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This Week In DeFi – April 14

This Week In DeFi – April 14

This week, Shapella goes live on Ethereum, Uniswap's iOS app is approved by Apple, Maple Finance opens a pool for US Treasuries, and SushiSwap suffers a $3.4M exploit.

April 14, 2023

To the DeFi community,

This week, Ethereum’s long-anticipated Shapella upgrade has gone live, enabling users to withdraw staked Ether. Despite many expecting increased selling pressure from the unstaking of coins, the price of Ether still managed to hit new highs for the year above $2,000.

Over $1.71 billion in Ether is now waiting to be withdrawn following the upgrade, with more than 860,750 coins pending withdrawal. On-chain estimates also suggest that over 1.1 million Ether (worth $2 billion) in accrued validator rewards may be claimed following Shapella.

Currently, 17.52 million ether is staked, accounting for 15.6% of the total Ether supply.

https://twitter.com/etherscan/status/1646281789735047168

Uniswap has launched its iOS wallet on the Apple App Store after a delay, with features including digital asset trades, wallet activity tracking, and NFT data.

Apple was slow in approving the app due to its updated app rules around digital assets, which state that apps can facilitate exchange transactions provided they have appropriate licensing and permissions in countries where cryptocurrency exchanges are allowed.

Apple's policies on crypto have been criticized, with some saying they are holding back the adoption of blockchain-centric gaming.

https://twitter.com/Uniswap/status/1646514969746501633

Maple Finance, a blockchain-based crypto lending protocol, is launching a lending pool that invests in US Treasury bonds. The protocol's native token, MPL, rallied 23% ahead of a community call in which CEO Sidney Powell announced the plans.

The move comes as the platform recovers from a difficult year for crypto lending that saw insolvencies and losses for liquidity providers. Maple is also planning a community vote on new tokenomics and utility for MPL later this year.

The new pool will allow accredited investors and corporate treasuries outside the US to invest stablecoin holdings in Treasury bonds and earn yields.

https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1645823083805016068

Decentralized exchange SushiSwap plans to return funds to users who lost over $3.4 million in a weekend exploit due to a faulty smart contract.

White-hat hackers have secured $51,000 worth of user assets, which will soon be claimable, and a claims process is being developed to make affected users whole. The protocol has recovered 300 ETH and is in talks with Lido about recovering an additional 700 ETH.

The incident highlights the importance of maintaining stringent security practices when transacting on-chain, as even trusted protocols can suffer exploits or ship faulty code.

https://twitter.com/SushiSwap/status/1646032261257781248

Ethereum staking withdrawals are finally enabled as the Shapella upgrade is implemented nice and smoothly – with no errors reported so far.

The price of Ether has held up spectacularly, especially considering the amount of concern over the increase in newly-available ETH supply following the hard fork. Although much more ETH is due to become unlocked over the next week or so from staking services and platforms, it appears that the willingness of stakers to sell their coins may have been much overstated.

Governments and regulations continue to act as a chokepoint on the DeFi industry as France becomes the latest country to look at antiquated rules for the sector. The country’s central bank is looking at forcing DeFi projects to incorporate or prove they “meet governance and security" norms” in order to operate, just a week before EU lawmakers vote on the looming Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) regulation.

The US SEC is also looking to clarify its powers and stance over DeFi exchanges, a move that could signal actions coming to such platforms in the near future.

Lastly, Decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX has also suffered a loss of its Canadian customers, as it shuts down access to its protocol for the country.

Thankfully, other progress continues in the sector, including a breakthrough for Uniswap’s iOS app, a $30 million raise for a new Layer-1 chain by Sei Labs, a $100 million Web3 fund by BitGet exchange, and zkSync reaching $200 million in total value locked (TVL).