Web3 infrastructure firm Jump Crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Oasis.app have conducted a “counter exploit” on the Wormhole protocol hacker, with the duo managing to claw back $225 million worth of digital assets and transfer them to a safe wallet. The Wormhole attack occurred in February 2022 and saw roughly $321 million worth of Wrapped ETH (wETH) siphoned via a vulnerability in the protocol’s token bridge. The hacker has since shifted around the stolen funds through various Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dApps), and via Oasis, they recently opened up a Wrapped Staked ETH (wstETH) vault on Jan. 23, and a …

Crypto lending platform MakerDAO is voting on a new proposal to bring another commercial bank into its ecosystem, strengthening the connection between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance. As per MakerDAO's governance forum, Cogent Bank, a Florida commercial bank, is proposing to participate with $100 million in loans to MakerDAO's RWA Master Participation Trust. Maker Governance votes on 4 Governance Polls within the current monthly governance cycle. What's being voted on and what are the implications? Recap, here. ↓ pic.twitter.com/YivsBJHpHv — Maker (@MakerDAO) February 17, 2023 The proposal is part of MakerDAO's monthly governance cycle, and seeks the same terms …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has started ramping up its crackdown on the crypto industry and recent enforcement actions had a negative impact on crypto prices last week and at the start of this week. The SEC is focusing on stablecoin issuers. The most recent SEC stablecoin crackdown was on Feb. 13 through the issuance of a Wells Notice to Paxos Trust Company, the issuer of Binance USD (BUSD). While Paxos denies that BUSD is a security, which would place it outside the SEC’s jurisdiction, some lawyers say the answer is not so simple, which creates fear …

The damages caused by the fall of major crypto ecosystems in the last year are on a path of steady recovery as good actors take proactive measures to rebuild trust among investors. Major players from the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem came together to showcase the incentive behind operating trustless, interoperable and permissionless platforms. For 24-hrs from Feb.6 to 7, over 30 DeFi protocols joined in an initiative to “permissionlessly” share tweets from other protocols — thus highlighting the permissionless and interoperable nature of Web3. Projects participating in this campaign include Yearn, MakerDAO, SushiSwap and Aave, among others. An experiment in …

The death of four crypto billionaires within a month has caught the crypto community's attention. These deaths occurred under suspicious circumstances, and more importantly, some of these billionaires have raised alarms about being in danger. 4 crypto billionaires dead in the span of a month. Just before, and during the FTX collapse. Too strange sound ... pic.twitter.com/ubtpweiJcw — Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 9, 2023 The death spiral started towards the end of October when Nikolai Mushegian, the co-founder of MakerDAO, was found dead on a Puerto Rican beach just hours after tweeting that intelligence agencies were after him. The …

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. The end of 2022 saw the least value of stolen funds from DeFi, with $62 million worth of exploits in December. While the figure might seem a relief given the multiple bridge hacks and hundreds of millions of dollars stolen this year, cybersecurity experts have warned that the ecosystem would see no decrease in exploits, flash loans or exit scams in 2023. Lido protocol overtook MakerDAO to have the highest total value locked (TVL) …

Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and the crypto market had a rough 2022 from a price perspective, but traders are hopeful that 2023 will include bullish developments that push crypto prices higher. Despite the market-wide downturn, a handful of altcoins continued to make a positive contribution to the crypto space and thanks to Ethereum, the term altcoin is no longer a derogatory term. Let’s explore the top altcoins that made a difference in 2022. Ethereum fundamentals shone in 2022 Ether’s price hit a yearly high at $3,835 on Jan. 2 and has struggled to regain footing amidst the bear market and …

The MakerDAO Risk Core Unit, a key group within the MakerDAO governance system, submitted an urgent request today to change collateral parameters for the DAOs stablecoin, DAI. Primoz, a member of the Risk Core Unit team, posted the request to the MakerDAO Forum. “In light of recent events in the crypto ecosystem and surrounding uncertainty regarding financial stability and asset liquidity of various entities and their possible relations with token governed protocols, we are proposing following temporary emergency measures” The message proposed that the debt ceiling for MATIC, LINK, YFI, renBTC vaults should be reduced by the following amounts: MATIC: …

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. The first week of November proved to be the institutionalization of DeFi markets as major international banks and financial institutions executed and completed their first DeFi transaction. The global financial giant JP Morgan completed its first-ever cross-border transaction using DeFi on a public blockchain with the help of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian. DBS Bank started a trading test of foreign exchange (FX) and government securities using permissioned DeFi liquidity pools. …

Nikolai Mushegian, a co-founder of the cryptocurrency lending platform MakerDAO and the decentralized Dai (DAI) stablecoin, was found dead in Puerto Rico last week. Mushegian died due to drowning after being dragged by sea currents on the Condado beach in San Juan, the local newspaper El Nuevo Día reported. Mushegian had no vital signs by the time his body was rescued. The Condado beach is considered one of the world’s most dangerous places for swimmers, reportedly taking the lives of at least eight people in 2021. The unfortunate event was reported to local authorities on the morning on Oct. 28. …

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. After the Mango Markets exploit last week, Compound protocol paused the supply of four tokens as lending collateral to protect it against any price manipulation. Crypto staking protocol Freeway said one of its trading strategies “appears to have failed,” forcing the firm to halt services earlier this week. October continues to be dominated by DeFi hacks as another DeFi lockup protocol, Team Finance, lost $14.5 million during contract migration, despite an audit clearance. MakerDAO …

Institutional prime broker platform for crypto assets Coinbase Prime announced on Oct 24th that it had entered into a partnership with MakerDAO — the largest single holder of USDC — to become a custodian of $1.6 billion worth of the stablecoin. The MakerDAO community voted to approve this custodianship which will allow its community to earn a 1.5% reward on its USDC while holding funds with a leading institutional custodian. The program described the following yield schedule for the USDC onboarded by @MakerDAO: • 1% APY on the first 100 million USDC. • 0.1% more APY on each 100 million …