This Week In DeFi – June 30

This week, TUSD briefly loses its peg, Maple Finance launches a direct lending arm, ZKSync developers launch the ZK Stack, and dYdX announces a date for its Cosmos testnet.

June 30, 2023

To the DeFi Community,

This week, stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD) had a small de-pegging incident this week, as its price dropped to as low as 80 cents per token on Binance.US. The extent of the drop was not replicated across other exchanges, however, indicating that the problem may have been somewhat isolated to just the singular market.

The volatility followed shortly after reports that the project held a very small portion ($26,000) of its reserve assets at Prime Trust, a bank ordered to shut off all deposits and withdrawals.

Skepticism has arisen around TUSD after it paused minting of its token earlier this month, as well as the recent revelation that its attestation reports come from the same auditors that worked for the now-defunct exchange giant, FTX.

Rather than acknowledge the price discrepancy, the official TrueUSD Twtitter account interestingly chose to celebrate the increase in trading volume:

Lending protocol Maple Finance has launched a new direct-lending arm, called Maple Direct. 

The service aims to fill the gap in the market left by the collapse of Celsius, BlockFi and Genesis, focusing on bespoke deals to Web3-native entities. The company believes that it has an advantage in the fact that traditional lenders do not have the expertise to underwrite within the sector.

Maple Direct will start to offer its first lending product in July, with all lenders required to pass KYC verification. 

Layer-2 platform ZKSync has launched the ZK Stack, a customizable tech stack for creating ZK-powered scaling networks on Ethereum. 

The open-source framework will be free to use, with each chain being composable via native bridges – designed to function together as a “trustless network with low latency and shared liquidity.”

The stack appears to be ZKSync’s response to the highly-popular OP Stack from Optimism, which uses optimistic fraud proofs rather than zero-knowledge validity proofs.

ZKSync Era has become the space’s third-largest Layer-2, crossing $600 million in total value locked (TVL) this week.

 

Decentralized futures exchange dYdX has announced that it will launch the public testnet of its Cosmos-based chain on July 5 – reportedly ahead of schedule.

The testnet will have 40 or more validators running the project’s software, and will test functions such as connecting wallets, viewing the order books, placing orders and viewing account information. 

Only Bitcoin and Ethereum markets will be available at launch, however 30+ markets are expected to be added via future upgrades.

dYdX is targeting a mainnet launch for the chain in September of this year, as part of its “Milestone 5” for the project.

Once again we have observed new stablecoin drama this week, as trust in TrueUSD (TUSDT) wavers. Coincidentally, the stablecoin has recently been thrown into the limelight by Binance, being part of multiple promotions and new trading pairs.

With a market cap of just $3 billion, TUSD does not appear to be a major threat to the ecosystem regardless of what happens to it – however the activity currently surrounding it should be observed.

Governments around the world have also made headlines in crypto this week, as the UK passes a bill giving regulators to oversee crypto and stablecoins. Regulators in the UK will now be able to introduce and enforce rules in the sector more easily.

The EU has settled on new rules for their “Data Act,” that may rattle the Web3 community once finally passed. The rules, which are not to be confused with the controversial MiCA framework, may drastically affect smart contracts due to a “kill switch” requirement.

Finally, over in the United States, the CFTC tech advisory board will convene to discuss DeFi, DAOs and more July 18, following up on the regulator’s enforcement action against Ooki DAO. The case set a precedent that DAOs may be held liable for legal violations as a “person.”

Interest Rates

Highest Yields: Nexo Lend at 10% APY, Aave at 2.6% APY

MakerDAO Updates

DAI Savings Rate: 3.49%

Base Fee: 0.00%

ETH Stability Fee: 3.49%

WBTC Stability Fee: 5.55%

Highest Yields: Nexo Lend at 10% APY, Compound at 2.8% APY

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Stat Box

Total Value Locked: $44.24B (down 1.1% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $46.28B (up 0.5%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $13.12B (down 3.2%)

DAI Supply: 4.38B (down 1.4%)

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