Recap: DeFi Week of Dec. 14 🦄
Hello Defiers! Hope you’re having a great weekend.
Summing up: In this past week the crypto market continued to heat up, with bitcoin smashing through $20,000 and touching a new record almost every day, while ether rallied past $650, the highest since 2018. We looked at what short-sellers are doing and it looks like bears have their eyes on ETH, more than on BTC. Meanwhile, Chainlink’s LINK looked primed for a comeback. Compound Finance released plans to build an independent blockchain called Compound Chain to enable cross-chain money markets. There was yet another flash loan attack, resulting in about $8M drained from a DeFi protocol. The Graph launched its own decentralized network to provide open and global access to DeFi data. Tornado Cash proposed to decentralize its governance via the TORN token, while AAVE further decentralized its own governance, as any AAVE holder can now make proposals. This week’s podcast is with Jeff Garzik, the former Bitcoin core developer who is helping build Vesper, a yield bouncer that has the goal of professionalizing the DeFi investing experience.
💗 Huge thanks to everyone who contributed to The Defiant’s Gitcoin Grant!!
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🙌 Together with Zerion, a simple interface to access and use decentralized finance, Neutrino, an algorithmic price-stable protocol that enables the creation of stablecoins tied to real-world assets, and DeversiFi's Nectar Beehive V1, which allows traders to provide liquidity & earn Nectar ($NEC) tokens.
Interview
"We Took Lessons From the 'Food Festival' to Level Up the DeFi Experience," Bloq's Jeff Garzik
In today’s podcast episode I talk with Jeff Garzik, the Bitcoin core developer turned DeFi builder. Jeff comes from leading Bloq, a blockchain infrastructure company focusing on enterprises. As much as decentralized finance is exciting and groundbreaking, he believes its lacking professionalism. Jeff believes DeFi needs to be easy for retail users and for institutional users, not just for crypto natives. With that goal in mind, Bloq is launching Vesper, a decentralized protocol for users to gain passive interest on their crypto. The innovation relative to other yield bouncers, is that users can pick a risk level and the protocol will invest in different strategies accordingly. It both competes with, and uses Yearn Finance. We also talked about what’s next for DeFi, and how he believes the space will trend towards “hybrid finance,” where traditional finance will progressively adopt this infrastructure to become more open and global.
Friday
Dives
Compound Chain Foreshadows Cross-Chain DeFi Lending: Compound Finance is entering uncharted DeFi territory with an independent blockchain called Compound Chain.
Flash Loan Attacker Drains $8M From Warp Finance: Investors are depositing millions into new DeFi protocols launched by anonymous developers, at times only to be wiped away in a hack. The latest to suffer that unfortunate fate is Warp Finance.
Bytes
Tornado Cash Proposes TORN Governance Token: Tornado Cash presented a governance proposal to incentivize use of the Ethereum-based privacy tool via a new token called TORN.
Links
Thursday
Dives
Regulatory Clampdown as DeFi Heats Up Means $1 Trillion in Transactions Could be at Risk: IntoTheBlock’s Lucas Outumuro explores crypto’s reliance on stablecoins, and the magnitude of the potential implications associated with the Stable Act:
Bytes
The Graph Launches Open Blockchain API Network: The Graph today launched its decentralized network of searchable, public data for the top decentralized finance applications.
Aave Holders Vote to Further Decentralized Governance: Aave’s governance will be increasingly controlled by its community after token holders approved a proposal to activate the project’s so-called “V2 governance.”
Zerion Enables Trading Within Portfolio Tracker: Zerion, a DeFi portfolio tracker, today launched the ability for its users to trade tokens, and LP shares — or tokens representing liquidity in DeFi protocols.
Polkadot DEX Polkastarter Launches Fixed-Price IDO: Polkastarter, a decentralized exchange based on the Polkadot network, launched a mechanism for crowdfunding that allows projects to list their tokens with a fixed price per token.
Tuesday
Dives
Short Sellers Pile in as ETH Rallies to Highest Since 2018: It’s a good day for crypto bulls today; bitcoin is rallying to record levels, smashing through the $20k milestone, while ether climbs past $615 for the first time since 2018. But while Bitcoin bears have receded to their caves, Ether bears are rearing their heads.
Chainlink Primes for Big Leap as Sellers Lose Steam: Chainlink took the back foot over the past few days as both buyers and sellers fought neck and neck before finally reclaiming the $13 mark.
Bytes
Rally Ethereum Bridge to Bring Liquidity to Social Tokens: Rally, a platform enabling the issuance of social tokens, is now connected to the Ethereum mainnet, paving the way for liquidity.
Harvest Finances Launched $GRAIN to Compensate Hack Victims: Harvest Finance, a yield farming platform, launched a new $GRAIN token to compensate those affected by a $24M flash loan attack.
Links
💜Community Love💜
Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!
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. Get The Defiant’s $100 annual subscription for $80. Offer expires Dec. 31s.
About the founder and editor: Camila Russo is the author of The Infinite Machine, the first book on the history of Ethereum, and was previously a Bloomberg News markets reporter based in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires. She has extensively covered crypto and finance, and now is diving into DeFi, the intersection of the two.
