A governance proposal to switch on fee-sharing for UNI token holders has caused UNI and other DeFi tokens to rally — could we see another DeFi summer?
Uniswap governance proposal looks to implement the long-awaited revenue share for UNI stakers, sending shockwaves through the DeFi space. Delta-neutral stablecoin project Ethena, goes live on mainnet, launching their Shard campaign as well, while Sushi launches Sushi Bonds, a new way for protocols to bootstrap sticky liquidity.
Overview
Total Value Locked (TVL) across all chains continue climbing higher, despite weakness across various altcoins and ecosystem tokens. Notable outperformers include zero-knowledge rollup, StarkNet, which saw inflows in anticipation for their incentives program, and Scroll, which saw a similar increase, likely due to an influx of airdrop farmers after several cryptic tweets by the Scroll team.
Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/
Welcome to Alpha Central
As the mainnet launch for the controversial Blast L2 approaches, The L2 is shaping up to become the second largest L2 by TVL on launch. Ash covers all the main projects building on the Blast testnet so far including decentralized exchanges (DEXs), money markets, perpetual DEXs, NFT marketplaces, GambleFi, games and more.
Ethereum: Uniswap Governance Proposal for Revenue Share
Uniswap Foundation proposes a governance proposal to implement the fee switch for stakers of the UNI token, in a revolutionary move for the project. While not passed yet, the move has triggered renewed interest in DeFi tokens, which have long seen underperformance against the wider market.
Ethena Labs goes live on Ethereum together with its Shard Campaign. Users can now earn Shards through holding Ethena’s stablecoin, USDe, providing liquidity for USDe pools, staking or locking USDe. These shards are expected to convert to Ethena’s own token once the token is launched.
Other Product Launches and Updates
- Frax Finance founder, Sam Kazemian, teases the upcoming snapshot for FXS lockers, leading up to the launch of Frax Finance’s own chain, Fractal. The snapshot will airdrop FXTL points to eligible veFXS stakers.
- Leverage protocol, Gearbox, unveils leveraged EigenLayer restaking. Through Gearbox’s strategies, users can now earn up to 9.5x EigenLayer points or 19.5x EtherFi points, depending on the leverage they choose to take on.
- Liquid restaking protocol, KelpDAO, announces the launch of their point system, Kelp Earned Points (KEP), which users can earn by minting and holding rsETH, KelpDAO’s restaking token.
- Bridging protocol, Across Protocol, releases Across V3, which brings to the bridge an intents-focused approach to bridging using a cross-chain settlement layer and bridge hooks, as well as upgrades to the bridge for a better user experience.
- Zircuit is now open for staking. Users can deposit selected liquid staking tokens or liquid restaking tokens to earn Zircuit points. All deposited tokens will continue to earn their respective points and yields, such as EigenLayer Points, staking yields and more.
L2s: Sushi Bonds for Sticky Liquidity
Multi-chain DEX, Sushi, announces Sushi Bonds, an alternative to liquidity mining to incentivize more sticky liquidity on protocols while allowing token buyers to purchase tokens on discount. Sushi Bonds are currently live, supporting four projects on Arbitrum and one on Polygon.
Blast announces the winners for the Big Bang competition, which selects some of the most innovative and interesting applications building on Blast. Blast has allocated 50% of the Blast airdrop to these applications, with a large portion allocated to Big Bang winners.
Other Product Launches and Updates
- Popular perpetuals DEX, GMX, announces a proposal to introduce a GMX chain, which would use GMX as its gas token, to explore various possible expansions for the protocol.
- MYX Finance launches on Arbitrum, bringing to the chain a new perpetuals DEX, powered by its novel Matching Pool Mechanism to provide zero slippage and zero borrowing cost trading to its users.
- Options protocol, Lyra, launches their own wallet, Lyra Wallet, enabling users to onboard more easily, using only their email, Google or Apple accounts to sign up. Lyra Wallet is powered by Coinbase’s Wallet-as-a-Service product.
- Modular DeFi L2, Mode Network, releases its L3 chain, Mode Flare, on mainnet. Mode Flare is powered by the OP Stack, with Celestia facilitating its data availability needs.
- DEX aggregator, Matcha, unveils Matcha Auto on Coinbase L2, Base, bringing gasless swaps, faster trade confirmations as well as protection from Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) attacks to the chain.
Cosmos: Dymension AMM Now in Business
RollApps settlement layer, Dymension, launches the Dymension Automated Market Maker (AMM), which enables swapping of tokens across all of Dymension’s supported RollApps. The AMM takes a 0.3% fee, which drives value back to the chain.
Osmosis now supports Wrapped BTC (WBTC) natively, with the support of crypto custody solution, BitGo. Users can now trade, provide liquidity or lend WBTC on the chain.
Another Week, Another Airdrop
ConsenSys-backed zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) chain, Linea, kicks off Linea Park, a new campaign to explore gaming and social applications on the chain. Participants can earn Linea XP, which have been utilized in past Linea campaigns as well.
Zero-knowledge rollup, StarkNet, opens claims for the STRK token airdrop this week. Claims will be open until 20 June 2024. 40 million tokens will also be distributed to DeFi protocols on StarkNet as part of their StarkNet DeFi Spring.
Solana DEX aggregator, Jupiter, announces an airdrop of $100K in rewards to the top 500 users on the Solana Mobile 2 leaderboard as of the first snapshot. The rewards will be disbursed in March.
Optimism airdrops more than 10 million OP tokens to eligible NFT creators on the Superchain in the fourth Optimism airdrop. Claim remains open until February 2025.
Tweet of the Week
DeFi Villain reminds us that despite us technically being in a bull market, it still feels difficult to pick a coin to have strong conviction in.
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