Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s Decentralized Finance (DeFi) newsletter.
In a week in which Rari Capital achieved the USD 1 billion TVL milestone, read on to find out why OlympusDAO is getting four-figure sums on its most popular protocol.
What you are about to read is a shorter and more concise version of the newsletter. For a full rundown of DeFi developments over the past week, subscribe below.
Celsius Network raises USD 400 million to expand institutional service
Cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network announced a $ 400 million equity fundraiser this week led by Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et location du Québec (CDPQ) and equity firm WestCap, leading to the valuation. of the company to more than USD 3 billion.
The firm has expressed its intentions to use the funds in a twofold strategy: improving its institutional offering of products and services, as well as doubling the workforce to nearly 1,000 employees worldwide.
Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky revealed to Cointelegraph the financial impact the platform is having on the loan sector:
“With more than $ 25 billion in assets and more than $ 850 million in return paid to more than 1.1 million users, Celsius has delivered 10 times more returns to the crypto community than any other lender”
This funding news coincides with increased political scrutiny for crypto lending platforms in the United States. In September of this year, Celsius encountered legislative resistance from the Texas State Securities Board and the New Jersey Office of Securities, which threatened to terminate activity due to the alleged sale of unregistered securities.
Despite this, Celsius has consistently maintained its innocence of wrongdoing and has been willing to communicate and cooperate with regulatory agencies.
Rari Capital breaks USD billion in TVL
The DeFi Rari Capital protocol surpassed $ 1 billion in total locked value (TVL) this week to hit an all-time high of $ 1.225 billion, based on analytical data from the DeFi Pulse rating platform.
The eight-figure total marks a monumental increase of $ 500 million two weeks ago and just $ 100 million three months ago. Launched in July 2020, Rari provides an automated performance optimization strategy to participants in the DeFi space looking to ensure the highest possible return on their investment.
Several of its liquidity pools have attracted notable attention for their lucrative returns, such as the USDC deposits, which offer a 21.67% APY, and the Dai pool, which offers 26.43% APY.
Despite these above-average returns compared to the industry standard, it has been the OlympusDAO within the Fuse Protocol’s Tetranode’s Locker that has really stolen the headlines in recent months.
OlympusDAO is an algorithm-centric rebilling model whereby token balances fluctuate over time based on changes in token price and circulating supply.. At the time of writing this article, the OlympusDAO sOHM token is producing a large APY of 7.594%.
The growing volume of DeFi in North America
Monthly cryptocurrency transaction volume in the North America region expanded 1,000% over a one-year period from July 2020 to June 2021 under the burgeoning DeFi sector according to data released this week by the analytics platform. Chainalysis.
The Geography of Cryptocurrency Report revealed that monthly volume peaked at $ 164 billion during May 2021 before dropping to $ 100 billion in June. Furthermore, DeFi transactions equaled 37% of the region’s total volume at USD 276 billion.
David Gogel, growth leader at decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX, commented on the findings that the higher volume on record was driven by retail consumers:
“Right now, DeFi is targeting crypto insiders. They are people who have been in the industry for a while and have sufficient funds to experiment with new assets. “
Token returns
Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total locked value has risen 8.11% during the week to a figure of $ 146.89 billion.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the top 100 DeFi tokens by realized market capitalization varied over the past seven days.
The Perpetual Protocol (PERP) secured the top spot on the podium with a respectable 29.7%. RenBTC (renBTC) came in second at 6.03%, while Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) came in a close third at 6.00%.
Thanks for reading our roundup of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, ideas, and education in this dynamically moving space.
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