Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential insights into decentralized finance (DeFi) – a newsletter designed to bring you the most important developments from the past week.
The Ethereum liquid restaking initiatives in the first quarter of 2024 played a significant role in driving the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols to over $100 million. Leading the DeFi TVL resurgence are protocols like Lido and EigenLayer.
On April 15, Solana developers released a patch to address the prolonged network congestion on the blockchain. They have promised more patches in the near future to ensure the network returns to normalcy.
According to recent research, the TVL in decentralized finance nearly doubled in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous quarter, thanks in part to Ethereum liquid restaking initiatives. DefiLlama reports that the TVL surged from a low of $36 billion in Q4 2023 to almost $97 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Since the beginning of the year, it has increased by 81%, reaching a two-year high of $98 billion last week.
Homium, a home equity line of credit (HELOC) tokenization protocol built on Avalanche, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Sorenson Impact Group and Blizzard. Avalanche stated in an announcement on April 15 that Homium introduces shared appreciation home equity loans, allowing homeowners to borrow against their home equity without increasing their monthly debt burden.
To address the ongoing network congestion on the Solana blockchain, Solana developers have released a mainnet beta update, v1.17.31. After three days of testing, it is now recommended for general use by mainnet beta validators. This update aims to resolve network congestion issues and will be followed by further enhancements in v1.18. It also helps improve issues with the open interest jump.
Pseudonymous blockchain investigator ZachXBT has warned about a group of scammers who are attempting to defraud individuals using millions of stolen funds. In a thread on X, ZachXBT disclosed the findings of an investigation into Leaper Finance, a lending protocol based on Blast. The group behind the protocol is responsible for multiple rug pulls, including those that affected users of Magnate ($6.5 million), Kokomo ($4 million), Solfire ($4.8 million), and Lendora.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView indicates that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bearish week, with most trading in the red on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols fell below $90 billion.
Thank you for reading our summary of this week’s most significant DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights, and education on this rapidly advancing space.