Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivative trading platform, continues to gain traction. The platform’s total value locked (TVL) figure has reached a new record high of $674 million on Wednesday, according to data from DefiLlama. The perpetual exchange platform’s liquidity has been increasing at a relatively stable pace since the end of November 2023. The recent TVL collapse in the broader decentralized finance (DeFi) sector caused only a small correction in Hyperliquid’s liquidity.

Hyperliquid is a perpetual exchange that uses a decentralized on-chain order book that matches buyers and sellers. It enables traders to open long and short positions on over 130 crypto assets. High-risk traders can also augment their potential gains with up to 50x leverage.

The platform stands out with its native layer 1 chain built specifically for trading operations. The blockchain uses a Tendermint consensus algorithm called HyperBFT. It also provides a bridge to move assets from other chains.

The TVL in the perpetual exchange platform alone is at a record $480 million, up $100 million over the past month.

The remaining liquidity represents the on-chain order book for its spot trading operations. Spot TVL has declined from a record $217 million in mid-July to about $188 million.

Hyperliquid claims to have been used by 188,000 wallets. Its daily trading volume on August 6 was $1.4 billion, with Bitcoin and Ethereum accounting for two-thirds of this volume.

On-chain data shows that the platform saw record trading volume on August 5 at over $4.3 billion.

The surge in volume came amid a massive decline in the price of most crypto assets, while the DeFi TVL tumbled over 25% in a matter of days. The increase in activity helped Hyperliquid surpass dYdX in terms of weekly trading volume.

At the end of July, the number of daily unique traders on the platform set a record high of over 60,000, driven by users trading altcoins other than Ethereum.

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Quick take:

The company plans to use the funds to accelerate the development of its Solana-based DePIN for decentralised internet services.

Andrena is building a DAWN (decentralised autonomous wireless network) that allows users to sell excess internet to a network of providers.

DAWN leverages a “proof of backhaul” mechanism, a verification technology that Andrena developed in partnership with Princeton University professor, Pramod Viswanath to facilitate node connection to the broader internet.

Andrena, a Solana-based DePIN project has raised $18 million in an extended Series A round led by Dragonfly and with participation from CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, Wintermute Ventures, 6th Man Ventures and ParaFi.

The fundraising brings the total raised to $38 million, following a $15 million Series A round announced last year, in which Dragonfly was also the lead investor, The Block reported.

According to Andrena co-founder Neil Chatterjee, the latest funding was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants. Chatterjee said the round was “significantly oversubscribed” having initially planned for a $5 million extension as it prepares Andrena well for its token generation event (TGE).

Andrena is building a DAWN (decentralised autonomous wireless network) that allows users to sell excess internet to a network of providers. The project is currently in testnet, with no defined timeframe for a mainnet launch.

The protocol uses a “proof of backhaul” mechanism, an on-chain verification technology that Andrena developed in partnership with Princeton University professor, Pramod Viswanath to facilitate node connection to the broader internet.

“DAWN has been in the works since the fall of last year,” Chatterjee said. “DAWN aims to do to the internet what solar panels did to electricity. The same way consumers own and generate their own utility and sell their excess back to the grid, there is now an opportunity to do the same with wireless home and business Internet.”

Andrena’s internet services are already available across 10 U.S. states including New York, New Jersey, Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Pennsylvania. And like solar panels, its wireless equipment is installed on rooftops of customers’ houses. It now plans to migrate its customers and revenue on-chain once the token is launched.

Users will be able to purchase the native token of DAWN using a mobile app. They can then use the token to buy internet bandwidth from the network.

According to Chatterjee, users will be able to earn rewards for staying connected, referring others and participating as validators.

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Quick take:

The company plans to use the fresh capital to build the product suit and improve user experience including integrating social elements and AI-enabled tooling.

The Blockscout offers an open-source block explorer service providing access to blockchain data from more than 600 networks.

Chains can either use Blockscout’s open-source software to host their own server or pay them to host an explorer on their behalf.

Blockscout has announced a $3 million seed round led by 1kx. The fundraising also attracted participation from Primitive Ventures and Gnosis with Evan Van Ness, Alex Svanevik, Kartik Talwar, Anton Bukov, and Stefan George joining as angel investors.

The company plans to use the fresh capital to advance its platform features including integrating social elements and AI-enabled tooling directly into the dashboard. 

Blockscout offers a blockchain data exploration platform that allows users to search on-chain transactions, wallets, NFTs, ENS, addresses and dApps from more than 600 supported networks.

Chains can either use Blockscout’s open-source software to host their own server or pay them to host an explorer on their behalf.

