This Week in DeFi – May 28

To the DeFi community,

This week, renVM joined forces with Polygon to bring wrapped token bridges directly to the leading Ethereum L2 solution. The bridge will initially support cryptos including Bitcoin, Luna, Filecoin, and Dogecoin, with more to follow in the coming weeks, greatly expanding the variety and liquidity locked in the Polygon ecosystem.

🔥 Excited to announce the launch of a direct bridge to Polygon by @renprotocol!

🌉 With the Polygon x RenVM Bridge, users can move #BTC and many more assets directly to Polygon, enabling high-speed, low-cost txns for these assets.

🌐 Start bridging now: https://t.co/91xPP2E2cp pic.twitter.com/E9AkveROGR

— Polygon (previously Matic) (@0xPolygon) May 27, 2021

 

Balancer raised more than $24 million dollars through the sale of BAL tokens from the Balancer treasury to VC investors including Blockchain Capital, Fintech Collective, and LongHash Ventures. The added funding will go towards awareness and education on the Balancer platform in the Asia-Pacific region and continued support for community members seeking grants to build additional functionality on top of Balancer.

We are thrilled to announce our partnership with some of the most respected investors who have shown their support of Balancer by extending $24.25M of capital $BAL.@LongHashVC @blockchaincap @fintech_io @ContinueFund @synthetix_io @kaiynne @fenbushi https://t.co/yT0RzOuV0S

— Balancer Labs (@BalancerLabs) May 27, 2021

 

UMA and Opium Network unveiled the newest application for the Optimistic Oracle design — DeFi derivatives based on the outcome of SpaceX rocket launches. The new product can be used to hedge the risk of unsuccessful rocket launches or profit from successful ones, with the Optimistic Oracle ensuring that outcomes are accurately reported without requiring launch data to make its way on-chain.

It’s time to reveal what we with @UMAprotocol are up to! 🎉
We’d joined our efforts to launch a new ‘cosmic’ product – decentralized insurance on #SpaceX. Hope @elonmusk will take it to the moon together with @dogecoin
Read more 👉 https://t.co/MoCmxeuMhU pic.twitter.com/uynxw52pOZ

— Opium (@Opium_Network) May 24, 2021

 

And KeeperDAO released its Act III roadmap ahead of the imminent launch of kCompund, an underwriting protocol designed to protect Compound users in the event of sudden downside volatility. Act III will also bring decentralized governance power to ROOK holders, along with UX redesigns and open sourcing of most of the KeeperDAO stack to foster community development.

Introducing our roadmap for ACT III: Decentralisationhttps://t.co/RVj3I0rCny

— KeeperDAO ♜♜♜ (@Keeper_DAO) May 27, 2021

 

Many new users have joined the DeFi experiment over the last year, some experiencing for the first time the thrills of bull market euphoria. The last few weeks have served as a reminder that crypto is not always just fun and profit, even as some of the most anticipated ecosystem changes, like honest-to-goodness L2 adoption of Polygon, are coming to fruition.

Now sentiment is growing increasingly fearful of a new bear cycle, even as crypto market prices have rebounded somewhat from recent lows. As anyone who has held through one will tell you, the silver lining to down cycles is the unshakable resolve of builders in the space, who all memes aside are genuinely in crypto for the tech, and for the long haul.

We can’t be sure what prices will do tomorrow, but when the going gets tough, try to think like a builder. We all know DeFi is far more than speculation, but everyone in the community can do their bit to keep calm and continue supporting the developers that are building the future of finance. Are you with us?

Highest Yields: Fulcrum at 14.57% APY, Nexo Lend at 10% APY

Cheapest Loans: Compound at 5.44% APY, Aave at 7.24% APY

MakerDAO Updates

DAI Savings Rate: 0.00%

Base Fee: 0.00%

ETH Stability Fee: 5.50%

USDC Stability Fee: 0.00%

WBTC Stability Fee: 4.50%

Highest Yields: Fulcrum at 11.84% APY, Nexo Lend at 10% APY

Cheapest Loans: Compound at 6.35% APY, dYdX at 8.68% APY

Mark Cuban bets on Layer 2.

HaloDAO raises capital to build fiat-pegged stablecoin marketplace.

C.R.E.A.M. bring Band Oracles to all markets.

Alpha Homora gets WBTC lending.

Volmex brings volatility tracking to Ethereum.

Total Value Locked: $64.66B (down -2.9% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $93.99B (down -30.74%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $34.8B (down -15.33%)

DAI Supply: 4.39B (down -3.3%)

Total DeFi Users: 2,573,700 (up 3%)

[Owen Fernau – The Defiant] – Arbitrum is the Latest Layer 2 to Join the Ethereum Scaling Race

[Anthony Sassano – The Daily Gwei] – Rejecting Maximalism – The Daily Gwei #256

[Ryan Adams – Bankless] – How to take out an interest free loan

[Fabian Klauder – DeFi Times] – Three Reasons Why the Bull Market Is Not Over

[Kerman Kohli – DeFi Weekly] – How to Raise Money for your DeFi Startup