Decentralized finance’s explosive third quarter brought significant growth to stablecoins compatible with Ethereum (ETH). According to crypto market data aggregator Messari, the supply of MakerDAO’s Dai stablecoin grew by 623% in Q3 2020, pushing the token’s value above $1 for four consecutive months. Since starting July with a market cap of nearly $130 million, Dai’s supply has expanded to more than $940 million today. Dai is created when Ether holders deposit their ETH into the MakerDAO protocol, allowing them to create the stablecoin and using Ether as collateral. As an ERC-20 token, Dai can then be used on the Ethereum …

A court has agreed with the Maker Ecosystem Growth Foundation that a class-action lawsuit over its ‘Black Thursday’ meltdown should enter into arbitration proceedings. The Maker Foundation filed this motion to compel arbitration in response a lawsuit filed by MakerDAO user Peter Johnson in April after he suffered six-figure losses as a result of the protocol becoming undercollateralized in March. In a September 25 order, Judge Maxine Chesney found that the American Arbitration Association must determine whether Johnson’s claims fall within the scope of an arbitration clause included in DAI’s terms of service that the investor agreed to in 2018. …

It’s been a difficult week for Bitcoin this week. The price has fallen about 5 percent over the last seven days to drop beneath $10,400. It could bounce but if it continues downwards, it might drop below $10,000 and get dangerously close to the CME gap. One sign that the price might fall further has been a decline in the number of Bitcoin addresses holding a single Bitcoin. They’ve reached a four-month low. But Tyler Winklevoss still thinks that Bitcoin is better than gold, and Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor has moved from bear to bull. His company recently bought almost …

After multiple rounds of voting and heated discussion, the final vote to compensate losses for Maker (MKR) users that were liquidated “unfairly” during the March crash failed. About 52,500 MKR voted against any compensation, which accounted for 65% of the total votes. This amounts to about 8% of the total MKR supply, which some commentators took as a sign of low turnout. Nevertheless, Maker community member monetsupply, who was part of the working group designing the compensation proposal, told Cointelegraph that this was “fairly high for a poll vote.” He said that polls normally get commitments of less than 40,000 …

Twelve out of 15 of the most popular decentralized finance protocols still have access to a ‘God Mode’ admin key, according to data on review platform DeFi Watch. These full-access controls allow developers to modify or replace the smart contracts underpinning their projects, including making adjustments to user balances. While admin keys have been justified as a way to protect users’ funds and are often used with security features such as timelocks and multi-sigs, analysts argue this calls into question exactly how “decentralized” these projects really are. In a YouTube video posted on September 24, "Mastering Bitcoin" author and educator …

So Bitcoin appears to end this week within tickling distance of $11,000. Experts suggest that the next test of upper level support will be at $11,100 before a move to $12,100. Statistician Willy Woo is optimistic. He thinks there’s little chance of a “catastrophic” dump. Some Bitcoin though, can’t be dumped. More than a billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin has now been tokenized to access DeFi protocols on the Ethereum network. That’s almost 100,000 Bitcoins and more than 12 percent of DeFi’s combined capitalization. Those tokens have been having a difficult time lately. Almost all DeFi assets posted a loss …

The popular yield farming decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Yearn Finance is progressing with its forthcoming Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) Vault. The team has submitted a MakerDAO Improvement Proposal requesting whitelisting for the WBTC Vault to access upcoming oracle pricing from Maker, suggesting its launch may not be too far off. ‘Vaults’ are Yearn Finance’s core product. They use smart contracts to mobilize pooled assets from users to pursue arbitrage and yield farming strategies while sharing fees to mitigate gas costs. As with Yearn’s recently launched Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) Vault, the WBTC Vault will leverage DAI minted against user holdings, which are …

It’s been a tough week for Bitcoin. The price has fallen more than 8 percent and dipped below $10,000 on three consecutive days. Analyst Willy Woo, though, thinks it’s all looking good. He believes that on-chain indicators, such as the NVT ratio, suggest a bullish outlook, while Su Zhu of Three Arrows Capital believes that a surge to $100,000 is more likely than a fall to $5,000. The son of gold investor and Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff is convinced. The 18-year-old college freshman just bought some more Bitcoin, against his father’s advice. Asked whether they want to follow the student …

What are the most popular DeFi protocols running oracles? Open lending/borrowing protocols such as MakerDAO, Compound and Aave use oracles to fetch external data while running on the Ethereum blockchain. MakerDAO is among the most popular DeFi open lending protocols, and its Dai token is pegged to the U.S. dollar and backed by crypto assets. MakerDAO utilizes an oracles module to determine the real-time price of assets. The module is composed of whitelisted addresses of oracles and an aggregator contract. The oracles send periodic price updates to an aggregator that determines a median price, which is then used as a …

Blockchain technology is disrupting every sector of the global economy with its limitless opportunities and innovative products. Decentralized finance is one of the sectors that has been trying to shake the traditional financial ecosystem. The multitude of DeFi applications emerging all over the fintech space has provided solutions, such as lending, staking, exchange of derivatives, among others. The current craze is justified, as DeFi attempts to build an alternative to the rigid banking systems. Also, government regulation (or lack thereof) and a flawed financial infrastructure have allowed DeFi projects to blossom. However, the concept of DeFi has also faced several …

The total value of capital locked in decentralized finance protocols has increased 271% in less than two months to surpass $7 billion for the first time, according to DeFi Pulse. If the current rate of growth continues, DeFi will be worth more than $27 billion by the end of 2020. Aave currently comprises the largest DeFi project, with $1.51 billion locked, followed by MakerDAO with $1.42 billion, Curve Finance with $1.15 billion, yEarn Finance with $845 million, Synthetic with $851 million and Compound representing $797 million. Aave recently emerged as the top DeFi project after receiving an Electronic Money Institution …

Delta Exchange, a crypto derivatives platform, announced the launch of an interest rate swap contract for DAI, MakerDAO’s dollar-pegged stablecoin. The contract will allow its purchasers to enter interest swaps on the Dai Savings Rate, which the exchange sees as a way for Maker (MKR) borrowers to fix their stability fee interest payments, which are routed into the Savings Rate as earnings for DAI holders. Interest rate swaps are a type of derivative contract established between two counterparties with opposite goals, similar to options and futures. One of the parties wants to lock in their interest rate payments to a …