Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of indispensable decentralized finance (DeFi) insights – a newsletter carefully curated to bring you the most important developments from the past week.
Last week in DeFi, the crypto community witnessed a frenzy surrounding the Starknet airdrop, with many users claiming to have received less than expected or no airdrop at all. In the meantime, the founder of Uniswap, one of the leading decentralized exchanges, warned users about a new Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain scam.
Furthermore, Ethereum gas fees reached an 8-month high due to the popularity of the ERC-404 token standard. On a positive note, the restaking protocol EigenLayer became the fourth-largest protocol by Total Value Locked (TVL) with a staggering $7 billion.
The top 100 DeFi tokens had a bullish week, with most of them experiencing positive price movements. Additionally, the TVL in DeFi protocols surpassed $72 billion, reaching a new yearly high.
Starknet Attracts Airdrop Enthusiasts Ahead of Token Launch – Report
According to a report by Banteg, a developer at Yearn.finance, a large number of airdrop hunters are expected to participate in the highly anticipated airdrop by Starknet, a layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum. Banteg revealed that 1,854 individuals allegedly changed or deleted their accounts after a blockchain snapshot was taken for the airdrop. The Starknet Foundation plans to distribute 700 million STRK tokens out of 1.8 billion to 1.3 million eligible wallet addresses on February 20th, with 50% of the tokens going to protocol users.
EigenLayer Emerges as the Fourth-Largest Restaking Protocol, Approaching $7 Billion TVL
EigenLayer, an Ethereum restaking protocol, has surpassed JustLend, a cryptocurrency lending protocol, to become the fourth-largest protocol by TVL. On February 15th, EigenLayer’s TVL increased by 5.73% to reach $6.99 billion. Over the past seven days, the TVL of EigenLayer has surged by 47.95%, and it has experienced a remarkable growth of 307% in the last month, according to data from DefiLlama.
Uniswap Founder Warns Community About ENS Wallet Impersonation Scam
Hayden Adams, the founder of Uniswap, issued a warning to the crypto community regarding a scam involving wallet addresses masquerading as Ethereum Name Service domains. Adams shared his concerns on February 14th, cautioning users about scammers who copied and registered his wallet address as an ENS wallet with the .eth extension. He further explained that pasting his wallet address into certain user interfaces would display an unrelated ENS match as the top search result.
Ethereum Gas Fees Reach Eight-Month High Amid ERC-404 Craze
Gas fees on the Ethereum network have surged to an eight-month high due to the growing interest in the unofficial experimental token standard known as ERC-404. On February 9th, the average peak gas price reached 70 gwei ($60 for a standard transaction), with peak gas costs going as high as 377 gwei – a level not seen since May 12, 2023.
DeFi Market Overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView indicates that DeFi’s top 100 tokens experienced a bullish week, with most of them showing positive price movements on the weekly charts. Furthermore, the TVL in DeFi protocols surpassed $70 billion for the first time in over a year.
Thank you for reading our summary of the most impactful DeFi developments this week. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights, and education about this rapidly evolving space.