Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France on the 24th. According to French TF1 TV, he may face serious charges of terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking. As soon as the news came out, the price of Toncoin, which is closely related to Telegram, plummeted by more than 20% to $ 5.71 per coin, with a daily drop of 14.77%.
TON’s total locked value (TVL) also suffered a heavy blow, falling more than 39% in a single day, and a drop of nearly 60% compared to its historical high of US$777 million.
Looking at other L1 and L2 data, TVL has increased instead of decreased!
According to DeFi Llama data, the TVL of chains such as Solana , Avalanche , Scroll , Aptos , and zkLink have all increased by more than 12% in the past seven days. Among them, Tron has surpassed the rest due to the popularity of Sunpump, and its TVL has now exceeded 8.7 billion US dollars, and the TRON token TRX is approaching a record high.
Recently, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., announced that he will launch the DeFI project "The DeFiant Ones" to return power to the people, eliminate corrupt, expensive and inefficient middlemen, and make finance great again.
Influenced by the comments of several Fed officials on crypto regulation and the expectation of interest rate cuts, Bitcoin successfully broke through $64,000 last Saturday, and is about to recover all the losses since this month. DeFi-related currencies such as AAVE are about to reach a new high since the beginning of this year.
This shows that the DeFi field is recovering day by day!
The river is clear and turquoise, with hundreds of boats competing for the current
As the industry infrastructure continues to improve, competition in the DeFi field is becoming increasingly fierce. Since the beginning of this year, the DeFi field has attracted more than $900 million in financing, hundreds of projects are ready to go, and the competition between various products is fierce! Whoever can form a novel and attractive business model in this market and whoever has a higher market fit (PMF) will dominate the rise and fall of DeFi.
In the previous article "Is DeFi on the decline? The value of leading projects is returning", we analyzed that the layout of the DeFI track is just right, and leading projects such as Aave, Uniswap, EigenLayer and other applications are welcoming new development opportunities. Today, the author will lead you to explore 10 DeFi projects that have not yet issued tokens in the most popular areas of DeFi to discover potential investment opportunities.
Dex and Lending Orderly Network
In the cryptocurrency arena, centralized exchanges have won the favor of traders with their liquidity and user experience. However, decentralized exchanges (DEX), despite providing transparency and sovereignty, have shortcomings in liquidity and user experience. What if there was a trading venue that combined the speed and liquidity of CEX with the transparency, sovereignty, and settlement of decentralized finance (DeFi)? This is the core idea of Orderly Network.
Orderly Network is a liquidity platform built on the Near Protocol that relies on smart contracts for peer-to-peer transactions and provides users with risk management and shared asset pools. Orderly Network was founded in April 2022 and was incubated by NEAR and WOO Network. It combines the liquidity and transaction speed advantages of CEXs while retaining the transparency, sovereignty, and on-chain settlement characteristics of DeFi, aiming to build an efficient trading ecosystem that can meet users' needs for liquidity and speed while maintaining decentralization and transparency.
Orderly Network has previously completed a total of US$25 million in financing with a valuation of US$200 million. OKX Ventures , Pantera Capital , Dragonfly , IOSG Ventures , Sequoia China , Jump Crypto and other capitals participated in the investment.
Orderly Network has achieved initial success in the DeFi field:
Total transaction volume exceeds $80 billion
Integrate six major blockchains ( Arbitrum , Optimism , Polygon , Base, etc.)
Total locked value (TVL) exceeds $21 million
Over 400,000 unique wallet addresses
This month, Orderly has updated its token economics information. 55% of the 1 billion ORDERs will be used for ecosystem development, 20% for the Orderly team and consultants, 15% for strategic investors, and 10% will be retained in the Orderly Foundation treasury to promote exchange liquidity, etc. Of the total supply, 13.3% is used for airdrops.
ORDER tokens will be TGE on August 26, and users can claim all airdrops on the same day, and staking activities will start on the same day.
To date, over $8 million in net fees have been generated. After the TGE, 60% of these new net fees will continue to belong to Orderly stakers. Token holders will be able to stake immediately after the TGE, and staking rewards will be paid in USDC upon redemption.
It is worth paying attention to whether the economic model of the $ORDER token can effectively incentivize long-term participation or is just a short-term speculation tool. Currently, the ORDER token has been launched for pre-market trading on multiple exchanges such as Bybit, Gate, and BingX. At that time, you can find entry opportunities after the airdrop selling pressure ends.