“Blockscout will be the default setting for all new and existing EVM chains,” Igor Barinov, Founder and CEO of Blockscout said in a press material shared with NFTgators. “We are on the way to becoming the main platform for verifying all information on blockchains and exploring dApps in a safe way. As one of the few open-source players, we offer unmatched transparency and accessibility that serves everyone in the crypto space, from developers to everyday users.”

Some of the fresh funding will also go toward making the deployment of Blockscout’s Explorer-as-a-Service easier, including supporting new projects looking for EAAS customisation and deepening involvement with existing chains.

Commenting on his company’s leading role in the fundraising, Nichanan Kesonpat, Research Analyst at 1kx highlighted the important role that Block explorers play in the Web3 ecosystem, “giving developers, analysts, and end users alike the visibility they need into general on-chain activity and transactions of interest.”

“Blockscout’s open-source EVM explorer and tools enable nascent projects to host their own explorer, providing an alternative to expensive EaaS offerings and offsetting the costs of building an explorer from scratch. This is critical tooling in a modular, multichain world where new networks and app-chains can give their users insights into network activity right away.”

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Quick take:

The company plans to use the new capital to expand its team.

The company is also building a first-party Duper game show akin to high-stakes live poker.

The seed round brings the total raised to $8.6 million following a $2.9 million round announced in February 2023.

Web3 gaming Studio, Curio has secured a $5.7 million funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto and SevenX Ventures co-led the round with participation from OKX Ventures. The seed round brings the total raised to $8.6 million following a $2.9 million round announced in February 2023.

Curio is developing an on-chain gaming infrastructure to power the next generation of blockchain games. But that is not what it has always been. In 2022, then operating as an NFT platform, Curio teamed with Universal Music Group to develop NFTs for the record label and its artists.

The company plans to use the fresh capital to accelerate the development of its high-stakes live poker-like Duper game show and expand its core team. The game show is based on Curio’s flagship wagering strategy game Duper, which recently launched season one. 

Commenting on the announcement, Curio co-founder Kevin Zhang said in a statement: “While most crypto games attempt to imitate existing video games, we looked in another direction at classic board games and card games that are simple, infinitely re-playable, and integrate stakes with the game meaningfully, as part of the core game design. Because of this unique form factor, Duper is highly accessible.”

Bain Capital Crypto partner Stephan Cohen added: “We’ve worked with the Curio team since inception and continue to be impressed with their vision for how next-generation games can leverage blockchain components. By focusing on emergent social dynamics and skill-based wagering, Curio combines the best elements of classic games like Poker and Mahjong with the immersive nature of video games.”

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Quick take:

On-chain researcher @pcaversaccio revealed the incident in an X post saying nearly 4k ETH had been drained by an MEV bot.

The exploit also included $2 million in USDC bringing the total withdrawn to nearly $12 million, Ronin said.

Ronin paused bridge activity earlier on Tuesday morning after confirming the incident.

The Ronin Bridge paused activity on Tuesday morning following an alleged $12 million whitehat hack. On-chain researcher @pcaversaccio revealed the incident in an X post saying nearly 4k ETH worth about $9 million had been drained by an MEV bot, but the bridge activity had since been paused. 

MEV bot whitehatted (hopefully) a Ronin Bridge issue for almost ~4k ETH. Bridge got paused already.https://t.co/yfOhS3lPa0 pic.twitter.com/n0M6Hv2A5y

— sudo rm -rf –no-preserve-root / (@pcaversaccio) August 6, 2024

Ronin later confirmed in an X post that 4k ETH worth about $9.8 million and an additional $2 million in USDC had been drained. In an X post, Ronin co-founder @Psycheout86 commented on the incident: “The bridge currently secures over $850M which is safe.”

Ronin Network’s official account followed later with a statement about the incident stating: “Earlier today, we were notified by white-hats about a potential exploit on the Ronin bridge. After verifying the reports, the bridge was paused approximately 40 minutes after the first on-chain action was spotted.”

“Today’s bridge upgrade, after being deployed through the governance process, introduced an issue leading the bridge to misinterpret the required bridge operators vote threshold to withdraw funds.”

Whitehat hackers attack systems to identify potential vulnerabilities. In this case, the attacker was able to withdraw nearly $12 million, which is the maximum possible per transaction. As of this writing, Ronin Network was in talks with the hackers to organise the return of the funds.

This event takes place barely a week after Ronin Network’s daily active users hit a new record high of 2.1 million on July 29, as players flocked in to play Lumierre and Pixels games. Pixels joined Ronin Network earlier this year while Lumierre announced the start of its closed beta test (CBT) at the beginning of August.

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Buzz Farming, a decentralized finance (DeFi) yield farming protocol, has surged over $50 million in just a few days. The dapp, which launched in mid-July, saw its total value locked (TVL) figure surge from less than $2 million at the end of July to a record $58 million as of this writing.

