🦄 Recap: DeFi Week of July 11

Jul 18

Hello Defiers! Rogue bots, trading dust-ups, exploits and contentious governance votes. That was just some of the drama that punctuated the DeFi week. Never a dull moment, eh? Amid the mayhem we also benefitted from solid research and captivating new video content courtesy of the invincible Robin Schmidt. So kick up your feet and unwind this weekend with the best of The Defiant this week…

For starters, we had a scoop on the new Ethereum documentary, The Infinite Garden, which will use — what else? — Ethereum tokens to finance its production via a crowdfunding round. Exclusive interviews with Vitalik Buterin and Aya Miyaguchi promise to make this an irresistible film. Can’t wait! The Defiant was also delighted to report on Damien Hirst’s new NFT project, in which the British artist will offer collectors a choice of digital versions of his famous spot paintings, or the actual versions on handmade paper.

But that was the tame side of a week that opened with a report from yyctrader on the clash between Adamant Finance and Alameda Research over a governance vote that pit the two entities against one another, at least for a spell. Not to be outdone, Owen Fernau waded into the controversial trades executed by the DeFi Education Fund and one of its committee members, the latest snafu to strike a project that’s already sparked a fair amount of angst about power grabs and centralization.

Meantime, The Defiant conducted its second Jam Session on our YouTube channel. These brainstorms are quickly becoming must-see TV for anyone in the community. And be sure to check out Camila Russo’s podcast with Tim Beiko and the future of Ethereum. It doesn’t get any more dynamic or fundamental than that! Enjoy…

ALSO, PSA: We are changing up our publishing schedule so that the weekly podcast will go out Mondays, and our jam-packed newsletter will go out Tuesday to Fridays, first thing in the AM.

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🙌 Together with:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/!
Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
Aave, an open-source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets.

The DeFi Pulse Index, a capitalization-weighted index that tracks the performance of selected DeFi assets across the market.

Podcast

"It's Almost Like EIP-1559 Fixes an Economic Bug in Ethereum; More Usage Can Now Capture More Value:" Tim Beiko

In this week’s episode we speak with Tim Beiko, who organizes the Ethereum core developers calls and knows all the intricacies and latest development of the world’s most active blockchain. We spoke right after Beiko had proposed a date for the implementation of one of the biggest changes expected to happen to the Ethereum blockchain in recent history: EIP 1559. Tim explains in non-dev terms exactly how this change will reduce volatility in Ethereum gas prices and also reduce the uncertainty of whether user transactions are approved or not. Importantly, it also means that part of ETH paid per transaction will be burned, so that if demand for ETH and use of the Ethereum blockchain are greater than ETH issued, it should put pressure on the ether price to increase.

📺 Watch:

🎙 Listen:

Video

📺 Jam Session 2: Lending giants feat. Stani, Rune, Leo and Calvin

📺 The Defiant Weekly: Bare Knuckle Governance, tales from the streets ($UNI, $SUSHI $ADDY)

📺 Tuesday Tutorials: GOD MODE UNLEASHED! Bumper Finance LP pools are FINALLY here

📺. Quick Take: Chainswap + Anyswap HACKED. What's up with GETH reorgs?

📺 First Look: Treasury Troubles Solved: with the UMA range Token

Opinion

🤖 Rogue Bots are Funneling Millions from Wax Blockchain’s Star Dapp Alien Worlds

In this week’s opinion piece, Man0000 blows the lid off the mining snafu going on in the blockbuster blockchain game, Alien Worlds. It’s a player’s lament on how rogue bots have been deployed in a beloved space, and what can be done to address the issue.

Inbox Dump #16

For paid subscribers only — The Inbox Dump is where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. We also include a compilation of DeFi and crypto funding rounds in the past week so you have these in one handy place.

Friday

Dive

SushiSwap Treasury Sale Proposal Draws Community Ire SushiSwap’s $60M strategic fundraising round has come under fire from community members who dislike the plan to offer investors deep discounts at a time when its tokens are slumping in the marketplace.

Bytes

Upgrade Opens ThorChain to $4.9M Exploit ThorChain, a popular decentralized exchange that enables native token swaps across different blockchains, was exploited yesterday to the tune of $4.9M.

Research

Looking Back at Uniswap’s Growth as it’s Deployed on L2 In this week’s Into the Block research piece, Lucas Outumuro unpacks the ramifications of Uniswap’s next chapter on L2.

Thursday

Markets

UNI Sale Raises Concerns Regarding Newly Formed DeFi Education Fund A series of unexpected trades in the last two days roiled the DeFi Education Fund set up by Uniswap token holders, leading to finger-pointing and accusatory tweets as the newly formed lobbying organization struggled to fend off more controversy.

Dives

Digital or Physical? Damien Hirst’s New NFT Project Gives Buyers A Choice Damien Hirst, still the enfant terrible of the UK art scene and reportedly the nation’s richest living artist, is about to add to his fortune with a $20M NFT drop.