Morpho
Morpho is a lending protocol that combines the liquidity pool model used by Compound or AAVE with the capital efficiency of the peer-to-peer matching engine used in order books. Morpho-Compound improves on Compound by providing the same user experience, liquidity, and liquidation parameters, but with increased APY due to peer-to-peer matching.
On August 1, Morpho completed a $50 million financing round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Hack VC, IOSG, Rockaway, L1D, Mirana, Cherry, Semantic, Fenbushi, Leadblock Bitpanda and Robot Ventures. Other heavyweights participating in the private token sale include a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, Pantera, Brevan Howard, BlockTower and Kraken Ventures.
Morpho, which previously raised $18 million in 2022, aims to merge the relatively scarce world of decentralized finance (DeFi) with the internet’s base protocol layer.
According to DefiLlama data, the total TVL is currently close to $1.5 billion. Although it is not close to Aave's $7 billion level, these funds are currently concentrated in the interest rate optimizer function, but there are many ways to import them into new functions.
Morpho tokens have sufficient and flexible budgets, and can attract users through subsidies in the early stages. Morpho's stable operation history and capital allow it to accumulate certain security and brand, increasing user trust.
It is worth mentioning that although Morpho tokens have been issued and used in voting decisions and project incentives, they are in a non-transferable state. Therefore, they do not have a secondary market price. Users and investors who receive tokens can participate in voting governance, but cannot sell them.
If you have extra funds, you can consider putting them into Morpho. Of course, the annualized rate is not high, but you can get some $Morpho subsidies. In the future, Morph may issue a wave of minimum living allowances to those who deposit funds, just like eigenlayer, so you can bet on a potential airdrop.
In summary, as an innovative DeFi lending protocol, Morpho has sufficient market potential and technical advantages. However, to stand out in the fierce DeFi market, Morpho needs to continue to innovate, focus on user experience and market education, ensure security and stability, and establish an effective governance mechanism.
Liquidity Staking and Re-staking Karak
Karak is a universal re-staking network, similar to Eigenlayer and other re-staking projects, which also uses the points gameplay to encourage users to re-stake and obtain multiple benefits. Currently, Karak has supported the re-staking of multiple mainstream protocol assets of Ethereum mainnet, Arbitrum (L2), K2 (L2) and other networks. Its team members come from Coinbase, Google, AWS, Microsoft, Twitter, Goldman Sachs and other companies.
Karak is a popular milk tea in the Middle East, and the name highlights its regional background. In December 2023, Karak announced that it had received $48 million in Series A financing at a valuation of more than $1 billion, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Mubadala Capital, existing investors Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Coinbase, Proof Group, Nima Capital, Naval Ravikant and other institutions. Among them, Mubadala Capital is the second largest fund in Abu Dhabi, and most of the other investors are well-known investment institutions in the traditional and crypto circles.
On February 28, Karak announced the launch of an early access program, where users can earn XP points by re-staking on Karak, but the response was mediocre. However, after the private channel was opened on April 8, Karak's TVL has skyrocketed. As of August 26, Karak's TVL is $810 million.
Symbiotic
Symbiotic is a universal re-staking system that enables decentralized networks to bootstrap powerful, fully sovereign ecosystems. It will provide a way for decentralized applications, called Active Validation Services (AVS), to collectively secure each other. Users will be able to re-stake assets they have deposited in other crypto protocols to help secure these AVS (whether rollups, interoperability infrastructure, or oracles) in exchange for rewards.
The project announced on June 18, 2024 that it would work with Ethena Labs and LayerZero to pilot a universal re-pledge framework to improve the security and operational efficiency of cross-chain assets. This move not only provides a safer way to transfer Ethena's assets such as USDe and sUSDe across chains, but also verifies through the LayerZero DVN network to ensure the reliability of the transfer. This innovative framework of Symbiotic will provide economic security for partners in the LayerZero ecosystem and enable the selection of DVN operators through consistent tokens. In addition, the Symbiotic project also completed a $5.8 million seed round of financing on June 11, 2024, led by Paradigm and Cyber Fund, injecting strong momentum into its future development.
Unlike Karak, it does not allow LRT to be deposited into its platform. This makes only LST available for depositing into Symbiotic for re-staking. If a liquid re-staking protocol wants to provide LRT for Symbiotic, they must set up a vault or operator to allow users’ deposits to be delegated to them for re-staking on Symbiotic.
Given the recent controversy surrounding the Eigenlayer airdrop, many users were unhappy with the terms of the airdrop, and some users began to initiate withdrawal requests on the platform. As users and farmers look for the next protocol to earn yield and farm airdrops, Symbiotic seems to be the next logical choice. As of August 26, its TVL has exceeded $1.7 billion.