Buzz is the fastest-growing DeFi protocol in August, surging by over 3,000% during the past week.

The protocol enables users to deposit Bitcoin and implement passive income strategies. It collaborates with projects like Babylon, Unirouter, Lombard, and Bedrock to allow users to select yield farming strategies.

Buzz Farming is the native yield farming hub for BSquared, a layer 2 network for Bitcoin that offers smart contracts and DeFi solutions on the oldest and one of the most rigid blockchains. Buzz is the largest dapp on BSquared, helping it to boost its TVL to a record $119.1 million in August, according to data from DefiLlama.

Buzz has contributed to an increase in TVL as the broader DeFi ecosystem is struggling with massive losses, declining by 20% since the end of July. In fact, the layer 2 network is the only chain among the top 50 that has registered a TVL increase over the last week.

So far, last Monday was the best day for Buzz, with BTC inflows exceeding $26 million.

The protocol attracts users by offering Bitcoin yield opportunities from multiple sources. Users don’t have to lock the funds for long-term periods, being able to withdraw any time they want.

Buzz claims to have over 480,000 users, which is an impressive achievement for a new project.

Another thriving DeFi project on BSquared is Pell Network, an EigenLayer-like restaking protocol but for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Pell’s TVL crossed the $200 million mark at the end of July before correcting to the current level of $174 million.

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EVAA, a lending protocol on the TON network, saw its total value locked (TVL) figure reach a new record high of $31.1 million on August 5. The protocol, which launched in March of this year, has gradually expanded its liquidity and become the sixth-largest DeFi project on TON.

EVAA Remains the Major Winner on TON

EVAA and Cygnus are the only two projects on TON to experience a TVL increase on August 5, gaining 2% and 0.1%, respectively. The rest of the projects have registered significant losses.

TON has been greatly affected by the general bearish trend, with Bitcoin declining 27% over the last week. The TVL on TON has tumbled over the week by 35% to $486 million, recording the largest weekly loss among the top 15 chains as tracked by DefiLlama. Despite the massive loss, TON’s TVL is at its lowest level in only about six weeks. At the end of April, we reported that TON had touched a new record at $170 million. The blockchain’s DeFi presence has nearly tripled since then.

EVAA is positioning itself as the first lending protocol on TON, enabling users to borrow and lend crypto assets like USDT and TON.

USDT currently accounts for over 75% of the TVL, and TON holds a 24% share. However, USDT has actually lost market share to the blockchain’s native coin. On August 5, EVAA experienced record USDT outflows totaling $4.6 million. Meanwhile, this has been the second-largest day for TON inflows, which surpassed $5 million.

Despite recent outflows, USDT remains the most popular token on EVAA, also thanks to its generous APY of 7.67%.

EVAA claims to have over 9,500 users on its platform, which is compatible with Telegram.

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The decentralized finance (DeFi) RWA (real-world asset) sector is showing resilience against the general bearish sentiment in the crypto market. Projects like Ondo Finance, Hashnote USYC, and Cygnus Finance are the main drivers.

At the beginning of August, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi projects has tumbled by about 25% to break below $75 billion and hit the lowest level since last February. However, the RWA sector has lost less than 10% during the same period to stop at about $5.7 billion, according to DefiLlama.

In fact, the TVL in RWA protocols, excluding the leading Maker RWA, which some believe distorts the metric, is currently at a record high of $3.8 billion.

The RWA resilience is driven by several protocols, including Ondo Finance, the third-largest RWA project by TVL.

We reported at the end of April that Ondo’s TVL hit the $350 million mark. On July 25, the metric rose to a record $575 million, and it currently remains very close to that peak. As explained in our previous post, USDY and OUSG are the flagship products of Ondo, with the former expanding its share over the last few months to 60%.

Hashnote USYC Surges 280% in 3 Months

One of the fastest-growing RWA projects is Hashnote USYC, which rose from less than $50 million in mid-May to a record $177 million at the end of July. It is maintaining close to the recent peak, giving a boost to the RWA sector.

USYC is the tokenized version of Hashnote’s Short Duration Yield Fund (SDYF), which invests in short-term US Treasury Bills.

Cygnus Finance Jumps to Record $85.6 Million

Another major RWA project making waves is Cygnus Finance, whose TVL increased from $31 million in mid-July to $85.66 million today.

Cygnus is the first RWA protocol on Base, an Ethereum layer 2 network. It also supports Ton.

The protocol enables users to deposit USDC and USDT to mint equivalent yield-bearing tokens.

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Quick take:

Morpho’s primary product Morpho Blue allows investors to earn yield by depositing into a marketplace vault.

The platform promises Borrowers a low cost of borrowing and higher liquidation loan-to-value (LLTV) rates.