Bytes

Hop Drops on Mainnet: A Protocol for Interoperability Across Scaling Solutions As yields and prices cool, dampening down dreams of another DeFi summer, the hope of a Layer 2 version of the season has emerged.
Uniswap’s V3 Launches on Layer 2 Solution Optimism It’s a good time for Layer 2 enthusiasts as Uniswap V3 has soft-launched on Optimism, a leading optimistic rollup solution for scaling Ethereum.

Wednesday

Dives

EXCLUSIVE: Ethereum Documentary Plans to Sell $INFINITE Tokens to Fully Finance Production When it came time to raise cash for Ethereum: The Infinite Garden,the first feature-length documentary about the world’s most active blockchain network, the producers had a logical choice: Ethereum tokens.

Disputes

Adamant Targets Alameda With Contentious Governance Vote What a can of worms. This weekend, Adamant Finance, a yield aggregator on Polygon, initiated a governance vote to “blacklist” wallets it said belong to Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund that trades up to $10B a day in tokens and derivatives. The fallout has been fast and furious.

Research

The DeFi Future is Automated In this week’s research essay, David Liebowitz analyzes the state of play in development of the Ethereum-based automation and chronicles the efforts of a new crop of players in the space, Gelato, Keep3r, and Chainlink.

Tuesday

Markets

Iron Finance at it Again: V2 has Drawn in Over $1B With Eye-Popping Yield Farms Less than a month after the spectacular implosion of Iron Finance’s algorithmic stablecoin, the DeFi project has relaunched a new yield farm on Polygon.

Circle To Go Public in Q4 at $4.5B Valuation DeFi’s most popular stablecoin issuer is going public. Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, announced its plans yesterday to go public in Q4 of this year through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The deal will happen with Concord Acquisition Corp. and Circle will trade under the ticker symbol CRCL with the transaction valuing the company at $4.5B.

Fundraising

Buenbit Raises $11M to Bolster Crypto in Latin America In a record-breaking deal for a Latin American crypto company, Buenbit, an exchange based in Argentina has raised $11M in Series A funding.

Hacks

DeFi Traders Lost More Than $11M Across Two Weekend Hacks Over the weekend, DeFi traders lost more than $11M across two hacks on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). On July 10, Anyswap, a decentralized cross-chain protocol, suffered a hack worth nearly $8M of USDC and MIM (Magic Internet Money), a lesser known stablecoin.

💜Community Love💜

Thanking all the amazing Defiers for the support and love this week (and always)!

Clayton Roche | UMA @TokenArchitect

1/ "As it became clear that one of the community’s primary concerns was selling SUSHI tokens below their perceived fair value, the team from UMA Protocol, a platform for building customized synthetic assets and derivatives, stepped in with a novel plan." -@DefiantNews

Lucas Outumuro @LucasOutumuro

1/ Following @Uniswap's L2 alpha, it is worth highlighting how far it has come already Wrote a piece for @DefiantNews breaking down Uniswap’s growth (v1 - v3) and how it stacks relative to CEXs and TradFi: thedefiant.io/looking-back-a… TLDR 🧵 with bonus 📈 👇

Looking Back at Uniswap’s Growth as it’s Deployed on L2 - The Defiant - DeFi NewsAs Uniswap’s V3 is on track to fully deploy onto layer 2 both on Optimism and Arbitrum, it is worth recapitulating over the impressive growth it has already achieved. This piece aims to cover a holistic view of Uniswap’s three versions, cast comparisons versus traditional counterparts and finally an…thedefiant.io

timetraveller on WAX @FromNullToZero

Really great riding. @AlienWorlds is capable of bringing me on 0.0002 earning for weeks without reason, but cannot stop bots? Sad to read when one played the game since before the last bull run.

The Defiant @DefiantNews

👽@AlienWorlds , one of the biggest games running on the @WAX_io blockchain, is making some participants millions of dollars in weeks. The issue is, these players are gaming the game. Read more from @nftshare👇 https://t.co/XcCPMDOquE https://t.co/rAytK39kFX

mann0000 @nftshare

It was a pleasure to work with @CamiRusso and @DefiantNews on that story featuring one of the biggest blockchain game, bots and millions of dollars https://t.co/sCUdHUNwn8

The Defiant @DefiantNews

Inner Nature Art 🌿 @InnerNatureArt

Get to know what’s coming soon in the #Ethereum blockchain regarding gas prices and L2 solutions, with this wonderfully understandable conversation between @CamiRusso and @TimBeiko on @DefiantNews ⚡️❤️ I really enjoyed it. #blockchain #ETH #NFTs

‎The Defiant: “It’s Almost Like EIP-1559 Fixes an Economic Bug in Ethereum; More Usage Can Now Capture More Value:” Tim Beiko on Apple Podc…In this week’s episode we speak with Tim Beiko, who organizes the Ethereum core developers calls and knows all the intricacies and latest development of the world’s most active blockchain. We spoke right after Beiko had proposed a date for the implementation of one of the biggest changes expected to…podcasts.apple.com

Chainlink Red Pill 2.0 @ChainlinkP

"The latest contender to step into the automation ring is @chainlink and has done so in a massive way, dedicating significant resources to the endeavor." #Chainlink Keepers are what #smartcontracts are all about. Excited to see this play out. $LINK node operators will be busy.

