1. Polkadot Treasury Network Revenue in the First Half of the Year Was Only $250,000, but Expenditure Exceeded $80 Million link
The Polkadot Forum released its financial report for the first half of 2024. The treasury spent $87 million (11 million DOTs) in the first half of the year, of which 13% was spent through executive agencies (bounties and collectives). The total assets managed by the treasury are $245 million (38 million DOTs), of which $188 million (29 million DOTs) are liquid assets. $8 million is USDT and USDC stablecoins, and another 2.5 million DOTs (16 million USD) are used to continuously purchase stablecoins. $24.5 million (3.8 million DOTs) are used for strategic initiatives such as marketing, DeFi tools, games, and business development, and $6.4 million (1 million DOTs) are used for airdrops in the gaming sector. In addition, Polkadot provided 1.6 million DOTs (about $10 million) as liquidity to inject into the DeFi market. At the current burn rate of $87 million every 6 months, Polkadot has about 2 years of funding left.
The Polkadot treasury had network revenue of only $250,000 in the first half of the year, but its expenditures exceeded $80 million, which was widely criticized by the community.
Polkadot is currently at a level where its income is not enough to cover its expenses. In the first half of 2024, the revenue was 2,887,002 DOT, while the cost of expenditure was 11,327,316 DOT, with a net loss of 8,440,314 DOT in half a year. The cash and cash equivalents of Polkadot Treasury are 29,336,487 DOT. At the current monthly loss rate of 1,406,719 DOT, the liquidity cash of Polkadot Treasury will be exhausted within 20.85 months. What is more serious is that from the perspective of U standard, the proportion of stablecoins in the liquidity cash of Polkadot Treasury is less than 5%, which is 8,096,505 USDT+USDC (1,265,080 DOT), which cannot even last for a month at this loss level. Although Polkadot Treasury still has a certain amount of funds on its books, its actual liquidity and payment capabilities face serious challenges in the short term, especially when the market fluctuates. Wu Shuo team members wrote an article to interpret the Polkadot Treasury's first half financial report in detail. Detailed information can be found on Wu Shuo's official website.
In response to the "Polkadot treasury spending $87 million in half a year", Manta Network co-founder Victor Ji tweeted to severely criticize the Polkadot ecosystem and its team. He said that as the founder of the project with the largest TVL and market value in the former Polkadot ecosystem, he no longer wants to have any contact with the Polkadot ecosystem and team. The Polkadot ecosystem is highly toxic, has no real value to Web3, and does not focus on users or adoption. The Polkadot team gives much more funding to European/American projects than Asian projects, and as an Asian founder, they face discrimination in the ecosystem. In addition, the Polkadot team lacks capabilities and has not truly achieved decentralization, has failed to effectively support developers, and the entire ecosystem is basically stagnant. They have shifted their focus to the Manta Pacific project and hope that more developers will choose a more active ecosystem.
2. Blast released Phase 2 reward distribution instructions, focusing on the mobile Dapps link of Blast App
Blast released the Phase2 reward distribution instructions. 10 billion BLAST is allocated for Phase2 rewards, of which 50% (5 billion BLAST) is allocated to Blast Points. Users can earn Blast Points based on ETH, WETH, USDB and BLAST balances; 50% (5 billion BLAST) is allocated to Blast Gold. There will be a Gold distribution in the first week of each month (this month will be distributed on July 8), with separate distributions for new and existing Dapps. There will be more Big Bang competitions to incubate new Dapps. The focus of Phase2 is mobile Dapps in the Blast App.
3. The second phase of etherfi airdrop will be launched soon, and 150 ETHFI will be airdropped to all small investors.
Ethereum re-staking protocol ether.fi updated the second phase of airdrop information. The second phase of airdrop was delayed to July 7, and up to 150 ETHFI will be airdropped to all small investors. The team has worked with Chaos Labs to detect witch activities and other suspicious behaviors. To claim the airdrop, you need to prove that the wallet is not part of the witch cluster. If you provide a false proof, you will lose the airdrop qualification and all wallet airdrops belonging to the witch cluster. Users identified as witches can still claim basic linear airdrops, but cannot claim additional rewards.
