Altcoins

Defi Economy Rebounds: Total-Value Locked Jumps 28% Capturing Close to $9B

18/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

,The total-value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) economy has recaptured much of the value lost during the Sushiswap fiasco last week. At the time, the defi TVL tumbled down to $6.8 billion from the $9.6 billion high on September 8, suffering a loss of close to -29%. Since then, however, the rise northbound has been parabolic, as the defi TVL has climbed 28% so far, with locked value rising to $8.75 billion on Thursday morning (ET).

Last week, the anonymous creator of Sushiswap caused an uproar within the decentralized finance (defi) community after cashing out some tokens meant for the project’s future development.

At that time, the total-value-locked (TVL) in defi was inching toward the $10 billion realm, when it crossed $9.6 billion on September 8. Although, the TVL shed a decent amount of value after the Sushiswap incident and the price of ethereum (ETH) tumbled by 30%.

Today, according to defipulse statistics the current TVL on Thursday, September 17 is $8.75 billion with the defi lending platform Aave capturing 15.3% of the TVL dominance. This is followed by the defi platforms Maker, Curve Finance, Uniswap, and Sushiswap.

On Thursday morning (ET), the crypto community has been discussing Uniswap’s UNI token, which saw 60% of UNI’s genesis supply allocated to Uniswap community members. Since the launch, Coinbase Pro announced UNI support on the exchange and the crypto platform Binance also listed the token a few hours after the release.

The Uniswap team says 21.51% will be reserved for future employees and developers with a four-year vesting period. 17.80% of the UNI supply will be distributed to investors with a four-year vesting timeframe as well.

The UNI launch announcement notes that the token will be leveraged for a governance treasury and governance will have access to the allocation on October 18. Uniswap’s governance token airdrop contributed to ethereum (ETH) miners capturing a lot of money in transaction fees.

“Following Uniswap Protocol’s announcement of the UNI token today, Ethereum saw a massive surge in miner fees,” the data analytics firm Glassnode tweeted. “Almost $1M USD in fees were spent in a single hour. This is a new record high (anomalous tx fees earlier this year excluded).”

Last Saturday, the Yearn Finance (YFI) token touched an all-time high reaching $43,678 after Coinbase Pro announced listing the defi crypto asset.

The token has been very popular among the yield farming community and notoriety for YFI’s price per token surpassing bitcoin (BTC) in value. Although YFI has lost -27.34% since the Coinbase listing announcement and the token is currently swapping for $31,736 per coin.

Since news.Bitcoin.com’s recent study on the defi economy on August 29, the total defi users over time jumped 17.78% from 388,011 users to 457,012 users on September 13. Defi-based decentralized exchange (dex) action has seen $5.2 billion in global swaps during the last seven days.

Dune Analytics data shows dex volumes during the last 24 hours was around $645 million. Uniswap is still the top dex in terms of volume exchanged capturing over 60% of the week’s trade volume.

With this week’s defi TVL rebound closing in on the highs it saw last week, it goes to show that the defi economy isnt letting up any time soon.

Meanwhile, ethereum (ETH) has regained much of the coin’s losses at the crypto asset trades for $383 per ether at the time of publication. Since last week’s report concerning 68 new whales joining the ETH network, the large concentration of ETH holders added another 1% to the aggregate tally.

What do you think about the defi ecosystem regaining momentum this week? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post Defi Economy Rebounds: Total-Value Locked Jumps 28% Capturing Close to $9B appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Sushiswap’s 2 Million Token Airdrop: Founders Face Accusations of ‘Making Defi a Joke Again’

15/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

Sushiswap’s new leader and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted on September 12 that the promised 2 million token airdrop would go on as scheduled. The process was expected to last up to two hours or less depending on network congestion.

The airdrop caps an eventful week for Sushiswap that started with the reported ‘exit scam’ by co-founder Chef Nomi and the return of the $14 million worth of ETH.

After initially defending his actions that are believed to have caused the price of the decentralized finance (defi) token to crash, Chef Nomi made the surprise decision. Furthermore, the still anonymous founder issued an apology for his actions and said he “will let the community decide how much he deserve(s) as the original creator of Sushiswap.”

In response to this show of contrition, Sam Bankman-Fried paid tribute to Chef Nomi for this decision, while reminding his Twitter audience of the founder’s earlier good work. The FTX CEO added that part of the returned ETH will now be used to fund the scheduled buyback.

