DeFi

Arco Protocol

Adding on the to disastrous launch of the Aptos network last month, the Arco Protocol a new cross-chain decentralised finance platform developed on the Aptos blockchain recently experienced a disastrous fundraise DEX offering which led to a temporary shutdown of the project and the loss of key industry partnerships (Celer Network, Wormhole). At press time, the core team is polling the community in order to decide whether the funds received should be returned, kept or if the project itself should be handed over to the community. Nonetheless the future for the protocol appears pretty bleak as the large majority of users are currently requesting full refund.

Blockchain.com

In response to the recent association between BitOasis and Mastercard aiming to bring digital assets to population in the Middle-East and North Africa region through a series of crypto card programs, Blockchain.com and Visa recently revealed a new key partnership which will enable US residents to pay for daily expenses using their crypto or cash balance even though from a US tax revenue standpoint this new form of debit cards still raises a lot of questions.

Team Finance

Team finance recently announced a successful $14.5M exploit of its platform and temporarily shut down all activities in order to prevent further exploits and try to get in touch with the hacker for a potential bug bounty payment. Technically speaking, the hack took advantage of a vulnerability of the Uniswap V2 to V3 migration function which hasn’t been spotted by the team during the testing phase nor during the previous external code audits raising again the question around the need for better overall code auditing and code standardisation if blockchain protocols are ever to be globally adopted.

Web3

MetaWork

MetaWork a communication and collaboration operating system for Web3 creating new standard of messaging and notifications for teams, enterprises and DAOs recently announced a new key partnership with Spheron which will enable it to build its web app in a fully decentralised manner using Spheron’s decentralised storage network.

Binance

Earlier last week, Binance announced the release of its native oracle service aiming to enable smart contracts to run on real-world inputs and outputs starting with the BNB chain ecosystem and its over 1,400 application. Furthermore, being chain-agnostic, this new oracle service will in-time integrate with other additional blockchains.

Zerion

Zerion a Web3 investing tool and crypto wallet provider which launch its native wallet earlier this year with the goal of attracting seasoned crypto users recently closed an additional $12.3 million funding round in order to continue developing additional features (pre-trade verification, vetted cryptocurrencies verification…) and become a viable alternative to Metamask for degen users.

Ecosystem

DeFi regulation

Vitalik recently publicly took part in the current debate around DeFi regulation in the US and highlighted through an extensive twitter thread that in his opinion the blockchain industry is still not quite ready for fully integrated with mainstream finance and should take more time to mature in order to not fall victim of bad regulations that would intrude on how crypto work internally.

US regulation

In line with the recent commission bid to gain more regulatory oversight over the crypto industry, Commodity Future Trading Commission’s Christy Goldsmith Romero recently pointed out that the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and its flow-on effect was a perfect example of why the agency should be given additional authority to regulate this new upcoming industry given how similar contagion risks within crypto market are to those experienced in the traditional financial system.

Market

• BTC     $20,524.50

• ETH     $1592.17

• BNB     $341,42

• ADA     $0.40

• SOL     $32.90

Sei

Sei, a Layer 1 blockchain and Alpha Venture DAO a renowned Web3 venture builder recently unveiled a new incubation program called Alpha Incubate Batch 2 aiming to support the growth of new DeFi projects.

Meta

Meta joined forces with fashion company L’Oréal and French college HEC to support startups developing Web3 technologies, including avatar development through a future accelerator program geared toward facilitating creativity in the Metaverse.

Reap

Reap a Hong-Kong based start-up recently closed a $40M funding round aiming at developing infrastructure to help facilitates payments between Web3 projects and traditional businesses.