Last Week in DeFi - zkSync 2.0 Closed Alpha, NEAR USN Winding Down, MakerDAO Endgame Plan Approved, and More...

Recap: Week of Oct. 24th

Product Launches 🚀

• zkSync 2.0 Closed Alpha
  The rollout for zkSync 2.0 is phased into 3 stages. The Baby Alpha (stage 1) is now live which only the team can access, with stage 2 for external teams coming in Q4 and stage 3 for end users going live by the end of this year.

• LlamaLend Live
  Built by DeFiLlama, LlamaLend is an NFT lending protocol that has fixed interest rates and no price liquidations.

• Agoric Mainnet & Inter IST Live
  Cosmos-based L1 Agoric launches its mainnet, with Inter Protocol going live on Agoric with its flagship product IST - a fully collateralized stablecoin on Cosmos.

• Integral TWAP Order on Arbitrum
  Integral launches SIZE on Arbitrum, allowing users to execute TWAP orders with MEV protection and zero slippage (due to the use of a Uniswap oracle).

• Spin Live on NEAR
  NEAR-based DEX Spin launches perpetual trading with up to 10x leverage on its platform, with more order types and isolated margin support to come.

• Aries Markets Live on Aptos
  Lending protocol Aries Markets is now live on Aptos.

• vFat Portfolio Manager
  Farming tool provider vfat has launched vfat.io, a portfolio manager.

• Vaults Soul-Bound Tokens
  Interest rate swap protocol Voltz has launched Soul-bound tokens that let its community members who participate, govern, or trade on the protocol earn badges and “pointz”.

Project Updates 🚩

• NEAR USN Winding Down
  Decentral Bank DAO, the issuer of USN, announces it will gradually wind down the native stablecoin on the Near ecosystem.

  The closure of USN is due to insufficient collateral, and the NEAR Foundation has allocated $40m for USN protection plan grants.

• Lido Testing DVT
  Lido is testing the integration of DVT (Distributed Validator Technology) with the SSV network and operators on Ethereum’s testnet.
  DVT enables multiple Node Operators to run distributed validators, which DVT is crucial for Lido to enable solo stakers to participate in the protocol.

• Kava 11 Live
  Kava 11 went live on mainnet. The upgrade brings KAVA liquid staking, Kava yield aggregator, MetaMask support for all Kava txs, and protocol-owned liquidity.

• Hegic Live on Arbitrum
  After months of beta testing, Hegic Herge is now officially live on Arbitrum with audited contracts, revamped interface, and battle-tested architecture (HardCore) for p2p options trading.

• Harmony x LayerZero
  Harmony to partner with LayerZero to relaunch its bridge, and will also partner with Lossless to deploy a security infrastructure to prevent future attacks.

• LooksRare Zero Royalties
  LooksRare switches to optional royalties for NFT creators but allocates 25% of its 2% protocol fee to creators. This results in an effective 0.5% royalty fee on trades for all collections, which is a lot lower than most were previously seeing. 

• UXD Implements ALM
  Solana stablecoin protocol UXD integrates Mercurial’s vault to implement its Asset Liability Management Module. The strategy will generate cash flow and the revenue will be used to buy back UXD’s protocol token UXP.

• Telos Safe
  Safe (fka. Gnosis Safe) went live on Telos L1 as Telos Safe, providing multi-sig service for securing transactions on Telos.

Governance Highlights 📝

• MakerDAO Endgame Plan Approved
  MakerDAO Endgame, a proposal to decentralize MakerDAO assets by founder Rune Christiansen, has passed. Endgame is a structural change to not only MakerDAO assets and revenue model but also its governance structure.

• Maker to Custody Vault with Coinbase
  MakerDAO passed the poll to onboard 33% of the PSM’s USDC (~$1.6b) to Coinbase Prime, allowing Maker to participate in Coinbase’s Institutional Rewards Program.
  In return, Maker will earn 1% APY on the first 100m and 0.1% more APY on each 100m USDC thereafter.

• Sushi Legal Structure
  The Sushi community passed the restructuring proposal to turn the DAO into three legal entities based in Panama and the Cayman Islands.

• Paraswap PSP 2.0
  Paraswap community proposed PSP 2.0, a tokenomics revamp that brings ve-model (sePSP) and staking to PSP, a fairdrop, reduced emissions, a new protocol fee-sharing system, and a boost for current stakers to migrate.

Hacks/Bugs/Issues 👾

• QuickSwap Flash Loan Attack
  QuickSwap is temporarily closing the Market.xyz lending market, in which the market funds were seeded by Qi DAO. An attacker conducted a flash loan attack by exploiting a Curve LP Oracle vulnerability and hacked away $220k from the market.

Upcoming ⏳

• FTX Stablecoin
  Centralized exchange FTX is reported to be working on its own stablecoin, likely to launch via partnerships.

• Gains on Arbitrum
  Polygon leveraged trading protocol Gains is having its contracts audited and will soon deploy to Arbitrum.

• Aave on StarkNet
  Aave <> Starknet Phase I has been finished and is ready to deploy after Aave community’s approval. The project is about bridging Aave v2 aTokens on Ethereum to/from StarkNet and Phase II will be following.
  

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