So many things to unpack. But the biggest question remains… where do we go from here?
🔗 Proof of Reserves: Could it Have Prevented the FTX Meltdown?: CoinDesk
Crypto exchanges can go bust when they do not have the funds to fulfill customer withdrawals.
🧑💻 ✍️ 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 Alp Gasimov. Podcast was led by Camila, edited by Alp.
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