Since taking charge, Sam Bankman-Fried has helped to initiate changes aimed at assuaging investors, some of whom are reportedly contemplating taking legal action. Meanwhile, following this latest announcement about the airdrop, YFI creator Andre Cronje tweeted that events tied to the Sushiswap fiasco have not helped the cause of defi.

In his reply to Sam Bankman-Fried on Twitter, Cronje said:

“LOL. Thanks for making defi a joke again. One step forward and ten steps back.”

Cronje suggested that the Sushiswap team is copying from the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) scam playbook. The YFI creator then provided what he terms as an ICO scam checklist. The list includes an “airdrop, buyback, insane salaries, large team allocation, forked geth (Uniswap).”

Interestingly, when Chef Nomi tweeted an apology, Cronje replied saying:

Less apology, more coding. Sushiswap needs you. Get back to work and build something that leaves a legacy. You chose Sushiswap over yourself, now just keep building.

In the meantime, the Sushi token has since partially recovered after dropping to $1.30 following Chef Nomi’s previous departure. At the time of writing, the token traded at $2.30. Despite the criticism, Sam Bankman-Fried and his team are confident that the surrendering control to the community pre-empts further events of developers making unilateral decisions.

What do you think of the Sushiswap airdrop? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post Sushiswap’s 2 Million Token Airdrop: Founders Face Accusations of ‘Making Defi a Joke Again’ appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Tether Recovers $1 Million USDT Sent to Wrong Defi Address by Chinese Traders

13/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

Tether has recovered and returned $1 million worth of USDT to a group of Chinese traders who, in error, sent the funds to a wrong decentralized finance (defi) address.

On September 8, the group, going under the moniker ‘Bill,’ “accidentally” transferred the money to a Swerve token contract and could not retrieve it.

In desperation, the over-the-counter traders sent out an SOS on Twitter, and hoped for the best outcome. They were in luck.

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at Bitfinex and Tether, issuers of the centralized stablecoin USDT, responded and requested that the traders open a support ticket.

“If it’s USDt ERC20 stuck in an address we should be able to recover it, but in order to be sure, please contact our customer support and we’ll try our best,” he said.

And then a few days later, on September 11, the good news came through, laced with doses of defi caution. Ardoino tweeted:

Use defi projects at your own risk but if you do, at least make sure to use tether. 1M $USDt recovered and returned to the legitimate owner(s).

The Etherscan transaction shared by Ardoino shows that a total 1,010,808 USDT, valued at $1.02 million, had been sent back to the Chinese investors.

Tether was able to recover the lost funds because it is a centralized financial network, which gives it some control over users’ funds. A noncustodial defi platform would not.

Suggestions by Blockstream CSO Samson Mow to recover the funds by burning the million-dollar USDT and then re-issuing it did not fly. Paolo Ardoino explained how the funds could be retrieved properly.

“The only solution would be requiring, for each transfer, an additional signature provided by a Tether watchtower. Such [a] system would allow Tether to “freeze” funds. But burns of tokens on specific addresses are not possible,” he said.

What do you think about Tether’s intervention in recovering the lost USDT? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Tether Recovers $1 Million USDT Sent to Wrong Defi Address by Chinese Traders appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Defi Trader Pockets $250k From Bug Exploit, Hints at Possible Exit Scam by $SYFI Devs

10/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

An anonymous Defi trader says he gained almost $250 000 after inadvertently exploiting a rebase bug embedded in the $SYFI Defi token. The trader, who insists he had no prior knowledge about the bug, got this reward after staking an initial investment of 0.5 ETH or about $175 at current prices.

In a long Twitter thread published September 6, the trader who uses the name Amplify thinks the bug was deliberately set in the rebase code. The trader suspects $SYFI devs to be behind the act.

To help his followers understand how the exploit occurred, Amplify starts the thread by detailing how he stumbled onto the bug and the split-second decision he had to make. The long explanation appears to be corroborated by earlier reports wherein $SYFI devs blame an unknown malicious actor for “wiping out most of the liquidity provided in the Uniswap pool.”

The devs also reportedly offered to reward anyone who could identify or apprehend the malicious trader. The price of the Defi token dropped from a peak of $174 last week to $0.00040 by Monday, September 7 as a result of the bug exploit.

However, the Defi trader beats back allegations that his actions had malicious intent. Instead, he condemns the actions of the developers “for having the balls to ask for a PRESALE for a forked coin and pushing it with unaudited code.”

The $SYFI Defi token is one of the many copycats of the popular token YFI to emerge since mid-July. However, unlike YFI, some of these knock offs have already collapsed while others appear destined for a similar outcome.

