Weekly DeFi Report:LITTLE REDTEMBER

Summary

Crypto assets were trading heavy over the last few days with macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. Crypto market cap is now at $988bn with Bitcoin hovering around $19k (7d: BTC +0.9%). September is likely ending red again. Funding rates were neutral with quiet pricing actions. On the economic side, the unemployment data (Initial Jobless Claims: 193k) was lower than expected (215k), and dropped from previous data (209k), hinting that the recent Fed’s aggressive play has not yet posed a significant impact and caused any alert for further recession. This can also be confirmed from the -0.6% Q2 GDP (QoQ) data released yesterday, which was the same as forecast and previous data. This may support the Fed to keep increasing rates in coming meetings to restore price stability. Despite the fact that the global economy and crypto market are still at difficult time, the interest on Web3 industry from institutions and tradfi companies are undeniable. This week, Mastercard partnered with crypto firm to offer new debit cards, BlackRock launched crypto-related ETF and Robinhood extended their business to web3.

Top 100 in the last 7 days:

Outperformers: QNT (+30.5%), TKX (+24.3%), MKR (+17.9%), HNT (+14.2%), XDC (+13.0%), ENS (+10.7%), LINK (+10.2%)
Underperformers: EVMOS (-36.1%), DFI (-13.1%), CHZ (-11.5%), ATOM (-11.5%), OSMO (-11.2%), LDO (-10.9%), RVN (-10.8%)

In the DeFi space, total TVL slightly increased over last seven days, currently at $79.5bn* (+1.6%). Major blockchains’ TVL went higher this week: Ethereum $47.5bn (+1.0%), Binance Smart Chain $7.7bn (+2.6%), Tron $6.3bn (+16.3%). Tron increased the most among the major networks, as its lending protocol “JustLend” contributed a 25.4% increase in its TVL. The L2s were mixed in TVL: Optimism $1.8bn (+5.7%), Polygon $1.6bn (+2.1%) and Arbitrum $1.5bn (-1.0%). Avalanche, the outlier last week, slowed down and dropped 11.8% this week to reach a TVL level of $2.9bn.

Table 1: Total Value Locked (TVL) on major blockchains

Deep Dive

Mastercard partnered with Hi to launch customized debit cards

• Eligible owners of blue chips NFTs can customize their Mastercard debit cards with NFT avatars they own. The card supports CryptoPunks, Moonbirds, Goblins, Bored Apes and Azukis. The card will initially be available in 25+ EEA countries including the UK, like a normal Mastercard, and accepted by more than 90 million locations worldwide.

Robinhood web3 wallet beta

• The no-fee trading platform released the beta version of its Polygon-based web3 wallet, allowing the first 10,000 users to swap assets without fees on the wallet, over 20 cryptocurrencies supported by decentralized exchange aggregator 0x. The wallet may soon allow users to connect to Dapps and earn extra yields.

OpenSea added Optimism

• Optimism became the sixth blockchain network supported by the leading NFT platforms. OpenSea also highlighted the onboarding of popular Optimism-backed projects like Apetimism, Bored Town, MotorHeadz and OptiChads. However, the overall trading volume of Optimism NFTs remained unchanged since OpenSea listing support.

Ribbon Finance launching Options Exchange “Aevo”

• “Aevo” is built on Ethereum and allows users to trade Ethereum options on-chain. Other cryptocurrencies’ options should also become available in coming months. The launch also comes with different structural products, in line with Ribbon’s previous products. For example, users can deposit stablecoin USDC into T-USDC-P-ETH vault to trigger an Ethereum put-selling strategy and generate additional yields on their assets. These vaults will be integrating with Aevo and provide users higher flexibility in trading and hedging their positions.

USDC expansion

• Circle expanded USDC stablecoin support to five blockchain networks. By early 2023, USDC stablecoin will be compatible with Arbitrum, Cosmos, NEAR, Optimism and Polkadot.

New Entrants/Money Raises

• Warner Music Group partnered with OpenSea to provide a platform for selected artists to extend their fanbases to web3 community. This may open up more opportunity for fans to engage with their favourite artists and music within the web3 space.
• BlackRock introduced Blockchain ETF in Europe. The world largest asset manager is launching the “iShare Blockchain Technology UCITS ETF” for European clients, which offers exposures to many large crypto-related companies, for instance Coinbase, Galaxy Digital and Marathon Digital. On the other side, BlackRock may dive deeper and release a metaverse-related ETF.
• SWIFT is working with Chainlink on a cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP). CCIP will enable SWIFT messages to instruct on-chain token transfers so that interbank network can communicate across all blockchain environments.
• QQL NFT projects, created by visual artist Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist, raised ~$16.5m (126,000 eth) in a successful mint on Wednesday.

DYOR, Enjoy your weekend!