Launched in 2022, Morpho has grown to become the fifth-largest lending protocol by TVL according to DeFiLlama.

Morpho, a crypto-lending protocol developed by Paul Frambot has raised $50 million in a strategic round led by Rabbit Capital. The fundraising also attracted participation from a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Variant, Pantera, Brevan Howard, BlockTower, Kraken Ventures, Hack VC, IOSG, Rockaway, L1D, Mirana, Cherry, Semantic, Fenbushi, Leadblock Bitpanda and Robot Ventures.

Launched in 2022 while Paul was in his third year in college, in 2023 Morpho unveiled Morpho Blue, a trustless and efficient lending primitive with permissionless market creation. The product has been at the centre of its rapid growth that has seen it grow to become the fifth largest lending protocol with a TVL of $1.74 billion, according to DeFi Llama.

Morpho currently supports the Ethereum and Base blockchains, where as of this writing, it ranks fourth and second, respectively in terms of TVL.

The company’s lending marketplace allows investors to earn yield by depositing into a marketplace vault, while borrowers enjoy low costs of borrowing and higher liquidation loan-to-value (LLTV) rates.

Describing how the platform works, Frambot said in a Mirror post published last October that Morpho Blue “enables the deployment of minimal and isolated lending markets by specifying one loan asset, one collateral asset, a liquidation LTV (LLTV), and an oracle.”

The platform has already registered over $1.6 billion in deposits whilst facilitating more than $600 million in loans.

Morpho also allows other crypto companies to design lending and borrowing use cases without fragmenting liquidity. 

“We need to bridge the gap for DeFi and make the actual integration into the fintech world, and Ribbit was an obvious partner for that,” Frambot told Coindesk. “Already there are incredible synergies in what we could achieve together for potential integrations in the real world, and not just like crypto leverage use case, which is, frankly, most of the use case of DeFi lending right now.”

The company raised $18 million in a funding round announced in 2022, while Frambot was still in college.

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Quick take:

Switchboard is also introducing a new UI to enhance security and reduce the threat of future Oracle attacks.

Price manipulation attacks increased to $500 million last year from $403.2 million in 2022 according to Chainalysis.

The Switchboard UI increases the number and type of data sources users can query, thus making it easy to create hardened data feeds.

Switchboard, the customisable Oracle network and the world’s first aggregator network has unveiled its new Oracle aggregator network with enhanced security features. According to the announcement shared with NFTgators, users will be able to aggregate data across multiple Oracle networks including Chainlink and Pyth, thus gaining access to thousands of data sources.

The company is also introducing a new UI, which increases the number and type of data sources users can query, thus making it easy to create hardened data feeds.

The launch is part of Switchboard’s mission to reduce the number of Oracle attacks, which last year resulted to losses of $500 million, up from $403.2 million, accounting for 33% of the total crypto lost to hacks.

Explaining to NFTgators how the new improvements in Switchboard UI work, co-founder and chief technology officer Mitchell Gildenberg said in a statement: “Beyond improving the reliability of data feeds, Switchboard’s new oracle aggregator further enhances the customization options available to Web3 builders. We’ve seen high demand from developers for more granular control over data feeds and the ability to tailor feeds to fit niche applications.”

According to Gildenberg, standard templates are often inefficient for applications like dynamic NFTs, which may require specific data. “With Switchboard’s aggregator, developers can reliably pull the exact data they need at the exact moment they need it, regardless of whether they are performing a common task or exploring new technology,” Gildenberg added.

With Switchboard’s new aggregator, developers can select the exact data sources they would like to pull from, enabling them to handpick the sources that they trust and eliminate those that don’t meet their standards.

“Switchboard’s plug-and-play approach empowers users to break free from siloed sources, and leverage multiple oracle networks to boost data security and reliability,” said Switchboard CEO Chris Hermida. “By allowing developers to aggregate sources from multiple Oracle networks, we allow for Oracle modularity and redundancy, setting a new industry standard around as the first generalized Oracle aggregator.”  

According to the announcement, Switchboard is utilising Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to reduce the number of additional operations required to execute the new model, thus making sure gas costs do not increase dramatically.

Data is aggregated completely off-chain and shared with users on a single on-chain transaction. “This reduces the need for gas-intensive on-chain operations while maintaining data integrity,” Switchboard wrote in a statement.

Launched in 2021, Switchboard has onboarded over 180k users since June 2023, while its TVL has surpassed $1.7 billion, according to DeFiLlama.

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Quick take:

Pichi Finance’s trustless points trading protocol offering price discovery to tokens Pre and Post-TGE (token generation events).

The ERC-6551 standard was introduced last year to bring more utility to NFTs.

