Pepecoin Team Member Claims 'Bad Actors' Stole $15M in PEPE

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Curve founder Michael Egorov has floated a new liquidity pool on his stablecoin-focused decentralized exchange to address concerns around a possible bad debt situation and alleviate bearish sentiment in CRV tokens. The new pool, crvUSD/fFRAX, is dedicated to FraxLend's CRV/FRAX liquidity pool, from which Egorov has borrowed 15.8 million FRAX stablecoin by locking 59 million CRV as collateral. The pool has attracted over $5 million in liquidity and brought down the utilization rate in FraxLend's FRAX/CRV pool to 54.78%. The move is seen as an attempt to incentivize liquidity towards the lending market and decrease the risk of Egorov's debt spiraling out of control. Analysts say the new pool could provide more time for Egorov to repay his loan and alleviate concerns around the potential liquidation of his CRV-backed loan of 63.2 million tether (USDT) from leading and borrowing marketplace Aave. The FRAX loan has been of particular concern due to the high interest rates that can double every 12 hours, subject to the pool's utilization rate holding at 100%. The introduction of the new pool has reduced the utilization rate, bringing down the APY and providing Egorov with more time to repay the loan. The move has been welcomed by the DeFi community, with pseudonymous DeFi researcher Ignas saying that the new pool is attracting capital to the critical FRAX/CRV lending pool on Fraxlend and reducing the borrowing APY. Delphi Digital also tweeted that the new pool is an attempt to incentivize liquidity towards the lending market in order to lower utilization rates and decrease the risk of Egorov's debt spiraling out of control. So far, the pool has attracted over $5 million in liquidity and brought down the utilization rate in FraxLend's FRAX/CRV pool to 54.78%.Exactly Protocol, a decentralized credit market on the Optimism network, has been targeted by a bridge exploit worth as much as $12 million. The hacker used an exploiter contract on Ethereum that transferred deposits to Optimism before ultimately bridging stolen funds back to Ethereum, blockchain security firm De.Fi said in a tweet. The protocol's native governance token (EXA) slumped by more than 12% following the exploit as it currently trades at $5.51, per CoinMarketCap. The hack coincides with a significant downturn across the wider cryptocurrency market, with several assets including XRP, LTC and BCH leading double-digit declines as roughly $1 billion in positions were liquidated in a 24-hour period. Cross-chain bridges have become a common attack vector for hackers due to the relatively novel technology. Last year it was estimated that over $2 billion was lost to bridge hacks, according to Chainalysis.deBridge, a cross-chain bridging service, has launched DLN Trade, a cross-chain exchange offering capital-efficient and fast native trading across various blockchains. The app supports Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Fantom, BNB Chain, and Avalanche, and uses a global liquidity engine to create a decentralized order book, enabling any asset on one chain to be traded directly to any asset on another without the bottlenecks and risks of liquidity pools. This allows for unprecedented speed, capital-efficiency, and control for users, with trades protected from slippage, MEV, and the possibility of reversion, and guaranteed rates as low as 4bps. Users can also set cross-chain limit orders and cancel at any time before fulfillment. The app makes it possible for users to trade across chains without exposure to wrapped assets or liquidity pools, unlike other services on the market. Edited by Oliver Knight.The newly launched zkSync Era blockchain is seeing brisk activity as value locked on the network crossed $100 million this past weekend amid a flurry of new token releases. Data from L2Beat shows over $69 million worth of ether (ETH) and nearly $30 million in USD coin (USDC) stablecoins have been locked on zkSync. The amount is likely distributed among several zkSync-based projects for purchasing ecosystem tokens or providing liquidity to exchanges on the network. The value locked on zkSync has climbed to over $100 million. More than 3.3 million transactions have been conducted on the network since it went live on March 24. The network can process 4.4 transactions per second. The network supports 'ZK rollups,' which are a type of blockchain scaling system based on cryptography known as zero-knowledge proofs. These features are seen as a key advance in speeding up blockchain transactions and reducing the cost of network activity. Populating the zkSync ecosystem are decentralized-finance tokens, which power lending, trading, and borrowing services, and meme coins fashioned after the popular Shiba Inu dog breed. DefiLlama data shows that decentralized exchanges SyncSwap and Mute hold over $30 million in locked tokens. Mute's native MUTE tokens have a market capitalization of $47 million. SyncSwap hasn't issued tokens as of early April. Over $19 million is locked on SyncSwap's liquidity pool for USDC and ether - which is paying annualized yields of 46%, or one of the highest figures in the crypto market as of Monday. As such, meme coins are making a mark as well. DEXScreener data shows tokens such as ZKDoge, ZKInu, and ZkSync SHIB have attracted millions of dollars in trading volumes since their recent launches. Traction on these meme-coin tokens has been tepid so far, with highly volatile prices and market capitalizations of under $5 million. Some say the zkSync launch has been muted relative to the hype, however. 