This Week In DeFi – February 26

To the DeFi community,

This week saw dYdX open early access to test perpetuals contract trading on Layer 2 infrastructure powered by Starkware while a16z invested $25 million into the Optimism L2 protocol, set to launch within the coming month. With ETH fees stuck above 100 gwei for what seems like an eternity in the hyper-paced world of crypto, it’s starting to look like L2 for DeFi really is just around the corner.

optimism is launching a LOT sooner than i expected

imo this means ethereum can have its own BSC-esque retail mania because of low fees, while the bullrun is still going strong. optimism supporters will be launching tons of projects, making optimism the new wild west for yield https://t.co/vJF9WYvN00

— state.eth.1559 (@statelayer) February 24, 2021

Meanwhile, decentralized governance is pushing other protocols in the direction of cross-chain development as a solution to ETH fees, with a Sushiswap community proposal to use Raydium as a bridge to Solana for swaps was advanced this week. With 1inch expanding to BSC bridging as a vector for increasing their own transaction throughput, it’s clear there’s an incredible amount of pent up demand for any solution that will allow DeFi to continue its meteoric rise.

all of the things normies think ETH2 will fix — are actually fixed by the Layer 2’s happening this summer

— mikedemarais.eth (@mikedemarais) February 23, 2021

 

Chainlink is doing their part as the de facto standard bearer for DeFi backend data as well with the mainnet launch of off-chain reporting, allowing data supply to scale another tenfold to meet the growing needs of DeFi customers.

Chainlink’s new offchain reporting protocol is really elegant and practical; in the style of layer 2 and optimistic protocols it saves costs by only using the blockchain to post final results and as a backstop when rotating leaders, plus design nuance on periodic reporting times https://t.co/tS97nQ3yaq

— Andrew Miller 🦓🦓🦓 (@socrates1024) February 24, 2021

 

There were more integrations between some of the major players in the DeFi space as Alpha Homora, Compound, Aave, and Balancer continue to leverage composability and their unique strengths to increase capital efficiency of their combined TVLs.

Coinbase revealed long-term crypto holdings and a profitable business with the potential to grow even larger in their S-1 filing, as the leading crypto on-ramp gears up to go public later this year.

And crypto darling SEC commissioner Hester Pierce challenged rule makers to rise to the occasion when considering controls on the emerging crypto financial system, reminding regulators that their role is to protect investors and markets, not the interest of incumbent players who long ago learned how to take advantage of existing frameworks.

The race is on to be the first DeFi scaling solution to truly go mainstream. The pace of innovation is, as usual, pretty remarkable, as different communities expand in sometimes competing, sometimes complimentary directions in hopes of being the first to reach what might be the most sought after prize in crypto today. It’s been a tough wait, but it looks like relief is just about to arrive. Are you ready? 

Willing to bet anything uniswap v3 launches on optimism next month.

— Viktor Bunin (@ViktorBunin) February 25, 2021

Highest Yields: dYdX at 36.09% APY, Fulcrum at 10.33% APY

Cheapest Loans: CoinList at 3.00% APY, Aave at 7.56% APY

MakerDAO Updates

DAI Savings Rate: 0.00%

Base Fee: 0.00%

ETH Stability Fee: 4.50%

USDC Stability Fee: 0.00%

WBTC Stability Fee: 4.50%

Highest Yields: Fulcrum at 13.97% APY, Nexo Lend at 10% APY

Cheapest Loans: CoinList at 1% APY, Compound at 3.96% APY

dYdX invites users to try out perpetuals trading on L2 powered by Stakeware.

Balancer and Aave team up to increase capital efficiency through DeFi composability.

Lend ETH on Compound and Alpha Homora both in just a few clicks.

Alameda bets on Fantom helping expand the Serum DEX ecosystem.

DFX raises $5 million to develop stablecoins in currencies beyond just USD.

Total Value Locked: $35.71B (down -15.1% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $85.11B (down -23.1%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $18.57B (up 39.1%)

DAI Supply: 2.30B (down -1.71%)

Total DeFi Users: 1,484,700 (up 2.46%)

 

[Owen Fernau – The Defiant] – DeFi Protocols are Bringing in Record Monthly Revenue

[Owen Fernau – The Defiant] – The State of Layer 2 With Ethereum Scaling is at Stake

[Chris Powers – Dose of DeFi] – Binance Smart Chain begins the multi-chain DeFi era

[Ryan Adams – Bankless] – DeFi needs trust minimized money

[MakerDAO Blog] – Four Ways DeFi Users Can Pay Less in Ethereum Gas Fees

[Anthony Sassano – The Daily Gwei] – Optimistic On Ethereum – The Daily Gwei #191