BNB Smart Chain L2, opBNB, reaches mainnet after almost three months of testnet and more than 35 million transactions processed. Bridging protocol, Synapse, also unveiled their plan for Synapse Chain and the Synapse Interchain Network this week. Finally, the Cosmos Hub undergoes its V12 upgrade, bringing liquid staked ATOM to the chain.

Eventful week for DeFi! Let’s dive deeper into what went down in DeFi this past week.

Overview: Slow and Steady Climb

Total value locked (TVL) across all chains grew slightly as the market climbed upwards after a sharp drop early in the week. Notable increases in TVL include several Cosmos-based chains such as Neutron, Archway, Juno and Umee, which all saw jumps of between 10% to 20% increases.

Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/

Welcome to Alpha Central

Jay dives into friend.tech, its pros and cons, and how it is looking more than a month after its initial launch.

Ashwath discusses the automated market maker (AMM) model, where it stands now and how it fits into the future of DeFi.

Ethereum: Yearn’s yETH Now Live

Vault platform, Yearn Finance, goes live with yETH, a basket of ETH liquid staking derivatives (LSDs), allowing users to gain exposure to a range of LSD tokens at once. Currently, the basket consists of tokens from Frax Finance, Swell Network, Lido, Stader and Coinbase.

IndexCoop launches ic21, an index token representing the top 10 tokens by market capitalization (excluding stablecoins). Since the index is based on Ethereum, all non-Ethereum tokens on the list will be wrapped.

Mountain Protocol unveils USDM, a stablecoin backed by short-term US treasury bills. The returns will be passed on to users via rebasing, with the yield sitting at 5% APY currently. USDM is currently not available to citizens of the United States.

Stablecoin protocol, Raft, releases their Raft V2 Interest Rate Vaults, enabling the minting of their native stablecoin, R, with ETH LSD tokens. The currently supported tokens are wstETH, rETH, swETH, cbETH and WETH.

ETH LSD stablecoin protocol, Prisma Finance, raises their debt caps for their four supported collateral tokens, wstETH, rETH, cbETH, sfrxETH. The raised caps have since been hit in under two hours.

Multichain decentralized exchange (DEX), WOOFi, releases WOOFi Pro, a gasless central limit order book (CLOB) DEX, while allowing deposits from seven chains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Base and Linea.

Money market protocol, Sturdy Finance, introduces Sturdy V2, bringing to the protocol new features such as Silos, which isolates risk, and aggregators, which optimizes yield for users on the platform.

L2s: OpBNB Arrives on Mainnet

Binance Smart Chain’s L2, opBNB, hits mainnet, after three months of testnet, in which more than 430K wallets interacted with the chain and 150 decentralized applications (DApps) deployed on the chain.

Bridging solution, Synapse, launches the Synapse L2 Chain, an OP Stack-based chain, and the Synapse Interchain Network (SIN), which is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) interchain network to connect chains for seamless communication and transfers

Optimism liquidity hub, Velodrome, introduces Velodrome Slipstream, the next step forward for the protocol, which uses concentrated liquidity to increase capital efficiency for stable and less volatile pools as well as automatic liquidity management to cater to retail, among other features.

Astar Network announces Astar zkEVM, a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) L2 chain, launched in collaboration with Polygon Labs, using their recently released chain development kit.

Manta Network goes live with Pacific Alpha Mainnet, after two months in testnet. Manta Network enables the easy integration and deployment of zero-knowledge technology into DApps.

BNB Smart Chain: Thena Perps

BNB Smart Chain liquidity hub, Thena Finance, deploys perpetuals trading on the platform, allowing for trading of more than 150 assets with up to 60x leverage. Funding rates will be kept at 0% for a limited time.

Cosmos: Liquid Staking in the Cosmos

The Cosmos Hub successfully completed their Gaia V12 upgrade this week, enabling liquid staking for the Cosmos. Stakers can now liquid stake their ATOM tokens, allowing them to unstake without waiting for the unbonding period.

Ethereum LSD protocol, Lido Finance, unveils stETH on the Cosmos, in collaboration with Neutron and Axelar, allowing wstETH liquidity to flow through the Cosmos ecosystem.

Bridging and cross-chain swap solution, Squid Router, deploys on the Cosmos, connecting 48 Cosmos chains to their existing 14 Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains. Users can now swap and transfer tokens across the EVM and the Cosmos.

Another Week, Another Airdrop

With the mainnet launch of Binance Smart Chain L2, opBNB, users who have completed the testnet quest campaign will be eligible to mint an exclusive opBNB mainnet NFT from September 15 to 20.

StarkNet DEX, ZKX Protocol, announces their token, ZKX, and their tokenomics, with 15% allocated to two upcoming locked retroactive airdrops to the community.

Market creeps forward and volatility remains muted. But DeFi projects sure aren’t! Stay updated on your favorite projects and stay tuned for next week’s edition, and keep supporting your favorite projects, degens!