The integration allows users to mint an NFT into a wallet, which they can use to earn points and trade it together with the points like a regular NFT.

Pichi Finance, a trustless points trading platform enabling users to trade experience points before and after a token generation event has secured $2.5 million in a seed round led by UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital and Mantle Network.

The fundraising also attracted participation from DWF Ventures, Wise3 Ventures and Genesis Block Ventures.

Pichi also announced the integration of the ERC-6551 token standard, which enables users to mint NFTs into wallets, that can then be used to hold experience points earned from integrating with Web3 apps on-chain. Users can then trade the wallet together with the points held as a regular NFT.

The ERC-6551 token standard was introduced on the Ethereum mainnet in May 2023 to bring more utility to non-fungible tokens. The standard adds smart contract capabilities, thus assigning an Ethereum account to the NFT.

This gives the NFT the ability to hold other assets like tokens, crypto and even other NFTs whilst also enabling it to interact with Web3 apps like blockchain games, DAOs and real-world assets.

Pichi Finance said the seed round will allow it to target new points programs whilst enabling trading on day 1. Pichi already supports EigenLayer and EtherFi on the Ethereum network and has plans to expand to other chains with the latest funding.

According to Pichi Finance, its platform allows users to “create a ‘Michi Wallet NFT’ and deposit tokens that earn points into the associated ERC-6551 wallet. Once points accumulate in the wallet, users can withdraw the points-earning tokens and sell the Michi Wallet NFT, effectively selling the accrued points.”

Wesley Tang who co-founded Pichi Finance in February 2024 said in a statement: “Our ERC-6551 account solution addresses the issue of points being tied to individual accounts, enabling users to securely trade their points with ease. We offer price discovery for tokens both pre- and post-TGE, empowering users to take control of their financial futures in a transparent and accessible way.”

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Quick take:

DePIN plans to use the funds to accelerate the development of its decentralised physical infrastructure network for energy distribution.

Founded in 2022 by Jason Badeaux, Udit Patel and Evan Caron, Daylight’s decentralised marketplace is currently available in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The protocol lets users connect their energy devices including thermostats, batteries and electric vehicles to its app and earn rewards.

Daylight, a Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Network (DePIN) focused on energy distribution has announced a $9 million Series A round led by A16z Crypto. The fundraising also attracted participation from Framework Ventures, Lattice Fund, Escape Velocity and Lerer Hippeau.

The company is building a decentralised protocol that lets users connect their energy devices including thermostats, batteries and electric vehicles to its app and earn rewards. 

Users can also join the platform’s energy marketplace, which allows them to upgrade the energy sources of their homes and buildings including solar panels, electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps, among others. The marketplace is currently available in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but there are plans to add support for Texas and California soon.

Decentralised resource distribution platforms work by pooling together resources from different providers and making them available to those connected to the protocol.

Daylight co-founder and CEO Jason Badeaux told The Block his company’s platform “pools together capacity from the flexibility of connected devices and makes that available to energy companies.”

“Additionally, the protocol’s proprietary energy data can be used to build novel applications; for example, voltage monitoring to reduce electrical fire risk for property insurance,” he said.

Users receive rewards in point form, which can be redeemed using the app. 

Commenting on their company’s leading role in the fundraising, a16z partners Guy Wuollet and Ali Yahya wrote in a blog post: “Energy is a collection of highly regulated monopolies in the U.S. today, and one we believe is ripe for disruption. Daylight is building a decentralized protocol that will allow developers to program the energy grid through distributed energy resources.”

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Quick take:

Tether’s operating profit for the second quarter of 2024 also rose to a record $1.3 billion, the company said.

The attestation report, which reaffirms the accuracy of Tether’s consolidated financial figures was conducted by the global independent accounting firm BDO.

The company’s directly and indirectly held U.S. treasuries crossed $97.6 billion, setting a new all-time high.

Tether has released its attestation report for the first half of 2024. The USDT stablecoin issuer reported a record $5.2 billion net profit for the first half of the year, with operating profit for the second quarter also rising to an unprecedented $1.3 billion, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to the report, Tether’s consolidated equity also rose to a record high of $11.9 billion as of June 30, 2024, with its directly and indirectly held US treasuries up to an all-time high of $97.6 billion.

Group equity saw an increase of $520 million, impacted by an unrealised accounting loss of $-653 million (due to lower BTC prices). This was partially offset by a positive performance from gold, which locked in an unrealised net profit of $165 million, Tether reported.

“This achievement brings Tether’s exposure to Treasuries above Germany, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. While China and other countries have been recent net sellers of U.S. Treasuries, Tether positioned itself at 18th in the rankings of countries owning U.S. debt,” the company wrote in a statement.

