Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of indispensable decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter meticulously crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the previous week.
The past week in DeFi was marked by the fervor surrounding the Starknet airdrop, as numerous users claimed to have received either the bare minimum or no airdrop at all. In the meantime, the founder of Uniswap cautioned against a new Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain scam.
Gas fees on the Ethereum network surged to an eight-month high due to the ERC-404 frenzy, while EigenLayer emerged as the fourth-largest restaking protocol with a total value locked (TVL) of $7 billion.
The top 100 DeFi tokens had another bullish week, with most of the tokens experiencing positive trading, and the TVL reached a new yearly high above $72 billion.
Report: Starknet airdrop attracts airdrop hunters before token launch
Airdrop hunters are expected to dominate the highly anticipated airdrop from Starknet, Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solution.
According to a report by Banteg, a developer at Yearn.finance, 1,854 individuals allegedly changed or deleted their accounts after a blockchain snapshot was taken for the Starknet airdrop on February 19. On February 20, the Starknet Foundation will distribute 700 million STRK tokens out of 1.8 billion to 1.3 million eligible wallet addresses, with 50% of the tokens going to protocol users.
EigenLayer becomes the fourth-largest restaking protocol, nearing $7 billion TVL
EigenLayer, an Ethereum restaking protocol, has risen to become the fourth-largest protocol by TVL, surpassing the cryptocurrency lending protocol JustLend.
As of February 15, EigenLayer’s TVL increased by 5.73% to $6.99 billion. The restaking protocol’s TVL has grown by 47.95% in the past seven days and 307% in the last month, according to data from DefiLlama.
Uniswap founder warns community about ENS wallet impersonation scam
Hayden Adams, the founder of decentralized exchange Uniswap, has issued a warning to the crypto community about a scam involving wallet addresses posing as Ethereum Name Service domains.
On February 14, Adams shared a warning on social media about scammers impersonating his Ethereum wallet. He explained that scammers copied and registered his wallet address as an ENS wallet with the .eth extension. Furthermore, Adams noted that pasting his wallet address into certain user interfaces would display an unrelated ENS match as the top search result.
Ethereum gas fees reach eight-month high due to ERC-404 craze
Gas fees on the Ethereum network have reached their highest point in eight months due to the surge of interest in an unofficial experimental token standard known as ERC-404.
On February 9, gas prices on the Ethereum network peaked at an average of 70 gwei ($60 for a standard transaction), with peak gas costs reaching as high as 377 gwei. This level has not been seen since May 12, 2023.
DeFi market overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView indicates that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most of them trading positively on the weekly charts. The TVL in DeFi protocols surpassed $70 billion for the first time in over a year.
Thank you for reading our summary of the most impactful DeFi developments from this week. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights, and education about this rapidly evolving space.