This Week in DeFi – December 24

To the DeFi community,

This week, Fei Protocol and Rari Capital officially initiated the planned merger between the two protocols, converting RGT to TRIBE for tokenholders. The two projects will retain separate branding and roadmaps in the short term, with full incentive alignment and resource sharing to come in 2022.

Yesterday, the Rari and Fei communities voted to join together to create a DeFi megadao: the Tribe 🥳🥳

To me, the Tribe is about delivering on DeFi’s initial vision: creating financial opportunities for the future.

(1/x)

— Jai Bhavnani (@jai_bhavnani) December 22, 2021

The Ethereum Kintsugi testnet launched this week, giving developers a sandbox for experimenting with post-merge application behavior and tooling. Several rounds of testing still need to occur, but the projected 2022 timeline for Ethereum to convert to Proof of Stake seems to be on track.

Over the past few months, client teams have been working tirelessly to implement a new set of merge milestones. They are now live on a new testnet: Kintsugi 🍵!

Here’s how you can join the testnet and help with testing: https://t.co/ARDezguzXE 👀

Christmas came early🎄!

— Tim Beiko | timbeiko.eth 🍵 (@TimBeiko) December 20, 2021

Transak announced on-ramps for Ethereum L2s Arbiturm and Optimism, dramatically simplifying the process of moving value onto those protocols without the use of bridging tools. The service is not yet available to US users, but supports a variety of different fiat input currencies. 

We are proud to announce that our on-ramp to @arbitrum and @optimismPBC is live!
Today, we empower devs and users to build the next generation of apps on @ethereum
Faster and cheaper than ever ⚡️
Build on it, with us: https://t.co/qg4ga1lPin
Available globally 🌎 ( 🇺🇸 soon!) pic.twitter.com/Q4nBP1ReUO

— Transak (@transak_finance) December 21, 2021

And Compound governance voted nearly unanimously to hire OpenZepplin for audit and security service for one year, at a price of $1 million per quarter. The proposal beats out at least two competing votes for Trail of Bits and Chain Security to provide similar services, and is one of the first instances of a DAO retaining real world services.

It looks like the @OpenZeppelin proposal to audit Compound protocol over the next year will pass.

Congrats to @OpenZeppelin on being the first (afaik) audit firm to be retained by a DAO, and props to Compound DAO for putting security first 🎉 pic.twitter.com/SqDEMQoKBI

— DeFiCorgi.eth 🦇🔊 (@alex_kroeger) December 18, 2021

Compound is one of the simplest DeFi protocols, but the operational simplicity allows for significant effort to instead be directed to outreach, networking, and pushing social and governance innovations forward. 

While in some limited capacity DAOs have hired individuals as ‘employees’ of sorts or made collective treasury decisions, the vote to hire an established outsized business for a multimillion dollar security contract feels like a leveling up in terms of deal complexity and taking protocol security seriously.

While these two organizations are firmly within the crypto ecosystem, 2022 is almost sure to be the year where DAOs begin to deeply engage with non-crypto native institutions, increasing their presence in the regulatory arena and making use of huge treasury reserves for marketing, mergers, and other corporate-style projects. There’s never been a better time to dig in and get involved. Happy holidays!

Thanks to our partner:

Total Value Locked: $101.8B (up 7.49% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $158.48B (up 18.56%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $20.67B (down -16.62%)

DAI Supply: 8.98B (up 1.24%)

Total DeFi Users: 4,227,600 (up 1.09%)

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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.