Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential insights into decentralized finance (DeFi) – a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.
Similar to Ethereum’s peak era in 2017, Solana is currently facing a challenge with network congestion that has been ongoing for almost a week, resulting in a high rate of transaction failures. Solana developers have set April 15 as their target date to resolve the issue, classifying it as a bug rather than a design flaw.
Binance Labs has shifted its focus in the DeFi sector towards Bitcoin by investing in the Bitcoin-native restaking protocol, BounceBit.
In other news, withdrawals from MarginFi, a Solana-based DeFi protocol, have surged over $190 million due to apparent mismanagement and claims from competitors that the protocol has failed to deliver on its promises.
Solana developers are aiming to fix the issue of failed transactions by April 15, emphasizing that it is an implementation bug rather than a design flaw. Mert Mumtaz, the CEO of Helius Labs, a blockchain infrastructure firm exclusively supporting the Solana network, stated that Solana’s current issue is not a design flaw, but rather an implementation bug.
Blockchain analytics firm Arkham has accused its competitors of spreading false rumors to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) after questions arose regarding the transfer of its native ARKM tokens. While Arkham did not name the competitors, a post published by another blockchain analytics firm, Nansen, claimed that Arkham had transferred over 25.2 million ARKM tokens ($56 million) to unlabeled wallets and the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
Binance Labs, the venture capital arm of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has made an investment in the Bitcoin-native restaking protocol BounceBit. BounceBit combines features of centralized finance and DeFi to create more utility for Bitcoin (BTC), according to the co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs.
Over the past two days, approximately $200 million worth of user funds have been withdrawn from MarginFi, a Solana-based lending protocol, following the sudden resignation of the platform’s CEO and allegations of misconduct by competitors. On April 10, Edgar Pavlovsky, the former CEO of MarginFi, announced his resignation, citing internal and external disputes as the reason for his departure.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals that the top 100 DeFi tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most showing positive performance on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols has surpassed $100 billion.
Thank you for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights, and education about this rapidly evolving space.