The leading 100 DeFi tokens ended a three-week bearish trend, driven by an overall market boost initiated by Bitcoin.
Welcome to Finance Redefined, your go-to weekly compendium of key decentralized finance (DeFi) happenings – a newsletter designed to keep you updated on the most crucial developments from the past week.
This week in DeFi was highlighted by artificial intelligence (AI) advances on Etherscan, Polygon’s most recent security upgrade, and the ongoing legal battle of on-chain detective ZachXBT, backed by several crypto personalities.
Etherscan unveiled an AI-based code reader for the extraction and interpretation of specific contract source codes, while Polygon’s co-founder suggested a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) upgrade to enhance the protocol’s security.
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, backed ZachXBT, contributing to his legal fund, which has now exceeded $1 million. This community-funded initiative aids the blockchain investigator in a defamation case initiated by Jeffrey Huang, better known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother.
The top 100 DeFi tokens emerged from a three-week bearish cycle, propelled by a notable Bitcoin BTC $30,244 price jump over the past week. Consequently, most DeFi tokens are now in the green, with only a few exceptions.
Etherscan Debuts AI-based Code Reader
Etherscan, the Ethereum block explorer and analytics platform, launched a tool named “Code Reader” on June 19. It leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to extract and decode the source code of a specific contract address. Following user input, Code Reader generates a response via OpenAI’s large language model, offering insights into the contract’s source code files.
Code Reader assists users in gaining a deeper understanding of contract codes through AI-produced explanations, getting comprehensive lists of Ethereum data-related smart contract functions, and comprehending how the base contract interacts with decentralized apps. “After retrieving the contract files, you can select a particular source code file to peruse. Additionally, you can alter the source code directly within the UI before sharing it with the AI.”
CZ, Powell, and Others Support ZachXBT’s Legal Fund, Exceeding $1 Million
ZachXBT, a blockchain investigator, has amassed over $1 million in donations from the crypto community within 24 hours to finance his legal fees in a defamation lawsuit.
ZachXBT, renowned for his investigative work in the blockchain and crypto sphere, is in a legal tussle with Jeffrey Huang, known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother. Huang tweeted on June 16, alleging that he had initiated a defamation lawsuit against ZachXBT, accusing him of damaging his reputation with false claims.
Polygon Co-founder Proposes zkEVM ‘Validium’ Upgrade for Enhanced Security
Mihailo Bjelic, co-founder of Polygon, suggested an upgrade to the Polygon proof-of-stake network to a “zkEVM validium” version in a June 20 forum post. The proposed upgrade will utilize zero-knowledge proofs to bolster security.
Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution, boasts over $900 million in total value locked in its contracts, with over two million daily transactions. It was first introduced in 2019. In March, the Polygon team unveiled a second network, Polygon zkEVM, that employs zero-knowledge rollups for Ethereum scaling.
Stablecoin Protocol Reserve Invests $20 Million in Convex, Curve, and Stake DAO
Reserve, a stablecoin protocol, announced an investment of $20 million in the governance tokens of yield farming apps Curve, Convex, and Stake DAO on June 20. This investment aims to augment the liquidity of Reserve’s stablecoins, termed RTokens. Additionally, it will expand Reserve’s voting power within these apps’ governance structures.
Reserve enables users to create their coins backed by any asset they choose. Electronic USD (eUSD), High-Yield USD (hyUSD), Reserve (RSV), Reserve Dollar (RSD), and ETH+ are some examples of stablecoins created via Reserve.
DeFi Market Snapshot
The total market value of DeFi experienced a bullish upswing following three weeks of stagnation. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView reveals a bullish week for the top 100 DeFi tokens by market capitalization, with the majority of tokens experiencing a green trading phase. Despite a surge of over $5 billion this past week, the total value locked in DeFi protocols is still under the $50 billion mark.