Recap of DeFi Space, April 2024

🔗 Noteworthy Links

• Uniswap hits $2T in trading volume

• SEC moves to sue Uniswap; Uniswap article

• SEC sued over Ethereum by ConsenSys

• Eisenberg “Wasn’t borrowing, he was stealing”; Convicted for $110M

• Co-founders of Samourai Wallet arrested and charged with money laundering

• Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act; TD Cowen: Act is beneficial for issuers and could “spark M&A”

• Coinbase seeks to take core question in SEC case to higher court

• Securities Law Professor: It’s time for Uniswap to “prepare for war”

• Uniswap Labs hikes swap fee to .25% from .15%

• Crypto investing products see record YTD inflows of $13.8B

• Hong Kong’s ETFs saw $11M in volume on the first day

• MarginFi sees $155M outflow amid shakeup

• Parcl loses 40% TVL after airdrop

• Renzo’s $ezETH depegs 18.3% following $REZ tokenomics announcement; Airdrop allocation increased in response

• New users flock to Ethereum, long-term holders are less active than ever

• Safe token trades at $2.8B FDV after becoming transferable

• 2024 Q1 Crypto Industry Report

• JPMorgan: SEC to eventually approve spot Ethereum ETFs

• SEC delays spot Ethereum ETF decisions; Industry sources believe ETFs will be denied

• Stripe to bring back crypto payments in the next few months

• DAO Maker hack victims still await reimbursement 3 years later

• Point Systems: Are Point Programs Working?

• Engen Phase IV

• dYdX to set up a legal entity in the Cayman Islands

• MakerDAO proposes allocating $600M $DAI to $USDe, $sUSDe

• What is DEGEN chain?

• Are Bitcoin developers losing faith in lightning?

• Blockworks: Staking is a ticking time bomb

• Ethena Labs adds bitcoin as a $USDe backing asset

• Ethena’s “synthetic dollar” crosses $2B supply within two months

• SushiSwap governance: Shift DAO treasury assets to a new vault; passes signal vote

• Goldfinch’s third default shows just how risky undercollateralised crypto lending can be

• Tensor Foundation launches governance token $TNSR

• deBridge unveils points program

• Arthur Hayes: Heatwave

• HashKey Group unveils L2 chain

• EigenLayer, EigenDA launch on Ethereum

• Liquid staked bitcoin provides new yield option for BTC holders

• $26M in “unnecessary liquidations” hit Pac Finance

• (Almost) Everything You Need To Know About Crypto Trading

• OKX launches new L2

• Worldcoin to build an L2 chain

• Kraken releases its wallet

• Ondo Finance brings tokenized treasuries to the Cosmos ecosystem

• Heroglyphs takes inspiration from Bitcoin mining to fix token distribution

• Dual Governance: An Overview

• Coindesk: Bitcoin Will Power the Next DeFi Summer

• Gatling X comes out of stealth

• Jupiter acquires Ultimate Wallet

• Why Asset Tokenization Is Inevitable

• 5 rules for token launches

---

🟡 Points Farming

• Points farming on Napier Finance

• Points farming on Fantasy.top

• Points farming on Bob Fusion

• Points farming on Kinto

• Restaking Farming on Karak

• Check out our airdrop page

---

💸 Venture Financing

• Agor, a stablecoin issuer, raised $12M in seed funding.

• Raiinmaker, a web3 AI firm, secured $7.5M in seed funding.

• Mezo debuted its project after a $21M Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital.

• Monad Labs announced its $225M funding round, with Paradigm leading the round.

• OpenTrade closed a $3.2M seed funding round, with a16z leading the round.

• Sapien raised $5M in funding to continue developing data labeling with AI applications.

• Alpen Labs came out of stealth, revealing its $10.6M in past seed funding.

• Stream Trading, a crypto derivatives exchange, secured $1.5M in seed funding.

• Puffer Finance has closed an $18M Series A funding round, with the round co-led by Brevan Howard Digital and Electric Capital.

• CVEX, a DEX, announced its $7M in funding ahead of its upcoming mainnet launch.

• Homium raised $10M in funding with a goal of tokenizing home equity loans on Avalanche.

• Nebra secured $4.5M in seed funding for ZKP technology.

• Usual Labs, a DeFi firm, announced its $7M funding round.

• Centrifuge, a tokenized credit platform, revealed its $15M in VC investment.

• Thruster Finance, a DEX built on Blast, closed a $7.5M seed funding round.

• Merlin Chain received an undisclosed quantity of funding from various investors.

• Ord.io, a Bitcoin Ordinals explorer, raised $2M in pre-seed funding.

• Shiba Inu secured $12M in a token round for its new blockchain.

• Fjord Foundry secured $15M for its $FJO token, allowing users to access $28M in platform fees.

• Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund made a “strategic long-term investment” in Alliance.

• Aligned Layer announced its $20M funding round, hoping to make ZK proofs faster and cheaper with the funds.

• Movement Labs received $38M in funding to build an L2 blockchain on Ethereum using Facebook tech.

• OpenDelta, a Bitcoin-linked stablecoin firm, closed a $2.5M funding round.

• Heroglyphs, a memecoin protocol, raised $5.5M in funding.

• MilkyWay, a Celestia liquid staking protocol, secured $5M ahead of its token launch and airdrop.

• Backed, a tokenized asset issuer, closed a $9.5M funding round.

🗓️ Upcoming DeFi Events

• DappCon 2024 - 21 May 2024 - Berlin, Germany

• EthCC 2024 - 08 Jul 2024 - Brussels, Belgium

• Devcon 7 - 12 Nov 2024 - Bangkok, Thailand