👨🌾️ Farm 140% APY via AELIN staking & earn with DeFi Saver’s Smart Savings!
Also, read about Polymarket’s settlement with the CFTC + more DeFi governance updates!
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🎢 DeFi 2022 rollercoaster begins — The total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum DeFi entered the new year around $88B before slouching as low as $81.5B on Thursday. Since then, the TVL has quickly reversed and climbed above $93B. Let’s see if we can make a recovery to +$100B in the coming days!
⚖️ Driving DeFi news this week — Polymarket settles with CFTC
On Monday, news broke that crypto predictions marketplace Polymarket entered into a settlement with the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
The settlement comes after the CFTC determined the dapp, which is essentially a binary options derivatives marketplace, had run afoul of America’s Commodity Exchange Act by failing to properly register as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) or Swap Execution Facility (SEF).
As you can imagine, the case has important wider implications for DeFi. Firstly, the CFTC judgment suggested that DEXes were algorithmic, which means they could fall outside of traditional exchange regulations. Secondly, the Commission took issue with the fact that Polymarket users were 100% dependent on the Polymarket front-end. In other words, decentralizing front-ends really can help DeFi projects avoid the ire of regulators.
💸 This week’s best-performing assets — Since last weekend, we’ve seen runs from the following top DeFi tokens:
📈 TOKE (+51.2%)
📈 DPX (+45.2%)
📈 GMX (+42%)
📈 KP3R (+35.1%)
👛 The $DPI pulse — The DeFi Pulse Index ($DPI) is presently trading at $252.66, down 11.10% on the week.
🌾 Farm +140% APY with AELIN staking
Aelin started out from a joke. At the time, the joke led to Synthetix founder Kain Warwick explaining to prolific ETH dev Mariano Conti in Ethereum-based terms what a SPAC was. He said:
Eureka! Warwick then realized a SPAC-like protocol was viable on Ethereum, so he started work on some rough specs. And those specs took on a life of their own as elements of the Synthetix community started to expand on them, eventually leading to Aelin.
Simply put, the project is a fundraising protocol. Newly launched on the Optimism L2, Aelin lets “sponsors” pursue deals via Aelin pool investors. As Warwick explained in Aelin’s announcement post:
“Users pool funds into a single pool and the sponsor of that pool sources a single deal and then everyone holding the pool token (a claim on the pool funds) can decide whether they like the terms of the deal and accept it by converting their pool tokens into deal tokens, or reject it and get their funds back from the pool. The main downside for pool token holders is their funds are locked in the pool until the pool expires or a deal is sourced by the Sponsor. They can, however, sell their pool tokens as they are simply a claim on the funds in the pool.”
How to earn via AELIN staking
To learn more about Aelin’s pools and deal flows work, be sure to check out the project’s docs.
For today’s opportunity though we’re focusing on the AELIN token (released via fair launch in late Dec. 2021 with a memeably low total supply of 5k) and the yields that AELIN staking are currently offering.
While unit bias from the low AELIN supply might throw you off at first, the incentives being allocated to stakers are nothing to sneeze at. As the project’s staking UI notes:
“Staking AELIN gives a share of 29 AELIN/month in inflationary rewards + 2/3 of protocol deal fees. Note deal fees are temporarily custodied by the Aelin Council and will be distributed in the future.”
At the moment these inflationary rewards are generating stakers +140% APY. If you’re interested, you can join this farm by following these steps:
First, note that AELIN was natively launched on Optimism, and for now the main liquidity for the token is on Uniswap’s Optimism deployment. Thus to get started head over to the AELIN-WETH pair and acquire however much AELIN you want for staking. If you need to bridge ETH over first, consider using Hop Exchange as the project also supports “fast withdrawals.”
Once you have AELIN ready, head over to https://aelin.xyz/stake and connect your wallet. Double check that you’re connected to the Optimism network.
In the staking UI input how much AELIN you want to stake. Press “Max” to do all your holdings at once instead of typing out a bunch of numbers behind a decimal point - if you have less than 1 whole AELIN that is, which will apply to most folks due to the low supply!
Complete an approval transaction and finish the second and final staking transaction, and voila! You’re staking AELIN. You can claim your accrued AELIN rewards or withdraw your original funds through this UI whenever you want.
Aelin has been audited, but it’s also a newly launched protocol on an L2. You should approach this farm cautiously accordingly. Farm responsibly, and never invest with more money than you can afford to lose. Also, note staking yields can drop fast if many people join in short order.
Introducing Boba’s WAGMI incentive program
TLDR: Optimistic rollup project Boba Network is teaming up with UMA to create KPI options based on activity around the rising L2.Introducing Frax-as-a-Service
TLDR: Ondo Finance partners with Frax Finance in launching Frax-as-a-Service, which protocols can use to boost liquidity for their own native tokens.Goldfinch raises $25M led by Andreesen Horowitz
TLDR: Decentralized credit protocol Goldfinch raises an additional $25M in funding and announces the Goldfinch Foundation.Aave Arc launched
TLDR: Aave’s new institutional arm goes live as crypto custodian company Fireblocks approves 30 firms to help kick off the platform.Synapse Protocol adds Aurora support
TLDR: Cross-chain bridging protocol Synapse integrates with Aurora, NEAR Protocol’s EVM solution.
🚜 Farm +10% APY on stables with DeFi Saver Smart Savings!
DeFi Saver is a “one-stop management solution for decentralized finance protocols.” In short, it’s user-friendly platform helps you tap into advanced DeFi strategies in easy, streamlined fashion.
We have DeFi Saver in our spotlight today because the project recently launched its new Smart Savings dashboard, and what a resource it is for conservative farmers!
Boasting integrations with mStable Save, Yearn, and Rari, the new Smart Savings dashboard lets you choose from a range of stables farms depending on your portfolio’s demand. The UI also helpfully displays the strategies’ complexity levels and current yields as broken down over 1-day, 7-day, and 30-day spans.
If these yield pastures look appealing, simply head over to Smart Savings, connect your wallet, and click on your strat of choice. You can then make deposits/withdrawals through the ensuing interface as you please! Also keep in mind that DeFi Saver offers a simulation mode so you can test out these opportunities free of charge.
The protocols involved in these farms are reputable and have been audited. However, in DeFi risk can never be totally eliminated. Never deposit more money into any protocol than you can afford to lose! Sim mode is your friend!
Gnosis DAO discusses spinning out the Cow Protocol team to deploy Cow DAO and the COW token.
Aave votes on onboarding Wrapped UST as a borrow-only asset.
Curve votes on integrating the HAL Snapshot governance plugin.
Paraswap votes on defining its DAO’s governance parameters and processes.
Convex Finance votes on adding a gauge to Curve’s new SPELL/ETH pool.
Wrapping your head around the difference between APRs and APYs can be difficult at first. Don’t fret! APRtoAPY.com is a great resource for learning the basics, and it also offers a helpful APR-to-APY calculator you can use for yield farming.
Is the future of DeFi really cross-chain? 🤔
Things may end up panning out more “multi-chain” than “cross-chain.” That’s according to Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, who, in a new Reddit post, argued that 51% attacks could have significant cascading contagion effects in cross-chain environments.
The implications? Projects may increasingly turn inward to their own universes. Buterin noted that it may be a while before we face these sorts of issues in the ecosystem. Yet, as always, it’s compelling to look ahead and try and forecast what may be coming for DeFi!
All info in this newsletter is purely educational and should only be used to inform your own research. We're not offering investment advice, endorsement of any project or approach, or promise of any outcome. This is prepared using public information and couldn't possibly account for anyone's specific goals or financial situation. Be careful and keep up the honest work!