'The recently launched zkSync Era mainnet is a sign that the evolutionary trend in the overall blockchain ecosystem is unimpeded; however, the low number of projects building on it is a sign that the Web3.0 world isn't fully prepared to welcome this innovation for now,' Maia Benzimra, head of institutional marketing at SpoolDAO, said in a Telegram message. Benzimra added that adoption may surge quickly as and when more innovative projects are built for users. 'The trend can change within the twinkling of an eye when innovative products building solutions that address the core needs of users are designed and launched. zkSync is notably a major upgrade for addressing the scalability of the Ethereum protocol, and in no time, it is bound to find its rhythm and carve out a functional niche for itself in the ecosystem.' Edited by Parikshit Mishra.Some Aave version 2 (V2) users are temporarily unable to access their funds stuck on the decentralized exchange's deployment on the Polygon blockchain after a strategy containing a faulty bug went live last week. The issue is caused by a compatibility bug in the ReserveInterestRateStrategy contract, which is a core contract in Aave that helps calculate and apply interest rates to borrowed loans. The bug has affected tokens such as tether (USDT), bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and polygon (MATIC). However, a fix is already in place, and voting on the governance proposal is underway to update the faulty strategy. Other versions of Aave on Polygon continue to work smoothly as of Tuesday. AAVE tokens were up 2.7% in the past 24 hours, in line with a broader market jump.

deBridge, a cross-chain bridging service, has launched DLN Trade, a cross-chain exchange offering capital-efficient and fast native trading across various blockchains. The app supports Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Fantom, BNB Chain, and Avalanche, and uses a global liquidity engine to create a decentralized order book, enabling any asset on one chain to be traded directly to any asset on another without the bottlenecks and risks of liquidity pools. This allows for unprecedented speed, capital-efficiency, and control for users, with trades protected from slippage, MEV, and the possibility of reversion, and guaranteed rates as low as 4bps. Users can also set cross-chain limit orders and cancel at any time before fulfillment. The app makes it possible for users to trade across chains without exposure to wrapped assets or liquidity pools, unlike other services on the market. Edited by Oliver Knight.BNB Chain, a popular blockchain network, is set to undergo a significant upgrade on June 11 at 21:30 UTC. The upgrade, dubbed 'Luban,' will incorporate three distinct enhancements aimed at improving the network's speed and security. nnThe Luban hard fork will introduce several new features, including the 'Fast Finality' mechanism, which ensures that once a block is finalized, it cannot be reversed. This reduces the risk of chain reorganizations by malicious actors. Additionally, the upgrade will introduce 'Cross Chain Relayer Management,' which aims to mitigate potential security issues in the BSC Bridge. Finally, the 'CometBFT Light Block Validation' system will be implemented to verify specific blocks from other CometBFT-compatible blockchains and enable data transfer between them. nnThe upgrade is expected to attract investors and users to the BNB Chain ecosystem, as it will provide developers with even better features and tools to build on the network. The bnb token (BNB) will also benefit from the upgrade, as it will contribute to the value proposition for the token in the future. nnThe Luban hard fork is a significant milestone for the BNB Chain, and it demonstrates the network's commitment to improving its speed and security. The upgrade is expected to be a major boost for the blockchain ecosystem and will help to drive the adoption of the bnb token. nnIn conclusion, the Luban upgrade is a significant development for the BNB Chain, and it is expected to have a positive impact on the network's speed, security, and adoption. The upgrade will provide developers with new features and tools to build on the network, and it will contribute to the value proposition for the bnb token. The BNB Chain is set to become an even more robust and secure blockchain ecosystem with the implementation of the Luban hard fork.The Algorand Foundation, along with several other major creditors, has indicated a preference for liquidation over restructuring for troubled Singaporean crypto lender Hodlnaut. According to a court filing, the creditors have claims worth $228 million Singaporean dollars (US$170 million). The Algorand Foundation declared $35 million