The decentralised finance (DeFi) sector continues to attract heightened attention from cryptocurrency investors. ForkLog has gathered the most significant events and news from recent weeks in a digest.
Key DeFi metrics
TVL across DeFi protocols fell to $77.26 billion. Led by MakerDAO at $7.84 billion, with AAVE and Lido in second and third at $5.65 billion and $5.35 billion respectively.
TVL in Ethereum apps fell to $48.12 billion. Over the last 30 days the figure declined by 5% (as of June 16 it stood at $50.52 billion).
Trading volume on decentralised exchanges (DEX) over the last 30 days stood at $56.7 billion.
Uniswap continues to dominate the non-custodial exchange market — accounting for 67.8% of total volume. The second DEX by volume is Curve (14.6%), the third is Balancer.
Aave proposes launching a decentralised stablecoin GHO
Developers of Aave proposed to the community to launch the DeFi protocol’s native multi-collateral stablecoin GHO, pegged to the US dollar.
«As a decentralised stablecoin on the Ethereum network, GHO will be minted by users. As with all borrowings in the Aave protocol, collateral must be provided (in a defined ratio) to mint GHO», the team explained.
As collateral for GHO, a “diversified set of crypto-assets” supported by the protocol will be used. Users will continue to earn interest on the tokens put up as collateral.
All decisions concerning GHO, including interest rates, collateral level and other parameters, will be taken by the DAO, the team noted.
«If approved, the rollout of GHO will make borrowing in stablecoins within the Aave protocol more competitive, provide more opportunities for users and give additional income to the Aave DAO, directing 100% of interest payments on GHO loans to the DAO treasury», the statement said.
The developers also proposed offering a discount on minting the stablecoin to holders of the AAVE token staking. In their view, this will spur growth in stkAAVE volumes, which will raise the protocol’s security.
It is envisaged that the issuance and burning of GHO will be overseen by community-approved “Facilitators” with a defined emission cap.
MakerDAO to distribute reserve 500 million DAI in bonds
The MakerDAO community voted to invest idle treasury funds of 500 million DAI in “low-risk bonds.”
The initiative aims to soften the impact of the bear market. MakerDAO’s balance sheet holds $4 billion in DAI. Additionally, up to $500 million could be drawn from the DAI/USDC pool for this purpose.
57.67% of voters supported the idea of distributing assets in an 80:20 split between investment-grade government and corporate bonds.
IOSCO to develop recommendations for cryptocurrencies and DeFi
The International Organization of Securities Commissions committed to develop regulatory standards for digital assets by the end of 2023. The plans are laid out in the organisation’s roadmap.
The task has been assigned to a fintech-focused task force created in March. Its chair is a representative of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Within the group two separate committees will be formed, to be led by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. They will present reports with recommendations on DeFi and cryptocurrencies.
Participants will focus on issues of market integrity and investor protection and propose ways to adapt the existing securities framework to digital assets.
Investments in DeFi
Purporting to be a CeDeFi exchange on the BNB Chain, Unizen agreed to raise $200 million from Global Emerging Markets (GEM) to develop the ecosystem.
GEM will provide the funds as “capital commitments”: part of the financing will be received upfront, the rest upon achieving undisclosed milestones.
The platform aims to attract both retail and institutional investors by sourcing and aggregating orders at the best prices on centralised and decentralised exchanges.
The DeFi platform WonderFi Technologies acquired the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Coinberry, backed by TV star Kevin O’Leary.
According to CoinDesk, the deal was worth $30 million.
Hacks and scams
Malicious actors sent malicious tokens disguised as airdrops from Uniswap to more than 70,000 addresses. Those who clicked were redirected to a scam site where funds were stolen.
Initially, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao warned of a potential vulnerability in Uniswap v3, through which a hacker allegedly drained 4,295 ETH. He later corrected the information and confirmed the project was secure.
PeckShield said there was an attack on a liquidity provider.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams confirmed it was a phishing campaign. He advised users not to click on links that could be malicious.
On July 3, the Crema Finance decentralised liquidity protocol team suspended the app following a hack using flash loans on Solend’s lending platform.
On July 7 the hacker returned part of the stolen funds after negotiations with the Crema Finance team. He kept 45,455 SOL (about $1.6 million) for himself as a bounty.
The Yam Finance DeFi protocol team confirmed receiving from the hacker 6,064 ETH ($7 million) and 23,967 SOL ($879,000) in four transactions.
The developers of Yam Finance prevented a cyberattack aimed at transferring control of the project’s reserves to an unknown third party. The attack began on July 7 and was detected two days later. The delay was attributed to the hacker proposing governance via internal transactions.
The malicious proposal contained an unverified smart contract intended to transfer control of Yam Finance’s reserves to an address linked to the attacker’s wallet. If the attacker had gathered a quorum for passage by a community majority, they would have gained access to Yam Finance assets worth $3.1 million.
Also on ForkLog:
- MakerDAO will provide a loan of $100 million to a US bank.
- In the UK they will study taxation of crypto lending and staking in DeFi.
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