The attestation report was conducted by the global independent accounting firm BDO, thus reaffirming the accuracy of Tether’s Consolidated Financial Figures and Reserves Report (CFFRR), which features a detailed breakdown of the company’s assets held in token reserves.

The report also states that Tether now ranks third in purchases of 3-month U.S. Treasuries behind the United Kingdom and the Cayman Islands, and expects to rise to the top of that list within a year given the rapid adoption of the USDT stablecoin.

Tether has been busy diversifying its portfolio this year, and the activity was also reflected in the latest report.

The company said investments made into sustainable energy, Bitcoin mining, data, AI infrastructure, P2P telecommunications technology, neurotech, education, and other long-term proprietary investments are not considered part of its reserves.

Commenting on the report, Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether said in a statement: “As shown in this latest report, Tether continues to shatter records with a new profit benchmark of $5.2 billion for the first half of 2024. With Tether Group’s own equity reaching $11.9 billion, Tether has achieved an impressive and unmatched financial strength enabling it to continue leading the stablecoin industry in stability and liquidity.”

Over the last three months, Tether invested $200 million in a biotech startup Blackrock Neurotech, taking a majority stake. The company also secured a $100 million placement into Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer and could put in an additional $50 million.

Last month, the company also launched Alloy by Tether (aUSDT), ushering in a new category of assets dubbed “tethered assets”. Alloy by Tether tracks the value of the US dollar and is over-collateralised by Tether Gold (XAUT).

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NX Finance, a yield aggregator, is the fastest-growing decentralized finance (DeFi) app on Solana. The protocol has increased from $300,000 at the beginning of July to the current level of $9.03 million, gaining more than 2,900% over the month.

NX Finance is a yield aggregator using point farming strategies, positioning itself as the first Solana-based composable leverage protocol that merges PointFi and yield aggregation. For the uninitiated, PointFi protocols use points to incentivize user engagement and participation in various activities on the platform.

Users can earn points through actions like liquidity provision and referrals, which can later be redeemed for rewards or the native token.

On July 1, NX Finance launched its ‘Point Nadventure’, which enables both lenders and borrowers to accumulate points engaging with the platform.

NX Finance enables users to deposit USDC, USDT, SOL, or JLP and target generous returns. The protocol implements various leveraged strategies on the Jupiter Perpetual Exchange, such as the Fulcrum Strategy, which implements up to 5x leverage.

USDC and USDT account for the largest share of NX’s deposited value, with a TVL of $3.7 million and $1.5 million, respectively.

The USD inflows keep accelerating. On July 31 alone, the protocol has added a record $1.1 million worth of tokens. USD inflows first broke above the $150,000 mark on July 2.

Speaking about Solana itself, the blockchain’s TVL broke above $5.6 billion on July 29 to set the highest level since January 2022. Solana’s TVL has more than tripled since the start of the year.

Most of the top dapps on Solana are currently thriving, including the Jupiter Perpetual Exchange (JUP), which is used by NX Finance to implement its leveraged strategies. JUP currently has a record TVL of $613 million, more than doubling since the beginning of May.

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Quick take:

The fundraising also attracted participation from Accomplice, Anagram and Legion Capital, with more than 30 angel investors joining.

Icebreaker wants to build a network that redefines how professionals and companies discover exceptional people within their networks.

Users can easily prove credentials about themselves and provide verifiable endorsements for others.

Icebreaker has secured a $5 million seed round led by CoinFund with participation from Accomplice, Anagram, Legion Capital and more than 30 angel investors.

The web3 startup is building an open professional network powered by Farcaster. The platform leverages blockchain technology to provide a new perspective on how professionals and companies discover exceptional people within their networks.

The platform enables professionals to easily prove credentials about themselves and provide verifiable endorsements for others. They can also use the same context to search the entirety of their networks for matching talents.

“The world runs on trust,” said Icebreaker co-founder, Dan Stone. “Until now, it’s been impossible to see because our existing networks optimize for engagement over signal. Yet every leader knows the loudest or most followed person is rarely the best. Icebreaker lets you see who your close network trusts so you can cut through the noise to surface the talent and opportunities that are quiet, yet exceptional.”

Jack Dillé co-founder of Icebreaker added: “Existing platforms make it intentionally difficult to build and use our own connections, and often require us to pay just to navigate our own network. We have a core belief that data should be completely user-controlled, where people decide exactly what and how much they want to share with their connections, with no third-party intervention.”

Icebreaker has already piloted engagements of its platform in collaboration with Web3 companies including Coinbase, Opensea, and Polygon Labs, and at industry conferences like DevConnect in Istanbul and FarCon in Santa Monica, the company wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

However, Dan and Jack aren’t the only ones trying to build a Web3 version of LinkedIn. Last month, Ignacio Palomera’s Bondex announced a $10.5 million fundraising to build a blockchain-based talent marketplace to be powered by the BDNX token.

