Weekly DeFi Report: BlackRock Hops On
Summary
Price actions on digital assets were relatively quiet with BTC hovering around a narrow range (7d: BTC -2.6%). Recent Nomad exploit and Solana wallet hack incident raised security concern in the crypto space. Macro uncertainty ahead, including the Jobs Report and July CPI numbers, lowered investors’ risk appetite. However, the crypto market did not fall sharply as the TradFi and crypto connected. BlackRock announced to offer crypto trading service via Coinbase Prime. On the other hand, Binance collaborated with Mastercard to enhance the daily use cases for cryptocurrency; Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder, published “MAXBIDDING”, an article that expressed his bullish views on Ethereum. The market sentiment was considered to be neutral at this moment, expecting volatility to be incoming as CPI approaches.
In the last 7 days:
Outperformers in the Top 100: FIL (+38.7%), FLOW (+38.6%), CHZ (+21.4%), LDO (+18.3%), VET (15.2%), CAKE (+13.2%), ICP (+12.8%), BNB (+12.4%)
Underperformers in the Top 100: DFI (-14.8%), CRV (-11.4%), BCH (-11.3%), ETC (-9.3%), XCN (-9.2%), 10SET (-9.0%), GMT (-8.8%)
In the DeFi space, total TVL increased following the recent crypto rally, currently at $108B (+19%). For major blockchains’ TVL, Ethereum $70B (+18%), Binance Smart Chain $9B (+32%), Avalanche $5B (+56%) took the lead. L2 season continued, with Optimism’s TVL rallied to $1.7B (+204%), Polygon $2.3B (+19%), Arbitrum $1.5B (+75%). Other notable chains in TVL increase: Elrond $384m (+141%), Thorchain $368m (+119%), Metis $79m (+84%), Kujira $23m (+4191% not typo), Kadena $17m (+450%).
Deep Dive
BlackRock offered crypto trading
More in details: BlackRock partnered with Coinbase to offer crypto trading service for institutional investors. Coinbase Prime will provide crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage and reporting capabilities to mutual clients of Coinbase and Aladdin, BlackRock’s investment management platform.
Solana wallet hacked
More in details: Solana users’ wallets were being drained of $SOL, $USDC and other Solana-based tokens on Wednesday night, over $4.46M worth of tokens have been stolen. More than 15,200 wallet addresses were affected, including Phantom Wallets and Slope Wallets. $SOL declined 3% immediately after the official announcement of the exploit.
Nomad bridge $200m exploit
More in details: On-chain bridge has always been the prime target for hackers. On Tuesday, hackers drained near $200M from Nomad bridge due to smart contract vulnerability. Not only was the initial hacker exploiting the Nomad treasury, but also other Nomad users who just copied the transaction data used by the initial hacker, leading to severe damage to Nomad.
Binance partnered with Mastercard
More in details: The largest crypto exchange and the payment service company are launching a prepaid reward card in Argentina. Users could spend crypto on daily expenses and bill payments, with a crypto cash back rewards of up to 8%. $BNB token surged 4.1% in last 24 hours.
Fantom got frozen on Aave v3
More in details: Aave developers proposed to stop Fantom integration due to security concerns. After the Harmony and Nomad bridges being exploit, Aave team would consider the risk-reward ratio that Fantom could bring to Aave. According to Marc Zeller, the Aave’s integration lead, Fantom market only brings in $30 per day to Aave Treasury. It is not worth the risks, with lack of traction and potential vulnerability.
Following
Big Money Raises
Aurigami ($PLY), a noncustodial lending and borrowing haven on Aurora, raised $12M in token round, led by Dragonfly Capital and Polychain Capital. Other investors included Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Jump Crypto and QCP Capital. $9.5M was raised via private token sale while $2.5M via IEO on KuCoin, Bybit and Impossible Finance. Its TVL is currently at $21M.
Stride, a Cosmos-based liquid staking protocol, raised $6.7M in seed funding round, led by North Island VC, Distributed Global and Pantera Capital. The money raised will be used for team expansion and protocol’s security enhancement.
Lattice Capital, a crypto VC, raised $60M in second round.
