EigenLayer surpasses $1 billion in assets deposited on their platform as they raise the capacity for token deposits again this week. Inscriptions take over L2s as Arbitrum and zkSync both succumb to the congestion, resulting in downtime on both chains.
Big week in the world of DeFi! Let’s dive deeper into what went down in DeFi this past week.
Overview
Total value locked (TVL) across all chains jump higher as markets continue moving higher, propelled by anticipation surrounding the ETF decision by the SEC. Notable outperformers include the Manta Pacific L2, which began their new points system campaign, New Paradigm, and Near, which saw renewed interest due to hype around its data availability solution.
Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/
Welcome to Alpha Central
Li Jin from Variant Fund discusses the seemingly overnight wave of points-based reward systems in crypto and how to best design an effective point system.
TL;DR:
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Point morph user behavior, even if these users were already going to use the product without the point system.
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Points also change the type of users who use the app.
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Keeping ambiguity about the value of points gives apps greater flexibility on how they can be used as a customer acquisition tool.
Ethereum: EigenLayer Breaks 1 Billion in TVL
ETH restaking platform, EigenLayer, raises caps for liquid staking tokens (LSTs) to 500K tokens across all supported LSTs, while simultaneously introducing six new LSTs to the platform. The protocol has since surpassed more than $1 billion in ETH LSTs staked with them.
Other Product Launches and Updates
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DeFi suite, Frax Finance, partners up with interoperability infrastructure protocol, Axelar, to bring Frax assets to six new chains including: Osmosis, Kujira, Mantle, Linea, Manta and Scroll.
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ETH restaking platform, Renzo, arrives on mainnet, allowing users to finally natively restake ETH without waiting for the next EigenLayer cap raise while still earning EigenLayer’s restaking points and Renzo’s own restaking points.
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Composable leverage protocol, Gearbox Finance, launches their V3, bringing passive lending and margin trading with deep liquidity and no funding rates to the platform. Rewards paid in the GEAR token have also begun.
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Telegram trading bot, Unibot, and interoperability protocol, LayerZero, partner up to offer cross-chain bridging options within Unibot, enabling traders to access and trade across different chains straight from Telegram.
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DeFi credit hub, IPOR Labs, launches Stake Rate Swaps, enabling speculators and hedgers to take positions against the staking yield of Lido’s stETH, with up to 500x in leverage.
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LSDFi protocol, Prisma Finance introduces smkUSD, a liquid version of mkUSD deposited into Prisma’s Stability Pool. SmkUSD provides mkUSD depositors with a liquid token that can be utilized in other DeFi applications. Liquidations on Prisma will also be rebalanced into mkUSD, increasing the pool when smkUSD is redeemed for mkUSD.