Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. DeFi will be in focus during the inaugural Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) tech advisory meeting, where a panel will “explore issues in decentralized finance.” Polygon, a layer-2 scaling protocol for Ethereum, has launched a zero-knowledge decentralized identity solution to the public nearly a year after announcing its development. The cryptocurrency phishing scammer behind some of the most high-profile and high-value Web3 thefts claims to have packed up shop, saying it was “time to …

Bitcoin (BTC), the original cryptocurrency with the largest market cap, continues to lead the crypto market — to both the green and red. Even though the crypto space gave birth to quite a few projects, the rest of the herd is no match for the brainchild of Satoshi Nakamoto for financial transactions. The unique unspent transaction output (UTXO) model used for the Bitcoin blockchain enables BTC to act much like a paper currency, resulting in superior security and robustness as a peer-to-peer currency. Especially compared to the bank-account-like model that Ethereum-based DeFi solutions typically adopt. As the pioneering cryptocurrency, Bitcoin …

On Episode 10 of Cointelegraph’s Hashing It Out podcast, Celo president Rene Reinsberg joins Elisha Owusu Akyaw (GhCryptoGuy) to discuss the regenerative finance (ReFi) movement, which focuses on the building blocks of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the principles of regenerative economics. Reinsberg also explains how Celo intends to stay relevant in the multichain world of layer-1 blockchains and layer-2 networks. The blockchain world is getting crowded, with multiple layer-1 blockchains launching and layer-2 networks becoming more popular. Reinsberg said the layer-1 Celo blockchain is not worried about the increase in options for users — instead, it sees it as an …

Venture capital has long been the go-to method for crypto projects looking for funding during the peak of a bull cycle. However, as the bear market of 2022 extended, the amount invested by crypto venture capital funds dwindled, showing a clear need for a self-sustained funding system for the blockchain space. A Cointelegraph Research report shows that while 2022 saw more capital inflow to crypto projects in total, there’s a clear decline on monthly funding charts after May 2022 — or the time of the Terra ecosystem collapse. Web3 and crypto projects lacking access to VC funds need ways to …

From the massive fall of Bitcoin’s (BTC) price to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, 2022 was full of upheaval for the blockchain industry. But the blockchain community has always been resilient, finding new ways to develop in the most challenging times. A striking example of optimism and growth is the development of the GameFi industry, which combines gaming, decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse. In 2021, GameFi became a growth leader in the crypto space, with successful projects like Gala Games, Decentraland, The Sandbox and Axie Infinity. The GameFi sector has continued to develop, attracting more …

Trading platform Robinhood has launched its Web3 wallet on Apple’s App Store, becoming available to iOS users in over 130 countries. Robinhood shared the news in a Mar. 1 post, stating that users would no longer need to sit on a waitlist to access the new multi-chain, self-custody wallet. It added that it will be supported on Android “later this year.” #RobinhoodWallet is now available to everyone with iOS: https://t.co/yUdL8jCgJN pic.twitter.com/q7RIWBJUIT — Johann Kerbrat (@JohannKerbrat) March 1, 2023 Since the beta launch of the Robinhood Wallet in September, the trading platform integrated Ethereum — in addition to already supporting Polygon …

The cryptocurrency phishing scammer behind some of the most high-profile and high-value Web3 thefts is claiming to have packed up shop and is “moving on to something better.” The scammer by the pseudonym Monkey Drainer posted to their Telegram channel on Mar. 1 that they “will be shutting down immediately” and all “files, servers and devices” related to the drainer “will be destroyed immediately” and it “will not return.” The scammer even gave advice to budding “young cyber criminals” saying they shouldn’t “lose themselves in the pursuit of easy money” and only those “with the highest level of dedication” should …

Polygon, a layer-2 scaling protocol for Ethereum has launched a zero-knowledge decentralized identity solution, Polygon ID to the public nearly a year after announcing its development. The service uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) that use cryptographic techniques to allow users to verify their identity online without having their sensitive information passed, or potentially stored with a third party. The public release of Polygon ID by Polygon Labs on Mar. 1 comes almost 12 months after it was officially launched in a closed-source environment in late March 2022, which the Polygon team says was built to “solve the issue of digital …

The United States commodities regulator is set to take a close look at the decentralized finance (DeFi) space at an upcoming meeting of its tech committee, where it has also invited crypto industry executives to present. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) stated on Mar. 1 that the agenda for its Mar. 22 meeting of its Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) will include a panel on “exploring issues in decentralized finance.” Other panels will explore responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) development and possible threats arising from AI along with cybersecurity threats to financial markets. CFTC commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero said in a …

Attacks on bridge technology in 2022 led to the theft of $2.5 billion from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, according to a report by Token Terminal. While this could have been a setback for many projects and, thus, for the crypto space, it seems to be fueling infrastructure and security developments. At the ETH Denver 2023, Web3 protocol Koii Labs and software company Idexo announced a new middleware bridge to advance deployments on-chain with "just a few lines of code," Cointelegraph exclusively learned from the teams. The solution aims not only to improve security and speed up deployments, but also to …

Opportunity cost, explained Opportunity cost is a concept in economics that refers to the value of the next best alternative that is forgone when making a choice — i.e., the cost of the best alternative that is not chosen. Consider the scenario when you have a limited budget and are debating between buying a new laptop or going on vacation. The value of the vacation you could have taken with the same amount of money would be the opportunity cost if you decide to buy the laptop. Similarly, if you decide to take the vacation, the opportunity cost would be …

A central focus for many in the Web3 community has been improving identity solutions available to consumers. Last year the emergence of soulbound tokens (SBT) introduced a new way for users to define themselves. Although the SBT hype quieted over the last months, they have not disappeared off the scene. On Mar. 1, the SBT protocol Masa Finance announced that it will deploy on the carbon-negative Celo blockchain to create a new identity solution. More than 10 million wallets active in the Celo ecosystem will be able to generate a Masa “Prosperity Passport.” This new Web3 identity solution allows users …