Puffer Finance
Puffer is the first native liquidity re-staking protocol (nLRP) built on EigenLayer. It introduces native liquidity re-staking tokens (nLRTs), namely pufETH. Holding pufETH can accumulate Ethereum PoS equity proof and re-staking dual rewards. Nodes within the protocol use Puffer's anti-staking technology to effectively reduce the risk of staking and improve capital utilization efficiency, while obtaining higher rewards through native re-staking.
As of August 26, Puffer’s TVL has exceeded US$1.4 billion. Its rapid development is mainly due to the support of many investors.
Puffer announced in April that it had successfully completed its Series A financing. A total of $18 million was raised, with a valuation of $200 million, led by Brevan Howard Digital and Electric Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Avon Ventures (a venture capital fund associated with Fidelity Investments' parent company), Lemniscap, Lightspeed Faction, Consensys, Animoca, Mechanism, GSR and several top angel investors. Previously, a total of $5.5 million was raised in angel and seed rounds, with well-known investment institutions including Lemniscap, Lightspeed Faction, Brevan Howard Digital, Bankless Ventures, Animoca Ventures, DACM, LBank Labs, 33DAO, WAGMI33, Concave, SNZ, Token Pocket and Canonical Crypto. The support of many well-known institutions shows the broad industry support and confidence in Puffer's vision.
After this round of financing, Puffer received strategic investment from Binance Labs, further strengthening its position in the liquidity re-staking ecosystem and laying a solid foundation for the upcoming mainnet launch and long-term future development.
Kelp DAO
Kelp DAO is a triple yield re-staking protocol based on EigenLayer. rsETH is a Liquid Re-staking Token (LRT) issued by Kelp DAO, which aims to provide liquidity for illiquid assets deposited in re-staking platforms such as EigenLayer.
In May, Kelp announced that it had completed a $9 million token financing at a valuation of $90 million, led by SCB Limited and Laser Digital (Nomura Securities' cryptocurrency division), with participation from Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Draper Dragon, DACM, Cypher Capital, GSR, HTX Ventures and DWF Ventures. In addition, angel investors such as Scott Moore of Gitcoin, Sam Kazemian of Frax Finance, Marc Zeller of Aave Chan Initiative, Saurabh Sharma of Jump Crypto and Amrit Kumar of AltLayer also participated in this round of investment.
As of August 26, the TVL on the KelpDAO chain has exceeded US$700 million.
The latest roadmap released by Puffer on social media shows that it will launch the Puffer UniFi testnet in September. It will open withdrawals, launch Puffer V2 and conduct TGE in early Q4; and launch AVS and UniFi mainnet in late Q4.
Derivatives Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetual contract exchange. Hyperliquid offers one-click trading and instant trading. For more advanced traders, the platform offers partial take profit (TP) and stop loss (SL) orders and API support. Its local vault opens market making and liquidation strategies to the community.
After the crash on August 5, Hyperliquid became the best bidder for JLP, and also became another Perp DEX worth paying attention to. On August 7, Hyperliquid's daily trading volume exceeded 4.3 billion US dollars, setting a record high. At the same time, its network traffic also set a record high, and all services were normal without downtime.
Hyperliquid focuses on Perp DEX and continuously strives to achieve growth in users, trading volume and market share. It once became the hottest Perp DEX in the English circle. According to official website data, Hyperliquid has accumulated more than 190,000 users and 132 tradable assets. According to DeFiLlama data, Hyperliquid's total trading volume reached US$284.9 billion, ranking third in the derivatives track (Jupiter ranked first and GMX ranked second).
But Hyperliquid is not limited to DEX. Its vision is to build a high-performance L1 chain and optimize the DeFi primitives built on it. The application chain was built manually by the team and only uses Tendermint for consensus. It is reportedly able to handle up to 20,000 operations per second, including orders, cancellations, and liquidations, which is about 20 times the current capacity of dYdX v3.
SynFutures
SynFutures is a decentralized derivatives exchange where anyone can list and trade futures and perpetual contracts on any asset. SynFutures positions itself as the Amazon of derivatives by creating an open and trustless derivatives market, introducing permissionless asset listings and offering the widest diversity of trading pairs.
SynFutures has completed three rounds of financing with a total financing amount of US$38 million, and the last round of financing will be in October 2023. Pantera Capital, Dragonfly, Polychain, and Standard Crypto led the investment, and Framework Ventures, CMS Holdings, Wintermute, Hashkey Capital, Mirana Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Bing Ventures, Bybit, Susquehanna International Group, Kronos Asset Management and other institutions participated in the investment.