The Defiant @DefiantNews

🤖Automation has the power to supercharge #DeFi protocols yet is still a relatively unexplored area. @gelatonetwork @chainlink and Keep3r continue to innovate, and we're likely to see more use-cases in the days to come⚡️ Read more from @davesaidthat_ 👇 https://t.co/RLCy5FKpav https://t.co/WJYdhIV2p6

Luis, Automator of Dapps 🍦🦇🔊 @gitpusha

Great piece on the history and potential of Ethereum automation protocols! @gelatonetwork - the first mover - our goal is to build the platform to efficiently match dapps’ demand for automation with supply from infra providers in a coordinated fashion - leaking less to miners. https://t.co/M0TFoMIYY6

The Defiant @DefiantNews

DeFi Resources 👨🏼‍🌾 apyvision.crypto 🦇🔊 @DeFiResources

Thoroughly enjoyed this jam session, good stuff 👏 I think the uniqueness of the 4 protocols will result in the continued onboarding of more users. TradFi doesn't stand a chance with the might behind these powerhouses 💪

The Defiant @DefiantNews

We're live with @StaniKulechov @RuneKek @leokcheng @cjliu49 @CamiRusso 👇 https://t.co/NiGLrtfspz

R.E.A. 👸🏻 @moon_guurl

Amazing read from @davesaidthat_ 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The Defiant @DefiantNews

Hilmar Maximilian Orth @hilmarxo

Every system that can be powered by smart contracts, will be powered by them. 99% of transactions that trigger these smart contracts won't be sent by humans, they will happen automatically in the background. Great write-up about the history & presence of Automation on Ethereum.

The Defiant @DefiantNews

DeFi Dave (¤, veFXS)🍦 @davesaidthat_

My latest article in The Defiant is out now 🙌 This time I cover the up and coming field of automation 🤖 https://t.co/bXMthbBoHc

The Defiant @DefiantNews

Thumbs Up Finance 🇨🇦 @thumbsupfinance

@Crypto_Texan @DefiantNews @CamiRusso @soona @volt_cap Huge fan of all @DefiantNews content from the pod, to the videos, to the newsletter.

Crypto Texan @Crypto_Texan

2/ The DeFiant Podcast - @DefiantNews - with @CamiRusso ⚡️ The internet of money is being built with #blockchain technology and without banks. Check out the one with @soona from @volt_cap

‎The Defiant on Apple PodcastsThe internet of money is being built with blockchain technology and without banks. We call it DeFi, short for Decentralized Finance, and this is where you can hear the builders and users of this cutting edge world tell their stories first hand. Hosted by Camila Russo.podcasts.apple.com

ΞAsports @Sasquatchpicks

Great piece by @DefiantNews and excited for what could come from @UMAprotocol and the #rangetoken. Would be great to see a community call with @0xMaki and @hal2001 on the current $sushi initiative.

UMA @UMAprotocol

1/ "Treasury Troubles Solved" posted by @DefiantNews uncovers the UMA range token. He reiterates why we think the range token serves tokenholder interests for a fundraise. The Defiant even highlights our reply to @0xMaki in his @SushiSwap proposal and explains:

Chris Blec @ChrisBlec

Full story in @DefiantNews: thedefiant.io/sale-of-usdc-r…

Bruno Werneck de Almeida @brunoswerneck

'Tradfi' and DeFi yields converging was expected What wasn't is how quickly it happened after the DeFi devaluation in ~mid-May-21 Curious to see how this plays out during the next upswing cc '@LexSokolin @NikMilanovic @sytaylor thedefiant.io/defi-rates-are… h/t @DefiantNews

𝚂𝚌𝚘𝚝𝚝 𝙻Ξ𝚠𝚒𝚜 🌾 @scott_lew_is

*THE COUPLING* of defi interest rates and tradfi interest rates is the least understood catalyst in defi right now. quickie thread on what that means for defi:

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. Subscribers get full access, while free signups get only part of the content.Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button above ($15/mo, $150/yr).

🦄 Recap: DeFi Week of July 11

ALSO, PSA: We are changing up our publishing schedule so that the weekly podcast will go out Mondays, and our jam-packed newsletter will go out Tuesday to Fridays, first thing in the AM.

Podcast