Icebreaker has already achieved key milestones after debuting its first Passport program at Station13, a Web3 co-working startup. Founder Bob Loukas managed to track verified engagement with Station3 programming, enabling him to determine whether members were physically at Manhattan headquarters or checking in digitally from around the world, according to the press release.

Commenting on his firm’s leading role in the seed round, Alex Felix, Chief Investment Officer, CoinFund said in a statement: “One of the next significant use cases for crypto is to develop foundational social graphs for applications to leverage, and we’re excited about the blueprint being created by Icebreaker for digital trust and identity on the internet. We are proud to back Dan, Jack and their team in their mission to introduce true ownership of professional identity to everyone online.”

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Kayen, a decentralized exchange (DEX) for the Chiliz network, saw its total value locked (TVL) figure surging to $10 million in only a few days. On July 11, the protocol had $40,000 in its pools. Since then, it has increased by over 25,000% to peak at $10.75 million on July 27, according to data from DefiLlama. Therefore, Kayen has been one of the fastest-growing DeFi apps in July.

The Kayen DEX is focused on sports fan tokens hosted by Chiliz, an independent blockchain that powers the sports NFT platform Socios.

Today, the three largest sports tokens by market cap are the fan tokens of football clubs Paris Saint Germain (PSG), Barcelona, and AS Roma.

The aggregate value of sports tokens peaked in April 2024, but the market has consolidated since then.

Fan tokens allow holders to vote on certain club events and proposals related to their favorite team and access unique experiences. For example, in 2020, shortly after the launch of the PSG fan token, PSG defender Marquinhos wore a captain’s armband featuring the message “Ici c’est Paris” (Here is Paris), as voted by token holders.

Through fan tokens, fans can interact with their favorite football clubs in a more direct way.

Today, they can exchange their tokens in a decentralized manner via Kayen, which doesn’t require know-your-customer verification and uses a Uniswap-like automated market maker (AMM) model for its pools. The largest pools are made of popular fan tokens, such as PSG, BAR, or ACM, traded against Chiliz’s native token, CHZ.

Thanks to Kayen’s rapid surge, Chiliz has entered the top 100 chains by TVL, currently ranking 89th on DefiLlama. It supports 5 DeFi apps in total, including two other DEXs, but Kayen accounts for 99% of the TVL.

The other DEXs, KEWL Exchange and ChilizSwap, have been losing TVL over the last month.

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Quick take:

The digital titles will be claimable by respective vehicle owners via a secure wallet created by the DMV upon verifying their credentials.

The wallet is powered by Avalanche’s escrow-like smart contracts, thus allowing consumers to track and manage their pink slip vehicle titles digitally.

The initiative is one of Governor Gavin Newsom’s vision of integrating blockchain solutions into government operations.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has made history after digitising 42 million vehicles on the blockchain. It is one of the biggest milestones towards the global digitisation of real-world assets, and one that could onboard hundreds of millions of users to Web3.

The California DMV is teaming up with layer-1 blockchain developer Avalanche and crypto infrastructure and software developer Oxhead Alpha to build a DMV-run blockchain to streamline the vehicle title transfer experience for the state of California and its 39 million residents, the three partners wrote in a post on Tuesday.

According to the announcement, vehicle owners will easily be able to claim their digital titles via the DMV’s secure mobile wallet app upon verifying their credentials. The wallet is powered by Avalanche’s escrow-like smart contracts, thus allowing consumers to track and manage their pink slip vehicle titles digitally.

“As consumers continue to demand more automation and expect the ability to transact life online, widespread adoption of secure systems is possible with blockchain infrastructure,” said  Andrew Smith, President of Oxhead Alpha. “These systems have historically been accessible by large financial institutions but have done little for regular citizens. We believe that ultimately, value transfer will be embedded within the system itself proving the technology works at scale and enables other jurisdictions to implement similar approaches.”

The initiative is part of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s vision of integrating blockchain solutions into government operations.

Commenting on the milestone achievement by the State of California, John Wu, President of Ava Labs highlighted the importance of blockchain technology for entities that want to maximise efficiency, comply with regulations and protect consumer data, stating that these are “vital components for a government serving its constituents,”. 

“Today’s landmark announcement is a clear-cut example of how blockchain technology simultaneously benefits enterprises and consumers and Ava Labs is proud to partner with the California DMV as it transforms essential services to create a more transparent, accessible and secure user experience for citizens,” Wu added.

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Quick take:

David Bailey, the CEO of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference shared the news on X saying Trump “raised $25 million in Nashville.”

Trump promised Bitcoiners that if elected, he would fire SEC chair Gary Gensler on day one.

