This Week in DeFi – April 15

To the DeFi community,

This week Uniswap Labs announced risk unit, which will invest in promising web3 projects. Uniswap Labs also plans to actively participate in the governance of the projects in which it invests. Unrelated to the risk unit, Uniswap also released a widget this week to make it easier for users to trade tokens on the web. The widget is already available on OpenSea, Oasis and FWB.

1/

🚀 Nice to launch @Uniswap Labs Ventures, which will invest in innovative projects and businesses building in Web3 https://t.co/VdXQpyfxQU

— hayden.eth 🦄 (@haydenzadams) April 11, 2022

Near Protocol could take market share from UST, setting an April 20 launch date for its new USN stablecoin – with an interest rate of around 20%. The project appears to be modeled after Terra’s stablecoin and Anchor UST protocol, which offered similar incentives until recent changes to sustainability.

Zoran Kole revealed in “The Future is NEAR” that Near will announce the launch of the USN stablecoin on April 20, which will offer an annual interest rate of around 20%, modeled on the UST. Additionally, Near will be listed on Coinbase in the coming months. https://t.co/K7BPoEC4wp

– Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 8, 2022

Centralized crypto lending platform Nexo has launched the first crypto-funded bank card that allows users to spend crypto without selling it. Instead of selling the crypto directly to fiat during a purchase, the back-end of the card instead borrows fiat against the crypto used for the purchase.

the #NexoCard is here!

Welcome the only card that allows you to spend the value of your #crypto without selling it!#Hodl while you spend with the one-of-a-kind Nexo Card linked directly to your Instant Crypto line of credit!

Get yours now!
1/2https://t.co/saMvEgcgMg

—Nexo (@Nexo) April 13, 2022

The Volt protocol has raised $2 million for an “Inflation Resistant Stablecoin” – perhaps the first such innovation. Volt’s stablecoin will track the CPI-U consumer price index, via a Chainlink oracle.

1/ We just co-led the $2 million funding round for @VoltProtocolan inflation-resistant stablecoin protocol that uses CPI data mined from the chain via @Chain link.

Basically, we think Volt could give users the ability to maintain purchasing power in times of inflation.

One 🧵👇 https://t.co/Mv6LPnIHnl

— Framework Ventures (@hiFramework) April 11, 2022

Central banks have continued to move closer to crypto over the past week, with a very interesting notion introduced by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): “Does safe DeFi require CBDCs? “. An integration of CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) into the DeFi world as we know it would present a fascinating mix of two antithetical worlds, but also open up some very exciting possibilities. Imagine a DeFi world where no fiat gateway is required – just send your daily CBDC dollars to a smart contract and start lending or producing instantly.

Of course, it might not be that simple. In all likelihood, governments will attempt to keep CBDCs on a leash, either by whitelisting “decentralized” apps to allow CBDCs to be integrated as they see fit, or by other means. In any case, it will be a strange concept to see the traditional financial system spill over into DeFi – in any capacity.

Perhaps inevitably, we will end up with two separate crypto ecosystems: A walled, government-sanctioned “DeFi” ecosystem that captures CBDC activity and verified wallets. On the other hand, we will have the far west of DeFi, where anything goes – and without central bank influence. While “mainstream” finance and real crypto may become more similar than ever, there is also likely to be an increase in disconnection between the two worlds, as CBDCs shut down more real crypto gateways than they do. do it today.

Thanks to our partner:

Total value locked: $76.67 billion (down 3.90% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $120.94 billion (down 11.49%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $18 billion (up 5.88%)

AID Provide: 8.79B (down 2.01%)

[Uniswap Team – Uniswap Blog] – Uniswap Drop Swap Widget

[Jordan Finneseth – Cointelegraph] – Indicators flash higher on COTI ahead of the launch of its mainnet and stablecoin Djed

[Cameron Thompson – CoinDesk] – DEX Aggregator 1inch expands to Fantom Network

[Osato Avan-Nomayo – The Block] – Ethereum Push Notification Service Raises $10M in Series A Funding

Alejandro is a blockchain writer and consultant who has been involved in the space since early 2016. Extremely passionate about this emerging technology, he has written content for a myriad of projects and media outlets.