Weekly DeFi Index

This week's market capitalisation, volume, and volatility indices were negative at -11.04%, -7.17%, and -21.79% respectively.

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Chart of the Week

Three decentralised AI platforms — Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol — have agreed to merge their tokens to create the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) token, with a total supply of around 2.63 billion tokens and a starting price of US$2.82. Fetch.ai’s native token FET will be rebranded as ASI. The native tokens of SingularityNET and Ocean Protocol will be migrated to ASI, both with a conversion rate of 0.43:1. The merger aims to establish an AI collective that provides a decentralised alternative to existing projects controlled by major tech companies, fostering transparency and collaboration in the AI space.

Fetch.ai, SingularityNET, and Ocean Protocol are three of the leading decentralised AI platforms today. Collectively, they make up about 27% of the top 10 AI tokens’ market share (15%, 8%, and 4%, respectively) and are valued at approximately $5.17 billion.

• In March, MakerDAO voted unanimously to double the Decentralised Debt Markets Module (D3M) maximum debt ceiling from 1.5 billion DAI to 2.5 billion. Driving the change is the accelerating borrowing demand at SparkLend in March, which left the available DAI falling to 250 million.

• Additionally, it is also mulling the allocation of 600 million DAI to the USDe and staked USDe (sUSDe) protocols through DeFi lending platform Morpho Labs. This comes off SparkLend’s $100 million deployment in new DAI liquidity with Morpho Blue, as well as Ethena Labs’s launch of its native ENA token.

News Highlights

• Following the Dencun upgrade, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared the next steps for Ethereum's Purge, focusing on simplifying the protocol and reducing node resource load. The Purge involves removing old network history, lowering hard disk requirements for node operators, and introducing history expiration via EIP-4444.

• The Ethereum core development team is planning to raise the maximum validator stake in the Pectra upgrade, increasing it from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH via EIP-7251. It aims to allow individual network validators to maintain an effective balance of up to 2,048 ETH, reducing the operational burden for stakeholders and potentially improving network efficiency.

• Web3 infrastructure provider Ankr introduced Neura, a blockchain for AI startups to deploy, train, and operate AI models. Neura is EVM-compatible, built using Cosmos SDK, and will use the ANKR token as its primary currency. Developers can submit a form to join Neura’s beta test.

• China has launched a new public blockchain infrastructure platform in collaboration with Conflux Network. This initiative aims to support cross-border applications along the Belt and Road Initiative and signifies the country's interest in blockchain technology.

• HSBC has launched the HSBC Gold Token, a blockchain-based real-world asset for retail investors in Hong Kong. This marks a significant move in asset tokenisation within the financial services industry.

• Casey Rodarmor released "ord 0.17.0," marking the completion of the Runes protocol. The Runes protocol introduces a new category of fungible tokens on the network designed to address the shortcomings of existing token schemes on Bitcoin.

• Ethena Labs launched its ENA token, airdropping 750 million ENA to early adopters and reaching $1 billion in market cap post-airdrop. It is now the fifth-largest stablecoin issuer, and the airdrop event kicked off the second phase of its incentive programme, ‘The Sats Campaign’.

• Degen Chain, a Layer-3 blockchain built on top of Base, has gained significant attention and transactional volume ever since it launched. On 2 April, it managed to amass nearly $100 million in trading volume in 24 hours. This attracted a flurry of meme coin activity to the network. Furthermore, its native DEGEN token recorded a 500% gain since its release.

• The Arbitrum community is considering a $3.3 million meme coin fund to promote a meme coin-friendly ecosystem within the Ethereum Layer-2 network, aiming to attract new users and increase DeFi activity.

• Following Polygon zkEVM’s hours-long outage on 24 March, its developers released a detailed post-mortem explaining the root causes of the outage and the steps taken to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

• Decentralised liquid staking protocol Prisma Finance was exploited for approximately $10 million in cryptocurrencies on 28 March. The exploit was executed by spoofing migration data, specifically through two MigrateTroveZap contracts that were designed to migrate user positions from one trove manager to another. Prisma Finance paused the protocol for investigation following the exploit.

Recent Research Reports

• Landscape of Staking Providers: An overview of the current landscape of staking service providers, the bedrock of staking in Proof of Stake chains.

• Research Roundup Newsletter [February 2024]: We present to you our latest issue of Research Roundup, featuring trending market insights in February, charts of the month, and our deep dive into the DePIN market.

• DePIN: Crypto’s Rising Narrative: DePIN is currently one of crypto’s hottest narratives. We introduce what DePIN is, how it works, and the current market landscape.

Recent University Articles

• What Is SUI? All About the Sui Network and Token: Discover how Sui Network pioneers fusion of Web3 innovation and Web2 accessibility, with fast transaction processing speed and scalability.

• What Is Volatility in Crypto?: What does volatility mean in crypto and what is the volatility index? Here are some of the top strategies to trade crypto while taking volatility into account.

• What Is Myro Token and How to Buy MYRO: Myro is the latest dog-themed meme coin that pays homage to a Solana founder’s dog. Here’s everything you need to know.

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Research and Insights Team

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