Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.
The past week in DeFi was dominated by developments in some of the OG DeFi protocols, with Uniswap Foundation announcing plans to raise $62 million in new funding and decentralized oracle service provider Chainlink brushing aside concerns about changes it made to multisignature wallets.
Mixin Network, which was hacked for nearly $200 million in crypto assets on Sept. 23, has now offered a $20 million bug bounty to exploiters for the return of the remaining funds, claiming a majority chunk of the stolen funds are user assets.
Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov cut back his debts to $42 million and settled his entire Aave loan on Sept. 28. And crypto exchange Upbit managed to stem a flood of fake Aptos tokens from the platform and resumed deposits and withdrawals for the token.
Chainlink downplays worries after users notice quiet change to multisig
Decentralized oracle network Chainlink has downplayed a recent change in the number of signers required on its multisig wallet — a move that garnered backlash on social media from vocal critics.
Crypto researcher Chris Blec was among several users on X (formerly Twitter) who called out Chainlink for quietly reducing the number of signatures required on its multisignature wallet from 4-of-9 to 4-of-8.
Uniswap Foundation targets $62 million in additional funding
Decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap is seeking an on-chain vote to approve the second tranche of the $74 million funding for its developer, Uniswap Foundation.
According to the Sept. 27 announcement, the second tranche of funding, with a buffer of 10% for price volatility, is worth an estimated $62 million and will be decided via an on-chain vote on Oct. 4. If approved, the funds will be used for operations and research grants. The Uniswap Foundation is responsible for growing core protocol metrics, building a pipeline for innovation and aligning incentives for stakeholders of the popular DEX.
Curve Finance founder cuts debt to $42.7 million, settles entire Aave loan
Michael Egorov, the founder of DeFi protocol Curve, recently settled his loans on the lending platform Aave, reducing his debt to $42.7 million across other protocols.
According to the on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, the Curve founder deposited 68 million CRV tokens, worth $35.5 million, to lending protocol Silo and borrowed 10.77 million in crvUSD stablecoin in the last two days. Following this, Egorov swapped the crvUSD into Tether (USDT) and paid all his debt on Aave.
Mixin Network offers $20 million bug bounty to hackers in $200 million hack
Mixin Network, a decentralized cross-chain protocol, in a message to the hacker behind the $200 million exploit on Sept. 23, has offered a $20 million bug bounty for the return of the remaining funds.
Mixin Network encrypted the message with the exploiter transaction, requesting the exploiter to return the funds as the majority of the stolen funds were user assets.
Crypto exchange Upbit stems fake APT token flood, resumes services
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit has resumed Aptos APT (APT) deposits and withdrawals after fixing an issue that saw a scam APT token incorrectly recognized as legitimate.
On Sept. 24, Upbit abruptly halted Aptos token services after noting an “abnormal deposit attempt,” prompting an inspection of the wallet system. The problem appears to have originated from a newly created fake APT token called “ClaimAPTGift.com,” which had made its way to 400,000 Aptos wallets after its creation on Sept. 21.
DeFi market overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most tokens trading in the green on weekly charts. The total value locked into DeFi protocols reached $45.7 billion.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.