4. Pendle’s TVL dropped 40% in the past week link
Pendle's total locked value (TVL) has fallen 40% in the past week. Since Wednesday, users have withdrawn nearly $3 billion, mainly in liquid heavy-stake tokens. Ian Unsworth, founder of Kairos Research, said this was partly due to the expiration of some products, which happened to be concentrated in the top five liquid heavy-stake tokens at the same time. The large-scale withdrawals reflect the user's waning interest in heavy-stake airdrops. In addition, Renzo's points program is about to end at the end of July, which will further make users re-evaluate whether to lock tokens.
5. friend tech has closed all protocol fees for BunnySwap, Clubs and v1 smart contracts link
friend tech tweeted that FRIEND has always been intended to be a fully community-controlled token to support the Clubs contract. Migrating supply and liquidity does not meet this original intention. Users can still create clubs, chat, buy keys, and use FRIEND in the Base of the friend tech app. In addition, friend tech has closed all protocol fees for BunnySwap, Clubs, and v1 smart contracts. Now, 100% of the fees will belong to traders, liquidity providers, and club chairmen in the community.
6. Paradigm-backed restaking protocol Symbiotic TVL exceeds $1 billion link
After raising the hard cap, the TVL of Symbiotic, a restaking protocol supported by Paradigm, has exceeded $1 billion, surpassing another competitor, Karak; there are more than 26,800 depositors, of which the top 10 depositors account for about 68% of the pledged amount, mainly for LRT protocol contracts. Currently, the restake pools of wstETH, sUSDe, mETH, swETH and sfrxETH in Symbiotic have all reached the hard cap.
7. Worldcoin hires four former Google, X and Apple executives to strengthen privacy and security link
Tools for Humanity (TFH), a contributor to the Worldcoin project, announced the hiring of four executives to strengthen privacy, security, and identity management. Former X (formerly Twitter) privacy officer Damien Kieran will serve as chief privacy officer; former Google executives Adrian Ludwig and Ajay Patel will serve as chief information security officer and head of World ID respectively; former Apple executive Rich Heley will serve as chief device officer, responsible for Worldcoin's iris scanning device.
8. dYdX Ecosystem Report for the First Half of the Year: Trading Volume Reaches $166 Billion link
The dYdX Foundation released its 2024 semi-annual ecosystem report. Key data include: transaction volume reached US$166 billion; US$32 million was paid to stakers and validators; 62 governance proposals were passed; iOS and Android applications were launched; more than 40 markets have been launched, and more than 800 new markets have been unlocked.
9. Chainlink partners with Fidelity and crypto bank Sygnum on project focused on bringing net asset value data to blockchain link
Chainlink has announced a partnership with Fidelity International and crypto bank Sygnum on a project focused on bringing net asset value data on-chain. The partnership aims to provide transparency and accessibility to NAV data for tokenized assets, specifically Sygnum’s recently released on-chain representation of $50 million of Matter Labs treasury reserves held in Fidelity’s $6.9 billion Institutional Liquidity Fund. Chainlink said the technology facilitates secure storage and automatic synchronization of NAV data for these tokens on the ZKsync blockchain. In May of this year, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and Chainlink completed a pilot project called Smart NAV, exploring ways to standardize the distribution of NAV data across multiple blockchains.
10. Telegram CEO: Hamster Kombat plans to issue tokens on the TON blockchain link
Telegram CEO Patel Du Rove posted on his personal channel that Hamster Kombat has become the latest Internet phenomenon, with 239 million registered users in 3 months. The Telegram mini-app reached 100 million monthly active users in 73 days, with 4-5 million new users per day, making it the fastest growing digital service in the world. In addition, Hamster Kombat plans to issue its tokens on the TON blockchain.