Currently, SynFutures has launched many long-tail asset trading pairs, such as $YES, $PAC, $DEGEN, $WIF, $MERL, etc., with a trading volume exceeding $150 billion, and a daily trading volume that accounts for about 8% of decentralized derivatives platforms. According to DeFillma data, its daily trading volume ranks among the top four in decentralized derivatives exchanges.
It ranks first in the trading volume of derivatives on the Base network and is one of the most active ecological projects on the Base network. At the same time, a report recently released by Messari shows that SynFutures' total trading volume on Blast in Q2 exceeded US$98 billion, accounting for 66% of Blast's derivatives trading volume. SynFutures' current DAO Perps project supports project tokens such as Lido, Cygnus and Bifrost as collateral for trading.
In addition, SynFutures is also actively cooperating and promoting with major exchanges. We look forward to SynFutures' more impressive performance in 2024, pushing the on-chain derivatives market to a new level of activity.
Bluefin
Bluefin (formerly Firefly, dTrade) is a decentralized perpetual contract protocol that allows users to trade perpetual contracts anytime, anywhere with up to 20x leverage. Bluefin has several key features that set it apart from other solutions. The CLOB mechanism provides traders with minimal latency and the ability to place orders without paying gas fees, thereby improving speed and user experience to rival centralized exchanges (CEX). Other key features include the implementation of subaccounts on on-chain exchanges, customizable order cancellation parameters, zk-login, a read-only account access mechanism that provides similar access to centralized solutions, and more.
Bluefin, which has raised a total of $17 million since its founding in 2020, will soon launch its governance token. The exchange, which allows users to trade cryptocurrency perpetual contracts on the Sui network, recently received an undisclosed investment from trading giant Flow Traders before the token launch. Bluefin said in a statement that the company will use the proceeds to expand beyond perpetual contract trading and develop a decentralized financial ecosystem.
According to Bluefin’s token economics, the maximum supply of BLUE tokens is 1 billion, with an initial circulation of 116 million. Investors and the Bluefin team will have a three-year vesting period, with a lockup period expiring one year after the initial launch next month. The company also plans to use 32.5% of the tokens for user incentives, including airdrops, trading rewards, liquidity provision and future growth plans, the document said. The DEX also plans to launch an aggregator for trading spot digital assets and “Bluefin Pro,” which will offer cross-margin trading and faster execution.
Bluefin, which has raised funding from major hedge funds including Brevan Howard Digital, Tower Research, Cumberland DRW and Susquehanna International Group, said it has traded more than $33 billion in volume to date and has generated more than $1 million in monthly revenue.
RWA Track Superstate
Superstate is a blockchain-based government bond fund that uses the Ethereum blockchain as a secondary record-keeping tool. Superstate aims to leverage existing U.S. securities regulations to achieve broad global distribution in a fully compliant manner, and implements the most advanced tokenization framework, strong DeFi composability, and broad ecosystem coverage to bring the highest quality yielding Treasury products to market.
Last November, SuperState, founded by the founder of Compound, completed a US$14 million Series A financing round led by Distributed Global and CoinFund, with participation from Arrington Capital, Breyer Capital, CMT Digital, Department of XYZ, Folius Ventures, Galaxy Digital, HackVC, Modular Capital, Nascent and Road Capital Management.
It is reported that Superstate plans to use the funds to build its team and develop private equity funds to allow institutional investors to smoothly enter the crypto world. Specifically, they can provide investors with tokenized versions of bonds or other common assets and trade or borrow on platforms like Uniswap.
Recently, Superstate announced that it will integrate Chainlink Data Feeds into its tokenized Treasury bond fund, the Superstate Short-Term U.S. Government Securities Fund (USTB).
“This integration enables Superstate to securely bring Net Asset Value (NAV) data on-chain, enhancing the fund’s composability in on-chain financial markets,” the team said. “In addition, Superstate will integrate Chainlink Proof of Reserve in the coming months to further strengthen on-chain verification of AUM data.”
According to relevant data, BlackRock, Ondo and Superstate became the companies with the greatest impact in the RWA field in the first quarter. The RWA market achieved rapid growth in the first quarter. Driven by the huge interest of institutions and the launch of innovative products, tokenized treasury bonds including BlackRock's US Dollar Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, Superstate's Short-Term U.S. Government Securities Fund and Ondo's USDY increased by 41% to nearly US$1.3 billion.
