Decentralized Exchange
Experts weigh in on the Ethereum vulnerabilities after Merge: Finance Redefined
Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. The past week in the DeFi ecosystem saw major developments centered around the Ethereum Merge. Aave (AAVE) community proposed temporarily suspending Ether (ETH) lending before the Merge, citing the potential issue of high ETH utilization that may result in liquidations being hard or impossible and annual percentage yields (APYs) reaching negative figures. An industry expert shared his opinion on possible censorship vulnerabilities that the Ethereum network could eventually face in the wake of its transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. Moving ahead of the Ethereum Merge developments, some other major even...
Kyber Network offers bounty following $265K hack of decentralized exchange
KyberSwap, the decentralized exchange built on liquidity protocol Kyber Network, has offered a hacker 15% of the funds from a $265,000 exploit as a bug bounty. In a Thursday blog post, Kyber Network said a hacker had used a frontend exploit to pilfer roughly $265,000 worth of user funds from KyberSwap. The protocol said it will compensate all users for any missing funds related to the exploit, and directly addressed the hacker to give them an opportunity to return the funds in exchange for “a conversation with our team” and 15% of what was taken — roughly $40,000. “We know the addresses you own have received funds from central exchanges and we can track you down from there,” said Kyber Network. “We also know the addresses you own have OpenSea profiles and we can track you through the NFT c...
Crypto Biz: Step aside, Warren Buffett; stablecoin issuers hold more US debt than Berkshire Hathaway
Warren Buffett raised eyebrows this week when his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, upped its exposure to United States Treasury bills. If you’re one of the few remaining bulls out there, Buffett’s flight to safety is concerning because it signals that the Oracle of Omaha would rather get a 3% yield instead of playing the stock market. If equities go belly-up in the fall, as I’ve been predicting for months, expect Bitcoin (BTC) to follow. Looking at the numbers, Berkshire’s T-bill exposure grew to $75 billion at the end of June, up from $58.5 billion at the beginning of 2022. But, even with the 28% spike, Berkshire doesn’t hold as many T-bill investments as the leading stablecoin issuers. Stablecoins presently command a market capitalization of $153 billion, and a large percentage of their b...
Uniswap eyes NFT financialization, in talks with lending protocols
Crypto exchange Uniswap engaged in talks with multiple nonfungible token (NFT) lending protocols, according to a social media post from Uniswap’s head of NFT product Scott Lewis. In the tweet, Lewis highlights the company’s interest in tackling both liquidity issues and “information asymmetry” surrounding NFTs. uniswap is the interface for all nft liquidity. we are now in talks with 7 nft lending protocols. we will be working with each one to solve for liquidity fragmentation and information asymmetry. this is the first step to building nft financialization. — Scott (@Scott_eth) August 23, 2022 While Uniswap’s goal of these talks and potential collaborations with lending protocols is NFT financialization, the crowd on Twitter came back with a double-sided response. Some users deemed ...
Are non-KYC crypto exchanges as safe as their KYC-compliant peers?
Many see implementing Know Your Customer (KYC) tools in crypto as a deterrent to the Bitcoin (BTC) Standard, which has predominantly promoted anonymized peer-to-peer transactions. However, regulators stay put on promoting KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) implementations as a means to ensure investors’ safety and protection against financial fraud. While most crypto exchanges have begun implementing regulatory recommendations to remain at the forefront of crypto’s mainstream adoption, investors still have the choice to opt for crypto exchanges that promote greater anonymity by not imposing KYC processes. But does opting for the latter as an investor mean compromising on safety? A matter of trust Anonymity goes both ways in most cases. Owners of crypto exchanges running non-KYC (or ...
Curve Finance resolves site exploit, directs users to revoke any recent contracts
On Aug 9, automated market maker Curve Finance took to Twitter to warn users of an exploit on its site. The team behind the protocol noted that the issue, which appeared to be an attack from a malicious actor, was affecting the service’s nameserver and frontend. Don’t use https://t.co/vOeMYOTq0l site – nameserver is compromised. Investigation is ongoing: likely the NS itself has a problem — Curve Finance (@CurveFinance) August 9, 2022 Curve stated via Twitter that its exchange — which is a separate product — appeared to be unaffected by the attack, as it uses a different DNS provider. However, the issue was quickly addressed by the team. An hour after the initial warning, Curve said it had both found and reverted the issue, directing users to have approved any contracts o...
