Last Week in DeFi - Gains Network Trading Incentives, Sturdy V2 Upcoming, Myso Activity Points, and more...

Recap: Week of Dec 25th

Launches 🚀

• Gamified perp DEX Merkle Trade launches V2, introducing loot boxes, rewards for traders, and incentives for LPs.

• Built by Synthetix, the Infinex perp DEX launches on the Base mainnet. This is an alpha launch, and only 13 of the selected ambassadors will be able to trade on Infinex with a 1000 USDC grant.

Updates 🆕

• Gains Network launches the $7M+ gTrade Arbitrum Incentives Program. Starting Dec 29, 4.5M ARB & 65K GNS will be rewarded to traders and LPs over 13 weeks.

• Fair-launched ZK L2 zkFair activated Fair Mode. Most new projects endorsed by ZKFair in the future will be launched with a very low valuation (~$1M) and in a 100% fair launch format.

• Arbitrum-based lending protocol Domomite launches Vote-Enabled ARB (vARB). vARB allows users to use ARB as collateral for borrowing while using it to participate in Arbitrum voting.

• Lido wstETH is now live on Mantle L2.

• KyberSwap's CEO published updates after the Elastic exploit in November. The team had to change how they operate the business, including temporarily pausing KyberSwap liquidity protocol initiatives and KyberAI project, and reducing the workforce by 50%.

• Aave Governance V3 is live. V3 is a smart contracts governance system that enables new voting assets, resets all delegation to 0, and brings a new governance interface.

• Reserve Protocol partners with StakeDAO to launch USDC+, an over-collateralized yield-bearing USDC basket. USDC+ is backed by 33% Flux USDC, 33% Morpho USDC, and 33% Compound USDC.

• Merchant Moe, Trader Joe’s franchise on Mantle L2, has enabled JOE bridging and mJOE staking. Users can bridge and stake their JOE on Merchant Moe in preparation for the MOE airdrop.

• Trader Joe deployed a 'Swap Anyway' feature that “removes the greyed-out state of the swap button when a contract write simulation fails.” Users are now able to press 'Swap' under any condition.

• Oku Trade launches Uniswap V3 on Scroll L2 (Oku is a DEX interface powered by Uniswap v3).

Hacks/Issues 👾

• Osmosis-based perp DEX Levana was exploited, resulting in a loss of over $1.1M. A bug in the Osmosis fee market code and “price staleness” in Levana’s integration with the Pyth oracle enabled the attackers to manipulate prices and drain the pools.
  The issue has been fixed and opening positions will relaunch next week.

• Avalanche-based lending protocol Yeti Finance announces winding down the protocol. According to Yeti, problems such as decreasing TVL/revenue and unexpected events make it hard to scale and sustain the protocol long-term, and “winding down the protocol is the most responsible action to maximize the security of remaining funds.”

• zkSync Era encountered an issue triggered by one of the network’s automated safety procedures, and the network’s block production was suspended for 2 hours. The issue is now resolved with no fund loss.

Upcoming ⏳

• The Avalanche Foundation intends to start using Culture Catalyst, a $100M NFT incubator initiative, to purchase select Avalanche-based meme coins and create a collection to “recognize and encourage the culture and fun symbolized by meme coins."

• Ondo Finance proposes to release ONDO tokens from the global lock-up. The proposal describes an unlock schedule relative to a to-be-determined date when the tokens first become transferable (the “Public Launch”)

• Aave founder considers deploying Aave on Neon (or Kava) instead of Solana since “[the cost] of deploying on an EVM compatible “L2” on top of a non-EVM L1 is much lower”

• Woo X and CCXT partner up to launch a trading competition starting Jan 1st. The competition offers 200K in prizes and is only available to users referred by CCXT OR using CCXT to trade during the trading competition period.

• BnB Chain-based lending protocol Venus is working on multichain expansion starting with Ethereum.

• Solana liquid staking protocol solBlaze will have the first BLZE token halving in less than a month. BLZE released will be cut in half, and the BLZE airdropped per SOL of stake naturally decreases.

• Sturdy will launch V2 on Jan 16th with $800,000+ in incentives and 750,000 STRDY tokens to be airdropped to early aggregator depositors.

• Bridging protocol MultiBit will support bridging Solana assets to Bitcoin, and support BitStable’s DAII (Bitcoin-based stablecoin) on Solana.

• Polkadot founder published an annual roundup with upcoming updates on Polkadot, including the Agile Coretime, On-Demand Parachains, Ethereum Snowbridge, Kusama bridge, and Elastic Scaling.

Airdrops 🪂

• ZKFair-based DEX Sideswap is launching its token with a 1 billion SIDE supply in a 100% fair launch approach. All SIDE tokens will be airdropped to the Sideswap community and ZKFair users.

• Regulation-compliant liquid staking protocol Bedrock enables point boost. Users may get on Galxe to complete tasks to earn Points and increase their chances of receiving airdrops.

• Neon EVM starts the Neon Points program. Points can be earned in 3 community contributions: Creating, Engaging, and Participating.

• Myso Finance launches MYSO Activity Points (MAP). Users can earn points by borrowing, lending, referring new users, and creating a new lender vault.

Farms 🧑🏻‍🌾

• Radpie USDC.e vault on Arbitrum earns boosted rewards in stable and RDNT.

• Lending USDC.e on Vertex perp DEX offers a good yield.

• Silo blue chip markets on Arbitrum offer good USDC rates with ARB incentives.

Today in DeFi Premium includes early looks at promising projects, yield farming tips, and proper research to help you get the most out of DeFi.

For example, last week we published the following features for our Premium Subscribers:

• Promising New Money Market with Airdrop Campaign

• Autocompounded Farming on Polygon

• Organic Stable Farming

• and more…