Important DeFi News
ChainLink’s CCIP, a protocol enabling cross-chain interoperability, is live on Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, and Polygon mainnets, with its usage requiring fee payments in $LINK
Aave’s stablecoin $GHO has gone live. It can be minted from assets supplied on Aave V3, $AAVE Safety Module stakers are able to mint $GHO at a discounted rate
Uniswap announced UniswapX, an aggregation protocol that offers improved token-swapping mechanics, gas-free cross-chain swaps, and MEV protection
Mantle mainnet, an ETH L2, is live along with the $BIT to $MNT conversion tool
Lens Protocol V2 was announced, featuring UI and composable social networking features
Pendle will launch Pendle Earn, allowing users to earn fixed rate yields on $stETH, $sfrxETH, and $USDT
Liquity V2 was announced, with plans to offer products built around staked $ETH
Velodrome V2 will see 100% of protocol fees distributed to $veVELO holders. Since the V2 upgrade, the protocol has achieved the highest fees in its history, reaching an ATH of $280k
Starknet TVL has grown by 49% following the Quantum Leap upgrade which increases the transactions per second on the network
ZkSync launched Boojum, an upgraded proof system that will increase its transaction speed
LayerZero is now live on the Base mainnet
Sui Network recently saw a huge spike in transaction count due to the "Game 8192” app
Axelar launched their inter-chain token services, improving cross-chain interoperability
FortunaFi is deploying tokenized native US Treasury Bills on Canto, which will also back Canto’s native over-collateralized stablecoin $NOTE
Linea Mainnet Alpha is live, with the canonical native ERC-20 bridge becoming available in the coming weeks. Five tiers of Linea Voyage NFTs will be distributed to testnet participants based on leaderboard points
Starknet announced the launch of “appchains”, a framework for creating multiple application-specific blockchains within its ecosystem
Osmosis’ Supercharged Liquidity upgrade is live and features concentrated liquidity for LPs
Geist Finance and Hector Network are shutting down due to losses from Multichain’s exploit
Factor V2 is live, introducing composable vaults that strengthen token liquidity. Eligible $veFCTR and testnet participants can claim their airdrop allocation, totaling 100,000 $FCTR
Espresso Systems is integrating Eigenlayer’s infrastructure into its sequencer network
$ARKM airdrop is live, and more than 94% of the airdrop has been claimed. The token distribution is skewed, with 5 wallets out of a total 54,000 having claimed 3.94% of total claimable tokens and quickly selling it on exchanges
Application for Phase 1 of the Arbitrum Foundation Grants Program is live, with Phase 1 catering to decentralized applications and infrastructure protocols on Nova and One
Ethena Finance, an algo stable backed by $ETH derivatives, has raised $6M in a seed round led by Dragonfly
Governance Proposals
Celo Network, an EVM-compatible L1 blockchain, has proposed to transition to an ETH L2 by leveraging Optimism’s OP Stack
Maker DAO has proposed implementing Enhanced DSR to increase DSR and incentivize its utilization. As DSR utilization increases, EDSR will decrease until it reaches the target utilization threshold. The EDSR is a one-time, one-way mechanism and cannot be increased even if the DSR utilization threshold drops again
Camelot's proposal for Arbitrum to provide 1.5M $ARB per month to Camelot is currently under active vote. The proposal looks set to fail, with 40% of voters opposing it and only 23% supporting it.
Synapse has proposed to convert ~1M idle $ARB into $ETH to create a more liquid $ETH bridge
Beefy DAO is voting on migrating $BIFI off Multichain and redeploying it on the Ethereum mainnet. The vote is currently in favor of accepting this proposal
Balancer is voting to allocate $200k incentives for Avalanche launch
Ribbon Finance is voting on its Ribbon-Aevo merger, and is currently in favour of accepting this proposal
Aura Finance is discussing deploying on Polygon PoS and Polygon zkEVM
Gemini is proposing to implement up to 3% incentives for continued use of $GUSD on Maker
Decentral Games and Decentraland DAO is voting to form a strategic partnership, sharing 30% of $MANA revenue generated from Tominoya Casino with Decentraland DAO, commit to building on Decentraland, and provide $1M $DG. In return, Decentraland DAO will swap $900k $MANA for $DG in open market and OTC $100k $MANA for $DG. Currently, the proposal is set to pass with 94% in favour of the proposal
Next Week's Alpha
Unibot will launch Unibot X on July 20th
Synthetix is set to build Infinex, a perp DEX that will launch alongside Perps V3
TraderJoe is set to deploy on Ethereum, making Ethereum the fourth expansion after the recent expansion to BNB Chain
Uniwhale Exchange, a perps trading DEX, is set to launch on Arbitrum, allowing eligible early users access to the platform on July 24th and opening to public on July 26th
$AXS is set to unlock 2.96% of circulating supply worth $21.5M on July 22nd
News
SEC has launched a review of the latest $BTC ETF filings
Binance has laid off 1,000 workers in recent weeks
National Australia Bank has been blocking payments to crypto exchanges deemed high risk
Indonesia is set to launch a crypto exchange in July
Gnosis has announced payment services allowing users to make purchases using crypto
Shinhan Bank, a Korean bank, is testing stablecoin remittance payments on Hedera network
Celsius has moved $59.4M in altcoins to centralized exchanges, potentially to sell for $BTC and $ETH
$ARKM's public sale on Binance drew $2.4 billion worth of locked $BNB
Reddit community tokens $MOON and $BRICK has surged due to rule change speculation allowing trading of tokenized assets on Reddit
US judge has ruled that the sale of $XRP does not constitute an offer of investment contracts
Crypto custodian Prime Trust is placed into receivership
VC firm Polychain Capital has raised $200M for fourth fund
Stride Blockchain, a liquid staking protocol, is set to adopt Cosmos’ interchain security model
Telegram has issued $270M in bonds to fund growth
Metaverse startup Futureverse has raised $54M
CoinFund has launched a $158M fund for early crypto statups
Presidential candidate Robert has promised to back US dollar with $BTC if he becomes president
Tweets of the Week
Arkham’s $ARKM airdrop analysis by An Ape’s Prologue
Top $ARKM airdrop receivers by Amir Omu
EigenLayer 2nd cap raise analysis by Osgur Mok
The risk of selling FTX claim to OPNX by wassielawyer
RWA overview by 0xGeeGee