Dear DeFi enthusiasts,

The Ethereum EIP 1559 is just around the corner on August 4th, and there is a flurry of development and fundraising news in the DeFi space! Despite the Grayscale unlocking this week still casting a shadow of selling pressure on GBTC, it is quite difficult not to be optimistic about Ethereum and DeFi at this stage!

Headlines this week include: Sushiswap aims to form a VC Phantom Troupe, sparking intense discussions in the community; Bit goes DeFi! Twitter founder launches a development platform to make it easier for developers to deploy DeFi projects; ShapeShift announces a move towards decentralization and dissolution of corporate structure, with an airdrop of 34% of the token's total supply; Uniswap releases six updates; THORChain suffers a 4000 ETH attack; SushiSwap has enabled limit order functionality on the Polygon version, and more.

This week's selected insights include: Aave founder Stani Kulechov is actually building Ethereum's Twitter? Why did Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer declare he won't come back to the crypto space? And Yearn founder Andre Cronje tells us the fundamental reasons behind the protocols being hacked.

✨ This Week's Headlines

Sushiswap Plans to Form VC Phantom Troupe, Sparks Intense Community Discussion

Last week, the strategic fundraising proposal presented by 0xMaki on the forum attracted widespread discussion in the DeFi community, including many opposing voices. The proposal aimed to have some investment institutions purchase $60M worth of SUSHI tokens with the potential resources to accelerate Sushiswap's growth. Main points of opposition focused on: the offered coin price discount of 20%-30% being too high, the limited substantial help provided by the institutions, and a mismatch with the project's core principles.

Kyber DMM Liquidity Mining Now Live: Earn KNC, MATIC Rewards with Rainmaker

The new product Kyber DMM's first liquidity mining program, Rainmaker, has officially launched! This also marks Kyber DMM's first deployment on the Polygon network. Through the Rainmaker liquidity mining program, Kyber DMM will further enhance liquidity, showcase various significant advantages to liquidity providers, and bring more DeFi participants and value to the Kyber and Polygon ecosystems.

Bitcoin Enters DeFi! Twitter Founder Launches Platform to Facilitate Easy Deployment of DeFi Projects

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey announced that his payment startup Square will develop a user-friendly, permissionless DeFi development platform, with the blockchain technology used being Bitcoin, which Dorsey has long been advocating. Additionally, back in early June, Jack Dorsey emphasized on Twitter that Twitter or BlueSky will eventually integrate with the Lightning Network, it's just a matter of time.

ShapeShift Announces Transition to Decentralization and Dissolution of Corporate Structure, Airdrops 34% of Token Supply

Cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift announced its move towards decentralization and dissolution of the company, and has airdropped 34% of the total supply of the FOX token to over 1 million ShapeShift community members and around 120,000 users holding tokens such as Gitcoin, Uniswap, SushiSwap worth over $1500. ShapeShift also stated that it will be fully open-source going forward, with all ownership and governance transitioning to the FOX community.

Uniswap Releases Six Updates: v3 Custom Price Range UI Significantly Improved, More User-Friendly Governance Proposals

Since Uniswap v3 launched on May 5th, the locked assets have reached a value of $16 billion, with daily trading volumes ranging from $800 million to $2 billion; Uniswap v2 locked assets were at $3.86 billion with daily trading volumes between $1 to $3 billion in May, dropping to $500 million to $700 million from June to July. After over two months, Uniswap released a blog post detailing six new features and improvements, including recommended fee tier selection and a liquidity provider range reference table.

THORChain Attacked, Loses 4000 ETH, Promises Full Compensation to Affected Users in Coming Weeks

Decentralized cross-chain trading protocol THORChain RUNE has updated on the recent attack, stating the loss of approximately 4000 ETH in assets. Users affected by the loss will be fully compensated in the coming weeks. THORChain conducted an initial assessment of the attack, indicating that the exploit was due to a logic flaw in the Eth Bifrost route contract used to capture ERC-20 tokens, which the attacker took advantage of.

SushiSwap Enables Limit Order Functionality on Polygon Version

Decentralized exchange SushiSwap has launched the limit order functionality on the Polygon version, with plans to roll out this feature on the Ethereum mainnet. Additionally, the source hinted at positive news for Sushi on 7/20.

😎 Industry Insights

Aave Founder Stani Kulechov: Since Jack wants to do Aave on Bitcoin, let's do Twitter on Ethereum

Dogecoin Co-creator Jackson Palmer: Crypto has become a "rich man's game," I'm not coming back

Yearn Founder Andre Cronje: Innovation leads to vulnerabilities, and there's really no incentive for some protocols to take such risks

📈 On-chain Data

ETH: Exchange Inflows Remain Unchanged Amid Bitcoin Surge

On 7/16, Bitcoin exchange inflows surged suddenly, while Ethereum's inflows remained steady, with the amount stored on exchanges staying at a low point.

BTC: Inflation Rate Reaches Historic Low

The Bitcoin inflation rate has nearly reached a historic low, possibly due to China's crackdown on Bitcoin mining and a slowdown in on-chain transactions. In terms of scarcity, the current price trend of the coin is significantly undervalued. Furthermore, looking at on-chain transaction volumes, Bitcoin has a significant amount of volume in the price range of $31K~$34.3K. This typically indicates strong price pressure and support levels in this range.

Institutions: DOT Most Favored Project by Institutional Investors

Messari released a comparison of the number of crypto projects favored by venture capital and fund investments, with Polkadot leading with investments from as many as 19 different VCs. Following closely are projects like Terra, high-speed chain Near, and others.

🐥 Nasduck Index: 3

Project Development 4, Institutional Attitude 3, Regulatory Attitude 3, On-chain Data 2

The Nasduck Index is a long/short indicator we compile weekly based on the cryptocurrency news and data, aiming to provide a simple prediction for the upcoming trends in the cryptocurrency & DeFi markets. A score of 1 indicates a downturn, with a bear market brewing; while a score of 5 is very positive, signaling a bull market on the horizon. The Nasduck Index is an average of project development, financial institution attitudes, regulatory agencies, and on-chain data analysis gathered weekly. (Note: Positive news tends to dominate, so the Nasduck Index is more suitable for comparison between past and future, rather than considering a score above 3 as bullish for the future)

🐶 Weekly Memes

Another reason why we #DeFi pic.twitter.com/XFB3mkYXXq

— ETH Memes (@EthereumMemes) July 3, 2021