# Welcome to Finance Redefined
Your weekly source for pivotal insights in decentralized finance (DeFi) — a newsletter designed to keep you informed about the most significant happenings from the past week.
This week, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump is set to unveil his DeFi platform, which is anticipated to feature capabilities for crypto lending and borrowing. The candidate asserts that he is “embracing the future with crypto.”
In the wider crypto ecosystem, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams has dismissed claims that he solicited payment for deploying DeFi protocols via a governance vote on Uniswap.
## Trump to Launch World Liberty Financial Crypto Platform on Sept. 16
Donald Trump has announced the launch of his World Liberty Financial crypto initiative scheduled for September 16. In a video shared on X on September 12, he revealed plans to go live on the platform, which will be managed by his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
“We’re embracing the future with crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind,” he stated.
*World Liberty Financial announcement. Source: Donald Trump*
Trump has previously made several ambiguous posts regarding World Liberty Financial, hinting at its role as a DeFi platform for borrowing and lending.
## Uniswap CEO Denies Allegations of Charging for Protocol Deployments
Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams has publicly countered allegations on X that the platform has requested funds from decentralized finance protocols for deployments. On September 12, he clarified that neither Uniswap Labs nor the Uniswap Foundation charges for protocol integrations.
*Source: Hayden Adams*
Adams explained that protocol deployments occur through governance votes, and the criteria for deploying on a new chain depend on the level of activity and effort involved. His response followed an allegation from a user named Alexander, who claimed that Uniswap had asked developers for $20 million for what he termed an ineffective deployment.
## Sonic Blockchain Achieves Record 720ms Finality in Testnet Phase
The Sonic blockchain has reached an impressive transaction finality of 720 milliseconds (ms) during its testnet phase. In blockchain terminology, finality refers to the certainty that a transaction is irreversible once it has been incorporated into the ledger.
Sonic claims to be the fastest Ethereum Virtual Machine chain globally, boasting a “true” 720ms finality, as stated by Andre Cronje, the founder of the Fantom Network and Chief Technology Officer of Sonic Labs. Unlike most blockchains that require several additional blocks to ensure non-reversibility, Sonic achieves this finality in just over 700ms.
## Crypto Platform Friend.tech Sees Token Drop 26% Following Admin Transfer
The native token of the crypto social media platform Friend.tech has experienced a sharp decline after its team transferred ownership of its smart contracts to Ethereum’s null address, effectively relinquishing any control over them.
The transfer, executed on September 8, was intended “to prevent any changes to their fees or functionality in the future,” according to Friend.tech’s statement on X. Following this announcement, the FRIEND token plummeted nearly 26%, reaching $0.067 within 24 hours, as reported by CoinGecko.
## Coinbase Launches “cbBTC” Wrapped Bitcoin Digital Asset
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has introduced its cbBTC token — a wrapped version of Bitcoin (BTC) — on both the Ethereum network and its layer-2 scaling solution, Base.
As per the launch announcement on September 12, cbBTC is backed 1:1 by Bitcoin held by Coinbase and does not have a separate order book or trading pairs within the exchange’s platform. The wrapped Bitcoin works by automatically minting cbBTC at a 1:1 ratio when a user transfers Bitcoin to a Base or Ethereum address. Conversely, sending cbBTC to a Coinbase address will convert the tokenized Bitcoin back to standard Bitcoin.
## DeFi Market Overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView indicates that most of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week on a positive note. Among these, the BinaryX (BNX) token emerged as the week’s leading gainer with a rise of over 31%, followed closely by the Solana-based memecoin Popcat Sol (POPCAT), which surged by 28%.
*Total value locked in DeFi. Source: DefiLlama*
Thank you for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. We invite you to join us next Friday for more stories, insights, and educational content about this rapidly evolving sector.