Arguably the most dynamic segment within the crypto ecosystem, decentralized finance (DeFi) projects have been revolutionizing how cryptocurrency investors can employ their tokens to access capital and even earn additional income on their crypto holdings. However, using DeFi products such as yield farming, liquidity mining and staking pools can often be a cumbersome experience for most crypto investors. To solve this problem, a new class of crypto tokens was introduced in 2021 that integrated self-generating passive income mechanisms to reward investors with supplementary crypto tokens. Known as reflection or reward tokens, these digital assets are increasingly gaining traction among crypto …

Since the fall of the Terra (LUNA) algorithmic-stablecoin in mid-2022, many users in the crypto space have developed a weariness towards that particular asset class. The market for algorithmic stablecoins has dropped 10 times what it was at its all-time high prior to the Terra incident. However, this has not stopped developers on the Cardano network pushed forward with the launch of the ecosystem’s overcollateralized stablecoin. Djed (DJED) launched on the Cardano mainnet on Jan 31. and is pegged to USD and backed by Cardano’s native coin ADA (ADA). It uses the SHEN token as its reserve coin. According to …

North Korean exploiters behind the Harmony Bridge attack continue to launder the funds stolen in June 2022. According to on-chain data revealed on Jan. 28 by blockchain sleuth ZachXBT, the perpetrators moved another $27.18 million in Ethereum (ETH) over the weekend. The tokens were transferred to six different crypto exchanges, noted ZachXBT in a Twitter thread, without disclosing which platforms had received the tokens. Three main addresses carried out the transactions. According to ZachXBT, exchanges were notified about the funds transfer and part of the stolen assets were frozen. The movements made by the exploiters to launder the money were …

The third version of crypto lending app Aave has now been deployed to Ethereum for the first time, according to a Jan. 27 tweet thread from the Aave team. “Aave V3” was originally released in March 2022, and it was deployed on multiple Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchains shortly afterward. Until now, Ethereum users only had access to the app's older “V2” version. Aave Protocol V3 is now live on the Ethereum market ”The most exciting aspect of V3 is its flexible design, which enables a variety of new risk mitigation features, and its improved capital efficiency & decentralized liquidity …

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. Traditional finance, or TradFi, continues to explore the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, with the World Economic Forum holding more workshops and sessions for the sector in 2023. Layer-1 blockchain protocol, Injective, has launched a $150 million ecosystem fund to support developers building on the Cosmos network. The Mango Markets saga took another turn this past week, as the company filed a lawsuit against the exploiter Avraham Eisenberg for $47 million in damages …

Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Friktion is shutting down its user interface and urging customers to withdraw their assets from the protocol, according to a statement on Jan. 26. The project's website will no longer deliver the same services, operating in withdrawal-only mode for all Volts and making deposits unavailable. Friktion's Volts are structured products for DeFi investments that allow investors to earn a share of the revenue of investment pools, according to the company's page. Friktion has made the difficult decision to sunset its user platform, a process beginning with moving all Volts into Withdrawal-Only mode on Friktion’s User …

About two months after the FTX collapse, the Solana network is stronger than ever, according to Austin Federa, the head of strategy and communications at the Solana Foundation. Federa defines the recent SOL token price crash as a short-term market reaction to the perceived connection between Solana and the defunct crypto exchange FTX. While FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was invested in many Solana-based projects, Federa pointed out he didn't have any influence on the network’s operations and fundamentals. “The external perception was that there was a very close relationship between the Solana network and FTX, which wasn't the case," Federa …

On this week’s episode of NFT Steez, hosts Alyssa Exposito and Ray Salmond meet with Web3 content writer Julie Plavnik to discuss the importance of self-sovereignty while building a digital identity in Web3. Plavnik referenced author Gavin Wood when describing Web3 and said that “communication” is a core tenant in the subsequent iteration of the internet. “Web3 is the communication of encrypted channels between decentralized identities,” Plavnik affirmed. According to Plavnik, the emerging concept of Web3 has placed a magnifying glass over user data and ownership, especially concerning the creator economy, which Plavnik described as a place with “no entry …

The crypto bear market may be lasting longer than expected, but some Web3 startups see it as the perfect opportunity to build solutions and infrastructure that will welcome users and institutions when the next wave of adoption arrives. Cross-chain yield aggregator 88x Finance claims that the emergence of general message passing and true composability between blockchains is an opportunity to provide services both to retail and professional investors. Roughly six months after starting to build the platform, the protocol is now participating in the Axelar Ecosystem Startup Funding Program, a $60 million startup funding program dedicated to accelerating Web3 protocols, …

According to a new post on Jan. 26, Marc Zeller integrations lead at decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Aave stated that the firm purchased 2.7 million Curve (CRV) tokens which would clear "excessive remaining bad debt" within the next 15 hours over a dozen transactions. The move follows the community approval of Aave Improvement Protocol (AIP) 144, which deployed a swap contract that acquires 2,700,000 units of CRV, with a USDC spend limit of $3,105,000 and max unit value of $1.15 per CRV token. The bad debt on the Aave protocol resulted from a sophisticated exploit that took place on …

Mango Labs, the company behind the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Mango Markets has come out with its own lawsuit against exploiter Avraham Eisenberg. The Jan. 25 filing in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges Einseberg of exploiting its platform for millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies in October 2022. It asks for $47 million in damages plus interest starting from the time of the attack. It also asked the court to rescind an agreement made between Eisenberg and Mango’s related DAO and declare it to be “invalid and unenforceable.” The agreement was in …

A group calling itself “Victims of Ankr Exploit” have claimed that its members lost over 13,000 BNB liquid staking coins (over $4 million worth at the time of writing) as a result of the Dec. 2 Ankr exploit, but have not been adequately reimbursed by the Ankr company. According to a Jan. 19 statement from the group received by Cointelegraph, affected members alleged that they have only received half of the amount they lost. The group has called on Binance’s Chanpeng Zhao (also known as “CZ”) to put pressure on Ankr to get the funds released. 1/4 We, the victims …