This Week in DeFi – August 6

To the DeFi community,

This week, dYdX introduced the dYdX Foundation, designed to support and grow the dYdX L2 protocol, including funding research and conduct business on behalf of the protocol, on the path to full decentralization. 

To that end, the dYdX token was also announced this week, a governance token that enables rewards and staking, as well as the expected voting rights on decisions surrounding the growth and future of the protocol. 50% of the initial dYdX airdrop will go to protocol users and participants, including 7.5% to anyone who has deposited funds any time before a snapshot from July 26.

$DYDX airdrop for past users of the protocol confirmed 🚨

7.5% of the supply 😳

👉 https://t.co/QX0SUucR7Y

h/t @Darrenlautf pic.twitter.com/MRL2dRn9to

— DeFi Airdrops (@defi_airdrops) August 3, 2021

Compound continues to integrate with the broader DeFi ecosystem, adding blue chip governance tokens from Maker, Aave, Sushiswap, and Yearn to its borrowing and lending markets. As holding these tokens for governance input becomes more important over time, the addition to Compound offers opportunities to increase capital efficiency and earn interest on or borrow against the value of their tokens when not being used for voting.

$MKR $AAVE $SUSHI and $YFI have been added to the Compound protocol 🙌 pic.twitter.com/vFed0OvV6v

— Compound Labs (@compoundfinance) August 4, 2021

Synthetix announced the launch of synth exchanges on the Optimism L2 solution, starting with exchanges for sUSD, sBTC, sETH, and sLINK. Synthetix joins Uniswap as next DeFi OG to make use of the Optimism network, with both following a phased rollout approach to test and optimize their protocols on the network. Gas prices are up to 50x lower on Optimism, allowing far greater activity among synthetic assets.

After much anticipation, the day is finally here – Synthetix trading is now live on the Optimistic Ethereum L2! Big shout out to @optimismPBC and @chainlink for the huge role they played in making this happen! 🚀 🚀 🚀https://t.co/bIqLbTOVtb

— Synthetix ⚔️ (@synthetix_io) July 29, 2021

And of course, Ethereum successfully implemented EIP-1559, upgrading the economic model to burn ETH as a part of routine transaction processing. Base fees will now be burned instead of paid to miners, who will continue to collect block rewards and any ‘tips’ included in transactions for higher prioritization. The new model will also make gas fees more predictable and transparent for users, while also providing a deflationary mechanism during times of high transaction demand.

EIP-1559 is scheduled to go live this week and I still see a lot of wrong takes on its impact. Remember:

– It doesn’t make $ETH deflationary by default.
– It doesn’t reduce $ETH supply by 90%, referred as “triple halving”.
– It’s still very bullish for $ETH.

Why? 🧵👇

— korpi (@korpi87) August 2, 2021

The DeFi community keeps building and decentralizing, while base-layer networks like Ethereum keep improving, delivering improved user experiences and possibilities for developers, no matter how full or empty the blocks get hashed.

But as is often the case, nascent innovation faces a new existential challenge from US regulators backed by incumbents with a vested interest in seeing privacy and dynamism curtailed in the name of taxation and consumer protections. A last-minute addition to a critical US federal infrastructure bill is written in such broad language as to threaten huge swathes of crypto developers, hardware maintainers, and other community members with crushing tax reporting burdens. If passed as is, the legislation could be used within the legal system to stifle practically all DeFi activity in the US.

Crypto lobbyists in Washington DC have been working nonstop to develop a better solution and keep the community informed of ongoing developments as the bill works its way through the Senate, but they need your help. If you’re a US resident and you care about the future of crypto, call your lawmakers today and ask them to support the Wyden-Lummis-Toomey amendment and vote NO on the competing Warner-Portman-Sinema amendment. Policy on cutting-edge innovative technology should never be shoehorned into unrelated must-pass bills, but your contribution, by calling your representatives, is essential to maintaining a domestic crypto industry in the US for the foreseeable future. DON’T just expect someone else will do it, DON’T act like you’re too busy; if crypto and DeFi are important to you, MAKE THE CALL!

Thanks to our partner:

Total Value Locked: $73.38B (up 10.41% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $102.9B (up 18.84%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $16.06B (up 8.08%)

DAI Supply: 5.52B (up 2.6%)

Total DeFi Users: 3,151,700 (up 1.45%)

[Fabian Klauder – DeFi Times] – Regulation in Crypto: What Will Happen to DeFi?

[Dan Kahan – The Defiant] – ETH Burns and a Price Surge After EIP-1559 Executes

[Ryan Adams – Bankless] – The Data Wars Are Coming

[Anthony Sassano – The Daily Gwei] – Let It Burn – The Daily Gwei #306

[Tommy Schreiner – The TIE] – The Terra Triforce: Rise of the Lunatics

 

Alex is a Content Writer at Circle, with previous experience at tech startups, Fortune 500 corporations, and as a freelance writer and analyst. Interests include cutting-edge technologies in blockchain, energy, supply chains, transportation, urban living, and more and he has been in the crypto community since 2014.