Weekly DeFi Report: The Merge

Summary

Market saw a burst of uptick, with supportive equities. Crypto market cap is again above $1trillion with BTC above 22k and ETH above 1,200. Ethereum moved one step closer to The Merge with another testnet (Sepholia) merge successful. Next up, the Goerli testnet merge is expected to occur within the next 3–4 weeks, setting the stage for a potential mainnet merge in September. In the backdrop, headlines around distressed companies continue… FTX signed a deal to provide BlockFi with a $400m revolving credit facility, alongside an option to buy BlockFi for up to $240m; Nexo began a 60-day due diligence process on the acquisition of Singapore-based lender Vauld.

In the last 7 days:

Outperformers in the Top 100: ETH (+19%), AVAX (+23%), MATIC (+24%), AAVE (+29%), RUNE (+30%), AR (+28%), EVMOS (+33%)

Underperformers in the Top 100: HT (-1%), GT (-1%),

In the DeFi space, TVL numbers are generally higher with rebound in token prices, with TRX (+38%), SOL (+13%) leading the bounce. Arbitrum saw decline in TVL (-8%) with the pause of their Arbitrum Odyssey.

Deep Dive

Aave proposes new stablecoin

Aave proposed to the DAO the introduction of a new decentralized, collateral- backed stablecoin, native to the ecosystem, known as GHO, pegged to USD. Users can mint GHO against their supplied collaterals. All interest payments accrued by minters of GHO would directly be transferred to the AaveDAO Treasury, rather than standard reserve factor collected when users borrow other assets. Holders of sktAAVE can mint GHO at a discounted rate, i.e. pay lower interest rate on the GHO that they borrow.

Shiba Inu plans to launch stablecoin

The project shared plans to expand the Shiba Inu ecosystem with a decentralized stablecoin, a reward token called TREAT, as well as a collectible card game for its metaverse

Wonderland passes vote to invest $25mio in Sifu Vision

Sifu Vision is a project founded by Sifu, Wonderland’s former treasury manager and an ex-convict. Wonderland passed a vote to invest $25mio in the token, and the Wonderland community will proceed to an OTC deal to acquire $25m worth of Sifu Vision tokens, and the tokens will be linearly vested for 12 months

Following

Big Money Raises

• TON Foundation raises $90M for ecosystem fund
• Ondo Finance raises $10M in public token sale on CoinList, following Ondo’s $20M Series A funding 2 months ago