This Week in DeFi – August 13

To the DeFi community,

This week, Solana-based Mango Markets raised more than $70 million in one of the largest token sales in recent memory for the decentralized spot and perpetual futures exchange. Funds raised will go towards capitalizing the Mango Markets insurance fund and MNGO tokens will serve as the decentralized governance token for the protocol, with additional MNGO tokens set to be minted in the future as liquidity mining rewards.

$84 – $126 in gas spent for all sale deposits. Unreal @solana 💯 https://t.co/jmQLUg5Qxx

— Mango Markets (@mangomarkets) August 11, 2021

Leveraged trading protocol bZx announced it will launch on Optimism in the coming weeks, adding another piece to the puzzle on a rising competitor for the go-to L2 crown. As with Uniswap and others, transaction costs using Optimism are expected to be 10-50x lower, and will require the usual on- and off-boarding into the L2 solution.

Announcing: bZx is launching on Optimism!

✅bZx will be the first margin trading, lending and borrowing platform to launch on Optimism.

✅Optimism reduces baseline user transaction costs by ~10x-50x.

✅We will be releasing firm launch date soon.

More: https://t.co/Zg3tObpD8B

— bZx – Fulcrum & Torque (Now on Polygon!) (@bZxHQ) August 6, 2021

Perpetual Protocol launched the Perpetual Ecosystem Fund, backed by more than 3 million PERP tokens worth more than $30 million. The fund will be used to token swap with projects with reliable track records and a model that can be integrated to further the goals of each protocol. Token swaps are an interesting way to encourage collective growth, and Perpetual protocol has already selected dHEDGE, Lemma, and Charm as the first partners for the 

program.

📣 Introducing the Perpetual Ecosystem Fund!​

❝If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.❞

This fund is backed by 3 million $PERP and we will do token swaps with projects that integrate with or build on top of the protocol. https://t.co/9tvMm4JsHR pic.twitter.com/l5ZUj27q59

— Perpetual Protocol | We’re hiring! (@perpprotocol) August 9, 2021

And with EIP-1559 up and running, more than 37,500 ETH have been burned worth a whopping $120m+, with many blocks already burning more than the standard 2 ETH block reward. Burns are driven by network activity, and a resurgent NFT craze has helped ensure the ETH supply is dropping in the early days of the new upgrade. 

now seeing multiple blocks with 3+ ETH burn 👀 pic.twitter.com/mMAKp1jJdF

— DCinvΞstor (@iamDCinvestor) August 12, 2021

The decision to not amend the US Senate infrastructure bill serves as a reminder as to why we want better, fairer systems of governance in the first place; a single vote shouldn’t be enough to torpedo changes to such important technology policy — not that it should be included in any kind of unrelated, must-pass bill in the first place.

But the life cycle of legislation in Washington is long, and there will be many opportunities to get the language regarding crypto right in the coming years. In the meantime, initiatives like the Perpetual Ecosystem Fund and upgrades like EIP-1559 will continue making the blockchain-based economy stronger and stronger. In truth, the most important thing about recent legislative activity is that lawmakers can’t turn their backs on the growing digital economy any longer; it’s here to stay, and now they are having to decide what to do about it.

Most won’t understand the details of what they’re dealing with, and even many that do won’t realize how big the impact of crypto and blockchain technology will be over the next decade. But we just might – get excited!

Thanks to our partner:

Total Value Locked: $82.57B (up 12.52% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $114.42B (up 11.19%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $19.96B (up 24.28%)

DAI Supply: 5.65B (up 2.36%)

Total DeFi Users: 3,188,550 (up 1.17%)

[Ryan Adams – Bankless] – A Guide to Fixed Income on Element

[Anthony Sassano – The Daily Gwei] – Real-Time Heists – The Daily Gwei #310

[Christian Murray – DeFi Pulse Farmer] – Why SushiSwap is becoming DeFi’s most powerful DEX platform

[Fabian Klauder – DeFi Times] – EIP-1559 Is Finally Here

[yyctrader – The Defiant] – There’s Now an App for Bribing Curve Token Holders

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.