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This Week In DeFi – March 15

This Week In DeFi – March 15

Alex Miguel
March 15, 2024

Happy Friday, DeFi readers!

This week…

Ethereum successfully deploys Dencun upgrade
MakerDAO announces 2 new tokens
EtherFi to launch token ahead of schedule
Solana gains while market pulls back

Ethereum successfully deploys Dencun upgrade

Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade has been successfully deployed on mainnet, introducing “blobs” to lower the costs of layer-2 (L2) transactions.

Popular L2s including Optimism, Base and Arbitrum have already become cheaper to use, thanks to Dencun allowing data to be stored off-chain and becoming inaccessible after three weeks. Experts estimated up to a 90% reduction in L2 transaction costs.

Aside from blobs, Dencun also made improvements to block space efficiency, user security, and network validation – as well as setting a foundation for sharding in future upgrades.

1/ Ethereum's Dencun upgrade is live and we're already seeing big gas cost reductions across the board
Here's everything you need to know about money-saving blobs 🧵
— deBridge (@deBridgeFinance)
Mar 14, 2024

MakerDAO announces 2 new tokens

MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen has announced the launch of two new tokens, NewStable and NewGovToken, as part of the project’s 'Endgame' strategy.

Users will have the opportunity to upgrade their Dai and Maker (MKR) tokens to the newly introduced coins, anticipated to include new features related to staking and yield farming within the ecosystem. MarkeDAO intends to implement Endgame in summer of this year.

The project has also significantly increased the stability fees for minting its DAI stablecoin, from between 6.41%–7.18% to 15%–17.25%. The move aims to protect against market volatility and encourage DAI holding, by also increasing the DAI Stability Rate (DSR) from 5% to 15%.

Get ready for Endgame's Launch Season.
The new version of the Endgame plan has been released by @RuneKek on the Maker Forum.
Endgame is detailed further, outlining the fundamental transformation of MakerDAO that improves growth, resilience, and accessibility.
Here is how… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
— Maker (@MakerDAO)
Mar 13, 2024

EtherFi to launch token ahead of schedule

Leading liquid restaking protocol EtherFi is launching its token ahead of schedule, with Binance set to list it on March 18 after completing a Launchpool farming campaign.

The move aligns with the end of EtherFi's first points campaign and introduces additional token utility, including a governance proposal for value accrual and the upcoming launch of EtherFi Liquid, an automated DeFi strategy vault.

Interestingly, Tron founder Justin Sun has deposited 120,000 ETH into the protocol, as its TVL reaches $3 billion – almost double that of its closest competitor.

Introducing @ether_fi $ETHFI on #Binance Launchpool!
Farm $ETHFI by staking #BNB and $FDUSD.
➡️ binance.com/en/support/ann…
— Binance (@binance)
Mar 12, 2024

Solana gains while market pulls back

Solana appears to have defied a broader crypto market pull-back, as SOL and its major memecoins continue to post solid gains.

Of particular interest has been Dogwifhat (WIF), which has seen its community raise $690,000 to promote the memecoin on the popular Las Vegas Sphere. WIF has become the fourth-largest meme coin in the market, recently reaching a $2.6 billion market cap.

BREAKING: CAMPAIGN TO PUT @solana MEMECOIN $WIF (@dogwifcoin) ON THE VEGAS SPHERE HAS RAISED ITS TARGET TOTAL AMOUNT
— DEGEN NEWS 🗞️ (@DegenerateNews)
Mar 13, 2024

Points Derivatives Are Here

The “points” frenzy is reaching peak hype, as users are beginning to speculate harder than ever on airdrop potential from collecting points on new protocols.

As you may already know, points represent an off-chain tally of a user’s interactions and value to certain new DeFi protocols, providing a measurable incentive for using those protocols.

Each platform has its own way of distributing these points – and most often, they result in a rough estimate of a potential airdrop allocation, if that project is to launch a token.

With the prospect of tangible value at hand, the wider community has begun to speculate on these points, leading to buying and selling points on platforms like Whales Market and Pendle. Taking it one step further, we’ve most recently witnessed the creation points derivatives – enabling users to hedge the value of their points on derivatives platform, Vega.

Vega protocol has kicked things off with EigenLayer points derivatives, but things won’t stop there. The platform enables traders to permissionlessly create markets, which means we may be seeing many new points derivatives on the horizon.

The entire phenomenon appears to be giving the community a much earlier taste of how much points may actually be worth in monetary terms, rather than the wait-and-see approach that was once necessary with the eventual airdrops.

The other edge of the sword is that airdrops may no longer be as wildly speculative as they once were – as traders sweep in and create greater efficiency in the way points are distributed and valued.