The popularity of liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) has increased significantly in recent months resulting in a surge in cash flow in DeFi. LSDs are a relatively new type of token that enables stakers to augment potential returns by unlocking liquidity for their staked cryptocurrency, such as ETH. LSDs have been exploding in popularity across the Ethereum ecosystem and have the potential to become equally as widespread among other Layer-1 networks, such as Polygon and Avalanche. LSDs are already playing a significant role in DeFi, making up over 20% of the entire TVL across liquid staking protocols. The dominance of Lido …

Decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol CoW Swap recently suffered an attack, losing at least 550 BNB (BNB) in a contract exploit that approved fund transfers from the protocol. Blockchain surveyor MevRefund flagged the event and detected that the funds seemed to be moving away from CoW Swap. The MEV searcher warned the DEX and its users of the exploit in a Twitter thread. @CoWSwap your funds appear to be moooving away ...https://t.co/li1NkXNeUp — MevRefund (@MevRefund) February 7, 2023 According to the Smart contract auditing firm BlockSec, a wallet address was added as a “solver” of CoW Swap by a multisig. Then, …

The co-founder of Web3 metaverse game engine “Webaverse” has revealed they were victims of a $4 million crypto h after meeting with scammers posing as investors in a hotel lobby in Rome. The bizarre aspect of the story, according to co-founder Ahad Shams, is that the crypto was stolen from a newly set up Trust Wallet and that the hack took place during the meeting at some point. He claims the thieves could not have possibly seen the private key, nor was he connected to a public WiFi network at the time. The thieves were somehow able to gain access …

On Jan. 24, the dYdX Foundation, the entity responsible for the dYdX decentralized crypto exchange, announced “changes” to its tokenomics — the way it distributes tokens to early investors, employees and contractors, and, of course, the public. So, what’s uncommon about the situation? The project’s foundation, in agreement with dYdX Trading Inc. and its early investors, decided to amend the project's tokenomics and extend the period for which such investors’ initial batch of tokens would be locked, changing the date from Feb. 1 to Dec. 1, 2023. Whether this was a good or a bad thing depended on which side …

Members of the Uniswap community voted in favor of deploying Uniswap v3 on Boba Network's layer-2 protocol on Ethereum. Gaining over 51 million votes, the proposal submitted by Boba Foundation and FranklinDAO to deploy Uniswap v3 in Boba Network passed. This means that the Boba Network will be the sixth chain to deploy Uniswap v3, with the deployment scheduled to proceed in the coming weeks. The move was backed by several entities such as GFX Labs, Blockchain at Michigan, Gauntlet and ConsenSys. According to Alan Chiu, the co-founder and CEO of Enya Labs, a core contributor to Boba Network, the …

Stani Kulechov, the founder of the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Aave, highlighted several issues within the DeFi space at the StarkWare Sessions 2023, held at The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, Israel. In a fireside chat titled “DeFi: Resilience in the Face of Global Uncertainty,” Kulechov and Cointelegraph’s managing editor Alex Cohen discussed various topics, including DeFi’s risks compared to traditional finance (TradFi) and how stablecoins can lead to more DeFi adoption. According to Kulechov, the preciseness of quantifying risks in DeFi is better compared to TradFi products, and this could push further adoption for the space. The Aave founder …

For many countries, the tax season is right around the corner, which means companies in the crypto industry will need to be ready to help their users comply with local regulations. On Feb. 6, crypto exchange Binance announced it is launching a tax reporting tool to help users stay on track of their crypto transactions for tax reporting purposes. According to the announcement, Binance Tax lets its users download a tax summary report which includes any gains or losses which have occurred throughout the year in their Binance account. This includes spot trades, crypto donations and blockchain-based fork rewards. The …

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) voted against a final proposal to deploy Uniswap V3 on the BNB Chain using the Wormhole bridge, shows the Uniswap DAO forum. The governance proposal to deploy the latest Uniswap iteration on the BNB Chain was submitted on Feb. 2 by 0xPlasma Labs on behalf of the Uniswap Community, after passing a temperature check with 20 million (80.28%) votes for yes, and 4.9 million (19.72%) votes for no. The venture firm used its 15 million UNI holding against the move. At the time of publication, only 3% of votes had been cast, or 23.4 …

A seven-member committee has been appointed to represent the interests of unsecured creditors in Genesis Global bankruptcy case, according to court filings on Feb. 4. The committee will represent the creditors in court, having the right to be consulted before major decisions and to participate in the reorganization plan. Members are generally select from a list of twenty largest unsecured creditors. Among the chosen members are Mirana Asset Management - an arm of crypto exchange Bybit, SOF International, Digital Finance Group, and crypto exchange Bitvavo, along with three individual creditors Amelia Alvarez, Richard Weston, and Teddy Andre Amadeo Goriss. The …

How to protect yourself in the metaverse To protect yourself in the metaverse, use strong passwords, be cautious of suspicious activity, and limit the amount of personal information shared online. Here are some ways to protect yourself in the metaverse: Use strong and unique passwords: Create secure passwords utilizing a variety of letters, numbers and symbols and steer clear of using the same one for many accounts. When disclosing personal information, exercise caution: Be cautious when sharing information online and be on the lookout for unauthorized requests for personal information. Utilize two-factor authentication: To further secure your accounts, use two-factor …

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. 2023 started on a bullish note for the entire crypto market, including the DeFi ecosystem, with most of the tokens posting double-digit gains in January and recording multi-month highs. Aside from the bull rally, January also saw a 93% year-on-year decline in losses from DeFi exploits and hacks. The slew of regulatory action against the Mango Markets exploiter is being hailed as a big win for the DeFi sector. The United States Securities and …

Russia’s largest bank Sberbank is moving forward with the plan to launch its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, preparing to trial the product in a few months. Sberbank expects to launch open trials of its DeFi platform by May 2023, Sber’s Blockchain Lab product director Konstantin Klimenko announced, the local news agency Interfax reported on Feb. 3. Currently being tested in private beta, Sberbank’s upcoming DeFi platform will be fully open by the end of April, enabling users to conduct the first commercial transactions, Klimenko said. The exec noted that the blockchain platform will be compatible with the Ethereum blockchain, allowing …