To the DeFi Community,

This week, Blockchain development firm ConsenSys has launched its Layer 2 network, Linea, on mainnet in alpha. The ZK-rollup based network is compatible with Ethereum dApps and will be open to the public.

The release follows a testnet phase that was deemed highly successful, as the platform received participation from 5.2 million unique addresses, conducting over 41 million transactions over three months. 

Linea offers transaction costs 15 times cheaper than Ethereum itself. ConsenSys is well-known for creating and running the popular MetaMask Web3 wallet, as well as blockchain infrastructure provider Infura.

https://twitter.com/LineaBuild/status/1678738006646177793

Aave’s community is currently voting on the launch of its long-anticipated GHO stablecoin, with certain initial parameters.

The proposal looks to introduce the stablecoin through “facilitators”, allowing Aave v3 users to mint GHO against their collateral. Aave Companies expects the launch to increase competition for stablecoin borrowing on the platform, as well as boost revenue generated for the DAO.

The Aave V3 Ethereum Pool Facilitator will enable users to borrow GHO against collateral in the V3 Ethereum mainnet pool, while the FlashMinter Facilitator will allow users to flash-mint GHO without collateral, if it is repaid within a single transaction.

The interest rate on GHO will be adjustable via DAO governance. 

Voting will end today, July 14.

https://twitter.com/0xboka/status/1678557988070768641

An additional $103 million in assets have mysteriously flowed out of the Multichain bridge this week, following a potentially malicious transfer of $126 million last week.

According to blockchain security firm Beosin, this week’s figure was transferred to new addresses and brings the total value of the strange outflows to around $230 million.

Stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether have each frozen some of the affected assets, including $63 million in USDC and $2.5 million in USDT.

https://twitter.com/spreekaway/status/1678445945548152847

Web3 rollup provider Eclipse has hired Vijay Chetty as Chief Business Officer, adding significant experience to its team. Chetty was formerly Head of Business Development at decentralized exchanges Uniswap and dYdX – both billion-dollar market cap protocols.

Cheety plans to launch self-service support for one-click deployments of Eclipse rollups, with support for further blockchain virtual machines within the next six months. He plans for Ecplise to become fully open-source within one year at the company.

https://twitter.com/vijay_chetty/status/1678796209186832384

Layer-2 networks continue to trend this week, as ConsenSys takes the next steps for the launch of its zk-rollup platform, Linea. Airdrop farming appears to be in full effect at the moment, as I have my doubts about how many of the 5.2 million unique addresses active on the network are genuine individual users – especially in a bear market. If bots are attempting to farm an airdrop, it may be prudent to take some measures to boost your own chances of obtaining a reasonable allocation, perhaps with an emphasis on genuine network usage. and aiming for making larger, more meaningful transactions rather than going for high-volumes of small ones.

Eclipse may also become a notable rollup platform in the near future, following the notable recruitment of its new Chief Business Officer Vijay Chetty.

Yet another budding Layer-2 platform is Mantle Network, which has allocated a significant $200 million to develop its ecosystem over the next few years. Mantle’s treasury currently stands at a whopping $2 billion.

It appears to be a tough year for total funding in the Web3 sector, as Q1 figures reveal an 80% decline in venture investment from Q1 2022. Certain niches in particular appear to have captured most of last year’s investor interest, however, including competing Layer-1 network such as Avalanche, Cardano and Solana, as well as NFTs.

Interest Rates

DAI

Highest Yields: Nexo Lend at 10% APY, Aave at 2.1% APY

MakerDAO Updates

DAI Savings Rate: 3.49%

Base Fee: 0.00%

ETH Stability Fee: 3.49%

WBTC Stability Fee: 5.55%

USDC

Highest Yields: Nexo Lend at 10% APY, Compound at 2.7% APY

Top Stories

Grayscale makes Lido the second-heaviest component in its DeFi Fund

Web3 venture funding dropped 80% in first quarter

Mantle Network is voting to form a $200 million ecosystem fund

Three Arrows Capital Liquidator May Try to Claw Back About $1.2B From DCG, BlockFi

Stat Box

Total Value Locked: $44.48B (up 0.5% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $48.24B (up 0.4%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $11.42B (down 19%)

DAI Supply: 4.29B (down 0.5%)

Bonus Reads

[Danny Nelson – CoinDesk] – Aptos Voting to Enable Fungible Assets With Network Upgrade

[Oliver Knight – CoinDesk] – MATIC Surges 10% as Polygon's 2.0 Upgrade Draws Closer

[Oliver Knight – CoinDesk] – DeFi Protocol Holding 55% of Algorand Value to Shut Down

[Jeremy Nation – The Defiant] – Security Engineer Arrested Over $9M DEX Hack