Welcome to Finance Redefined, a newsletter designed to bring you the latest and most important developments in decentralized finance (DeFi). This week, we witnessed significant progress in the DeFi ecosystem, including the total value locked (TVL) surpassing $100 billion, MakerDAO’s upcoming “Endgame” transformation, Ethena’s impressive earnings as the highest-earning DApp, and Unizen’s commitment to reimburse users after a major hack. Additionally, BNB Chain introduced its new rollup-as-a-service solution for layer-2 networks.
MakerDAO, one of the leading decentralized finance protocols, is preparing for its highly anticipated “Endgame” launch. Co-founder Rune Christensen stated that this transformation aims to make the platform more scalable, resilient, and sustainable for user growth. The five-phase plan, slated to begin in mid-2024, includes hiring an external marketing firm to rebrand the entire operation and simplify the user experience. The ultimate goal of the Endgame is to scale MakerDAO’s stablecoin, Dai (DAI), from a $4.5 billion market capitalization to over $100 billion to compete with Tether (USDT).
In a recent announcement, DeFi protocol Unizen stated that it would provide immediate reimbursement to users who lost $750,000 or less due to a security breach. The platform suffered a compromise that resulted in the loss of approximately $2.1 million in user funds. To address this issue, Unizen is committed to compensating affected users as soon as possible. The security firm PeckShield flagged an “approve issue” on March 9, prompting users to revoke their approvals and prevent further losses. The attacker swapped USDT for DAI during the exploit, according to security company SlowMist.
Ethena, a decentralized application (DApp), has achieved the remarkable feat of becoming the highest-earning DApp in the crypto space. Over the past week, Ethena generated a daily cumulative revenue of $6.8 million. The only blockchains surpassing Ethena in revenue were Tron, with $38.6 million, and Ethereum, with $182.5 million in daily cumulative revenue over the past seven days.
BNB Chain, powered by the BNB token, announced the introduction of a rollup service solution for building layer-2 blockchains on its network. This rollup-as-a-service (RaaS) solution, unveiled on March 14, enables projects to leverage BNB Chain’s tech infrastructure to deploy layer-2 networks. This expansion of BNB Chain’s ecosystem provides new opportunities for developers and enhances the network’s capabilities.
The DeFi market experienced a bullish week, with the top 100 tokens by market capitalization performing well on the weekly charts. The TVL in DeFi protocols surpassed $110 billion, marking a significant milestone in the industry’s growth.
Thank you for reading our summary of the latest and most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights, and education on this rapidly evolving space.