Having observed that $SYFI had similarities with some of the failed Defi tokens, Amplify posed a rhetorical question to the devs: “You want to mimic the price of $YFI, but won’t mimic it’s distribution? You want to sell a token that is, fundamentally and in no uncertain terms, another token.. but less of it?”

Furthermore, the Defi trader hints at even more serious allegations against the devs:

I will not go so far as to argue that the token $SYFI was built with this bug in mind with the specific intent of fooling the community into thinking ‘liquidity locked’ actually meant something for a coin with faulty rebase code and would make for a blameless exit scam by the devs because ‘liq lock.’ But hey, there it is. Take it as you will.

Meanwhile, to prove that his actions were not entirely malign, Amplify says he will donate $10,000 from his winnings “to a gitcoin grant of my choosing.”

The $SYFI token joins the growing list of Defi tokens whose liquidity challenges ultimately caused a price collapse. Accusations of exit scamming are also becoming common following the alleged Sushiswap exit by its creator Chef Nomi.

What do you think of this Defi trader’s statement? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post Defi Trader Pockets $250k From Bug Exploit, Hints at Possible Exit Scam by $SYFI Devs appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Defi’s Raw Deal: Sushiswap Creator Transfers Multi-Sig Control to FTX CEO

06/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

After a number of individuals from the crypto community accused the anonymous developer Chef Nomi of exit scamming, the developer transferred the project over to Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of the trading platform FTX.

On Saturday, September 5, the decentralized finance (defi) community got upset with the creator of Sushiswap, a forked project copied from the Uniswap Protocol. The reason many in the crypto community are angry toward the anonymous developer called Chef Nomi, is because he withdrew $13 million from the Sushiswap pool and cashed it out for Ethereum.

Who woulda thought sushi goes bad after a week

— cryptograffiti (@cryptograffiti) September 5, 2020

The Sushiswap general manager called ‘0xMaki’ explained that he needed to discuss the situation with Chef Nomi, but the creator went to bed. 0xMaki also tweeted that he could doxx the anonymous leader and stated:

Before accusing anyone publicly since he has been doxxed before I could reveal it. [Chef Nomi] I ask you to do the right thing put the treasury in a multi-sig with trustworthy signers. I will lead the project from here and make it a success.

However, on Sunday afternoon, 0xMaki said he didn’t know who Nomi really was or the third developer involved with Sushiswap. When Chef Nomi returned from his slumber, the anon creator said he was “transferring control to [Sam Bankman-Fried] now” from the crypto exchange FTX.

“Sent Timelock admin control to [Sam Bankman-Fried], replace me by [Sam Bankman-Fried] for a dev multi-sig contract (currently control more than $1 million worth of SUSHI.)”

The developer further added:

I hope Sushiswap does well without me. Again I did not intend to do any harm. I’m sorry if my decision did not follow what you expected. But I want to stress again and I did not intend to scam anyone. No LPs are lost whatsoever. I kept all my promises.

A number of people from the crypto community seemed to dislike Chef Nomi’s last statement. Andre Cronje from the popular Yearn Finance defi project criticized Chef Nomi’s decision.

“What do you mean ‘without me?’ asked Cronje on Twitter. “Are you leaving the project? If so, are you giving the dev funds back? All you did so far was hand over a token that was built off of Uniswap Protocol. Weren’t the funds meant to further develop? Aren’t you that developer?” Cronje further asked.

Following the publicly stated transfer, the FTX CEO discussed his plans for Sushiswap after getting the keys from Chef Nomi. Bankman-Fried told the Sushi community that he will transfer the project back into the hands of the community after a number of multi-sig controllers were chosen.

A number of crypto proponents explained that they were not too pleased with FTX and Binance for listing the sushi token without due diligence. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) defended his trading platform’s decision to list the sushi token after the fiasco.

“As one of the leaders of the space, we support innovation. With innovation comes the chance of high reward, and high risk. Some projects make it to the moon, while some fall short,” CZ tweeted.

“Always manage your risk accordingly. In crypto winter, I tell people to HODL. When things are hot, I tell people to be super cautious. I still get heat whenever something goes south. I will take the heat. It just hurts to see people getting rekt, and still not managing their risks,” the Binance CEO added.

Since the transfer of ownership from Chef Nomi to Bankman-Fried, the token SUSHI spiked over 47% on Sunday morning. At the time of publication, SUSHI is swapping for $2.79 per token after touching a low of $1.24 per coin.

What do you think about the Sushiswap fiasco? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Defi’s Raw Deal: Sushiswap Creator Transfers Multi-Sig Control to FTX CEO appeared first on Bitcoin News.