Weekly DeFi Index

This week’s market cap index was positive at +10.24%, while volume and volatility indices were negative at -27.82% and -18.32%, respectively.

TVL of Top Chains

Top DEX by Chain

News Highlights

• Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade has gone live on the Sepolia testnet and is set to go live on the final testnet, Holesky, on 7 February. The activation date of Dencun on the main blockchain will be confirmed following the final testnet deployment.

• Immutable zkEVM, a Polygon-powered Layer-2 blockchain optimised for Web3 gaming, has launched its early access phase on the mainnet. Immutable zkEVM comprises an EVM-equivalent blockchain client secured by Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proofs and it provides blockchain gaming developers with building tools.

• Starknet is collaborating with Celestia to implement Layer-3 chains within the Starknet ecosystem. It aims to utilise Celestia’s Blobstream technology to enhance data availability and scalability and has set a goal to enable off-chain scaling solutions on Starknet.

• LayerZero Labs announced the launch of LayerZero V2, which introduces new key features such as Universal Messaging, Unified Semantics, and modular security.

• dYdX has introduced liquid staking, allowing stakers to convert their DYDX tokens into liquid staking tokens which can be used in other DeFi applications. The new feature was launched in collaboration with liquid staking provider Stride. Other providers such as Persistence and Quicksilver are expected to launch it in the coming weeks.

• Derivatives liquidity protocol Synthetix deployed V3 of its perpetual contracts protocol on the Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain Base. It aims to simplify the creation and trading of new derivatives products for developers and traders on Synthetix-powered exchanges like Kwenta, Polynomial, and dHEDGE. 

• The Stellar Development Foundation decided to delay the upgrade of its blockchain to add Ethereum-style smart contracts after discovering a bug in the Stellar Core v20.1.0 software. The foundation plans to ‘disarm’ its own validators to prevent them from voting to upgrade the network. Additionally, a fix for the bug should be available within the next two weeks. 

• DeFi platform Abracadabra confirmed that it has been hit by a security attack, resulting in a loss of approximately $6.4 million. According to blockchain security firm Blocksec, the attack involved a malicious actor draining funds from the project’s smart contracts by taking advantage of a rounding issue, which resulted in what is known as a ‘precision loss’. The incident also caused the MIM stablecoin to depeg briefly to $0.7, and has since recovered to the $0.97 range.

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