Weekly DeFi Index

This week’s DeFi indices showed positive movements, with the market capitalisation, volume, and volatility indices growing +4.05%, +7.13% and +67.07%, respectively.

Check Price

• Aave’s founder, Stani Kulechov, indicated plans to enable a fee switch for its users in an X post after the idea was first discussed in April 2024. The proposal aims to enhance revenue management by enabling the platform’s decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) to adjust how fees are collected and distributed. Concurrently, the Aave community pushed back against the proposal to peg Ethena’s USDe to USDT.

Chart of the Week

Ethereum-based Layer-2 (L2) networks witnessed a strong start in 2025. According to analytics platform GrowThePie, the weekly active addresses on L2s exceeded 10 million last week, continuing the momentum from December 2024. This amount is five times that of Ethereum's 1.96 million weekly active addresses within the same period, indicating increased DeFi activity and stablecoin liquidity.

Base and Arbitrum took the lead with eight million combined weekly active addresses.

News Highlights

• Ethena is preparing to launch iUSDe, a new product targeting traditional financial institutions, in Q1. iUSDe is a wrapped version of its Ethena staked USDe (sUSDe) designed to be held and used by traditional financial entities. The team will also continue to expand its DeFi ecosystem while building a Telegram function that lets users send, spend, and save with crypto.

• The Frax Finance community approved the adoption of BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity (BUIDL) Fund as a reserve asset for the protocol’s new stablecoin, Frax USD (frxUSD). The adoption would enable yield generation, multiple transfer options, and minimised counterparty risk.

• Solana-based restaking platform Solayer Labs introduced the Solayer Foundation, an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to scaling the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and distributing its governance token, LAYER. Solayer’s 2025 roadmap also unveiled its hardware-accelerated SVM blockchain, Solayer InfiniSVM, which has a multi-execution cluster architecture that is supposedly infinitely scalable.

• The team behind the Shiba Inu launched TREAT, a new token designed to enhance governance, rewards, and utility of the Shiba Inu ecosystem. The initiative aims to transition the meme coin to a functional blockchain network with real-world applications via SHIB Pay, an on-chain payment system. Users can make direct payments with TREAT, bypassing traditional processors while ensuring transparency and trust through blockchain verification.

Recent Research Reports

• 2024 Year Review and 2025 Year Ahead: The crypto industry witnessed a number of impressive milestones in 2024. In this report, we curate the top crypto events and trends of the year, followed by our outlook for 2025.

• Ethereum Pectra Upgrade: The Pectra upgrade aims to address Ethereum’s mainnet performance with three key objectives: fix existing network issues, improve user experience, and prepare for future upgrades.

• Alpha Navigator: Quest for Alpha [November 2024]: Our latest issue of Alpha Navigator, an institutional-focused report, covers macro trends, market-neutral pair trades, style factor screening, and event-driven ideas.

Interested to know more? Access exclusive reports by signing up as a Private member, joining our Crypto.com Exchange VIP Programme, or collecting a Loaded Lions NFT.

Recent University Article

• Ethereum Wallets: What Are They and Is One Needed?: Understand the different types of Ethereum wallets and why traders might need one to securely and efficiently navigate the Ethereum ecosystem.

• What Is the Crypto.com Rewards Hub?: Learn the benefits, rewards, and rebates that are available in the Crypto.com Rewards Hub, which users can access through the Crypto.com App.

• Dogecoin vs Litecoin — Comparing Two Early Bitcoin Alternatives: Discover the key differences between Dogecoin and Litecoin, two early Bitcoin alternatives. Explore their origins, use cases, and tokenomics.

Author

Research and Insights Team

Disclaimer

The information in this report is provided as general market commentary by Crypto.com and its affiliates, and does not constitute any financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other advice. This report is not intended to offer or recommend any access to products and/or services. While we endeavour to publish and maintain accurate information, we do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information in this report, nor do we adopt nor endorse, nor are we responsible for, the accuracy or reliability of any information submitted by other parties.

This report is not directed or intended for distribution to, or use by, any person or entity who is a citizen or resident of, or located in a jurisdiction, where such distribution or use would be contrary to applicable law or that would subject Crypto.com and/or its affiliates to any registration or licensing requirement.

The brands and the logos appearing in this report are registered trademarks of their respective owners.

We’re all ears.

Your feedback has always helped us provide insightful crypto market trends. Tell us how we can improve this newsletter further by taking a quick survey below (it will only take less than a minute). Thank you!

Take our survey now

Thank you for reading! We hope you find our Weekly DeFi and Layer 1 & Layer 2 News Update enlightening!

Hungry for more? Visit our Research Hub and University to access other insightful crypto research!

Share with a friend if you like our email!

Share

Thanks for reading Crypto Trends from Crypto.com: Market, DeFi, NFT, Gaming! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.