He also wants the government to establish an official U.S. Bitcoin strategic reserve currency.

The Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville was one of the most awaited crypto events of this month. And just days after the conclusion of the event, it is already being defined as the biggest one yet. There are two more to look forward to, in Amsterdam and Abu Dhabi, before the end of the year. Whether they will be as big or bigger remains to be seen. 

What made the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville stand out was the roaster of speakers, with different spheres of the industry represented, from political to corporate.

The former President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the Republican Party nominee for the 2024 elections presented a keynote speech on July 27. And while the crypto community would have been excited by what he had to say about Bitcoin and crypto overall, Trump too would have been impressed by the backing he received from the community.

According to David Bailey, the CEO of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference, Trump raised $25 million for his campaign. That is his second-highest-ever fundraiser across all three of his presidential campaigns, Baley wrote in an X post.

During his speech, Trump promised to fire SEC chair Gary Gensler on day one. He also wants the US to take the lead in the crypto market before other countries do so. He previously name-checked China after news emerged the Asian nation was planning to unban Bitcoin.

Trump also wants the US government to establish an official U.S. Bitcoin strategic reserve currency and will not sell any Bitcoin already seized by the government. Recently, the German government sold billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin seized from hackers and fraudsters, which saw the BTC/USD price plummet to trade at the lowest level since February.

Yesterday, the US government transferred $2 billion worth of Bitcoin from the Silk Road dark web to an unknown wallet.

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Quick take:

DraftKings is facing a class action lawsuit, which alleges its NFTs are securities.

It comes amid increasing SEC security on crypto assets that infringe on US securities laws.

Players of the DraftKings fantasy sports game Rainmakers have been offered buyouts, the email said.

DraftKings is exiting the non-fungible token (NFT) business according to an email sent to customers on Tuesday. The sports gambling company said it is shutting down its NFT business effectively immediately citing legal developments.

“After careful consideration, DraftKings has decided to discontinue Reignmakers and our NFT Marketplace, effective immediately, due to recent legal developments. This decision was not made lightly, and we believe it is the right course of action,” the email said.

The announcement comes just weeks after a Federal judge allowed a class action lawsuit against DraftKings to continue on a “plausible pled” that DraftKings’ NFTs breached US securities laws.

The company joined the market during the NFT industry boom in 2021, with the view that in ten years, the NFT business “could become gigantic.”

However, although some of the OG players in the space like Yuga Labs have adapted to the changes in the industry a mid the crypto winter of the past two years, a lot of the mainstream brands have cooled down their activity.

DraftKings was one of the few mainstream players to remain active in the space via their NFT-powered fantasy sports game, Rainmakers.

But now, even that part of the business alongside the company’s NFT marketplace is shutting down with Rainmakers players offered buyouts. On the other hand, NFT collectors will be allowed to access and transfer their assets.

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Renzo, the second-largest liquid restaking protocol, has been losing traction over the last few weeks. As of this writing, the decentralized finance (DeFi) app has a total value locked (TVL) of $1.8 billion, down 55% from its record $4 billion registered on May 29.

Meanwhile, Ether.fi, the largest liquid restaking protocol, saw its TVL increase from about $6 billion at the end of May to almost $7 billion on July 24 before correcting to the current level of $6.4 billion.

Restaking platforms like Renzo and Ether.fi provide passive income opportunities for ETH holders by leveraging EigenLayer technology. EigenLayer introduced the concept of restaking, in which staked ETH is repurposed to fuel compatible decentralized services. This provides ETH stakers with higher rewards. Renzo and Ether.fi users have their deposits restaked with EigenLayer while receiving liquid restaking tokens that can be used in DeFi, further maximizing potential returns.

In April 2024, Renzo saw its liquid restaking token, ezETH, depeg from Ethereum when it dropped to as low as $700, triggering liquidations totaling $56 million. The token shortly returned to over $3,000, which was the ETH price at the time, but that was the first red flag to affect Renzo’s reputation.

Additionally, the Renzo community was dissatisfied with the airdrop of REZ, the protocol’s governance token. Initially, ezETH holders, who locked their tokens for four months, were promised 5% of the total REZ supply, compared with 2.5% for participants in Binance’s launchpool, which lasted only 7 days. Eventually, Renzo increased its allocation for ezETH from 5% to 7% in the first airdrop season and another 5% in a subsequent phase.

With the launch of the aidrop at the beginning of May, users have been able to unlock their ezETH, which has probably affected the protocol’s TVL. Outflows from Renzo started to accelerate at the end of June, with tens of millions of USD leaving the protocol each day.

 It’s difficult to foresee a recovery, as EigenLayer itself has been hit by massive outflows at the end of July.

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