Decentralized finance faces multiple barriers to mainstream adoption
Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a growing market popular with experienced crypto users. However, there are some roadblocks regarding mass adoption when it comes to the average non-technical investor. DeFi is a blockchain-based approach to delivering financial services that don’t rely on centralized intermediaries but instead use automated programs. These automated programs are known as smart contracts, enabling users to automatically trade and move assets on the blockchain. Protocols in the DeFi space include decentralized exchanges (DEXs), lending and borrowing platforms and yield farms. Since there are no centralized intermediaries, it’s easier for users to get involved in the DeFi ecosystem, but there are also increased risks. These risks include vulnerabilities in a protocol’s co...
Uniswap’s 80% gains in July are in danger with UNI price painting a classic bearish pattern
Uniswap (UNI) looks ready to post its best monthly performance in more than a year as it rallied approximately 80% in July, but signs of an extended pullback in the near term are emerging. Uniswap price nearly doubles in July UNI’s price is having one of its best months ever, reaching nearly $9 on July 30 versus nearly $5 at the beginning of the month, best returns since January 2021’s 250% price rally. UNI/USD monthly price chart. Source: TradingView Merge FOMO an UNI “fee switch” proposal Uniswap’s gains primarily surfaced due to similar upside moves in a broader crypto market. But they turned out to be relatively massive due to an ongoing euphoria surrounding “the Merge.” Notably, the Ethereum blockchain’s potential transition ...
UNI, MATIC and AAVE surge after Bitcoin price bounces back above $20K
Crypto investors found cause for celebration on July 14 as the market experienced a positive trading session just one day after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) posted a June print of 9.1%, its highest level since 1981. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 The move higher in the market wasn’t entirely unexpected for seasoned traders who have become familiar with a one to two-day bounce in asset prices following the most recent CPI prints. These traders also know there’s nothing to get too excited about as the bounces have typically been followed by more downside once people realize that the high inflation print is a negative development. Nevertheless, the green in the market is a welcome sight after the rough start to 2022. Top 5 coins with the highest 24-hour price...
Why cross-chain interoperability matters for DeFi
The modern DEX is designed to take advantage of the benefits of both CEX and DEXs by leveraging innovative technologies to enable more efficient transactions. Since limitations are presented for both the modern CEX and DEX, many propose that for widespread asset adoption, a non-custodial platform that supports assets across many networks is needed. In theory, this experience would enable users to control their funds at all times without giving up the flexibility of a promising user experience. Polkadex has proposed this next exchange iteration as a decentralized peer-to-peer order book-based cryptocurrency exchange. The project aims to become the trading engine of Web3 by combining the advantages of CEXs and DEXs while eliminating the disadvantages of both. To achieve this, Polkadex has ta...
Uniswap acquires NFT marketplace aggregator Genie to further ‘universal ownership’ goals
Decentralized exchange Uniswap announced the acquisition of the NFT marketplace aggregator Genie on June 21st. Uniswap said this move is part of its mission to unlock universal ownership and exchange on its platform. Uniswap is now integrating NFTs into its product line beginning with the Uniswap web app and later integrations are said to include developer APIs and widgets. This isn’t the first time Uniswap has worked with NFTs. In the spring of 2019 it launched Unisocks which offered NFT liquidity pools backed by real-world assets. Uniswap said in the announcement, “We’re excited to bring what we’ve learned building DeFi products to NFTs.” In August Uniswap said it planned to airdrop USDC to historical Genie users in an effort to share the value of this acquisition and integration. Uniswa...
Elusive Bitcoin ETF: Hester Perice criticizes lack of legal clarity for crypto
The crypto sector may be maturing, but regulatory clarity around the treatment of digital assets continues to remain cumbersome. This was recently highlighted by Commissioner Hester Peirce — also known as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) “crypto mom” — in remarks she made at “The Regulatory Transparency Project Conference on Regulating the New Crypto Ecosystem: Necessary Regulation or Crippling Future Innovation?” Peirce began her speech by emphasizing the importance of “regulating the new crypto ecosystem.” While this may be, Peirce also noted that the crypto industry is still in search of an actual regulator. She said: “A bipartisan bill announced last week attempts to answer that question. Some people in the crypto industry are celebrating the all...