in exposure to Hodlnaut in September. The decision to oppose restructuring comes as Hodlnaut's judicial managers have stated that there is no 'white knight investor' for the lender, leading to an absence of fresh capital. Creditors initially indicated a preference for liquidation in January, with the Algorand Foundation stating that liquidation would 'maximize the company's remaining assets available for distribution.' The Algorand token (ALGO) is currently trading at 18 cents, having dropped by 3.34% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data.Arbitrum-based asset management protocol FactorDAO has released its much-awaited staking service, days after ending a token sale on the decentralized exchange Camelot. The move comes as the project faces rumors on Crypto Twitter alleging that part of its code was 'copied' from other crypto projects. nnFactorDAO's pseudonymous founder Kurapika has hit back on the claims, telling CoinDesk that the allegations were started by an anonymous Crypto Twitter user referring to minor documentation mistakes accidentally left in Factor's technical documents. The project's code is brand-new, and the team is not sure what 'copied code' means in an open-source environment. nnDespite the tremors, Factor has focused on releasing its staking and vaults services for users in the past week. Staking refers to locking up one's tokens to participate and help maintain the security of that network's blockchain in turn for rewards. Factor will take a percentage of the deposit, withdrawal, transaction, vault management, and performance fees and redistributes 50% to FCTR stakers, and 50% to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). nnFCTR stakers will, therefore, earn yields on staking their tokens as liquidity to the platform while the platform will use the increased liquidity to offer even more products to potential users. Users who lock tokens for up to four years will receive the highest yields, the highest percentage of governance rights, and a higher amount of vested factor (veFCTR) – a token issued to users who lock their FCTR on the staking platform. nnFCTR sees volatile trading last week, with the token launch on Camelot prompting several Arbitrum users to criticize the initial high market capitalization and overall issuance mechanism. Factor ended up raising $7.5 million from 4,000 unique wallets, but the final pool of money raised was equally distributed with the total number of issued tokens to determine the initial price of FCTR in the open market. However, these tokens were almost immediately dumped on the open market on Sunday, falling to as low as 44 cents, DEXTools data shows. Buying pressure after the initial dump saw tokens regain the pre-sale price of 75 cents on Monday morning, but have since seen a gradual sell-off to just over 58 cents at writing time on Tuesday. nnUPDATE (Feb.28, 12:11 UTC): Adds comments from Factor founder and clarifies the rumors.DWF Labs, a market maker and investment firm, has invested $16 million in Web3 company RACA to help the latter continue its goal of becoming an expansive Web3 gaming ecosystem. RACA, which was founded in 2021, has evolved from managing the NFT collection of Elon Musk's mom to a Steam-like blockchain gaming ecosystem. The funding will help RACA expand its offerings, which already include a R3 game infrastructure, a SimCity-esque sandbox game, a social party game, a cross-game DID wallet, and a NFT marketplace. DWF Labs has emerged as one of the most active investors during the crypto bear market, with recent investments including a $20 million fundraise for derivatives trading platform Synthetix and a $40 million raise for AI-focused crypto protocol Fetch.ai. The RACA token was about flat over the past 24 hours at $0.0001946 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

Multichain, one of the largest bridging protocols in the crypto ecosystem, has suspended cross-chain routes due to the unavailability of its CEO Zhaojun. The team has been unable to contact Zhaojun, who has not responded to CoinDesk via Telegram since last week, despite their best efforts to maintain the protocol. The suspension affects cross-chain bridges for Kekchain, PublicMint, Dyno Chain, Red Light Chain, Dexit, Ekta, HPB, ONUS, Omax, Findora and Planq. The team has revealed that without server access, they are unable to keep the bridges online. The development has confirmed rumors of at least one key team member going AWOL. Multichain's native token MULTI has lost nearly half its value in the past seven days, trading at around $4.11 at press time.The newly launched zkSync Era blockchain is seeing brisk activity as value locked on the network crossed $100 million this past weekend amid a flurry of new token releases. Data from L2Beat shows over $69 million worth of ether (ETH) and nearly $30 million in USD coin (USDC) stablecoins have been locked on zkSync. The amount is likely distributed among several zkSync-based projects for purchasing ecosystem tokens or providing liquidity to exchanges on the network. The value locked on zkSync has climbed to over $100 million. More than 3.3 million transactions have been conducted on the network since it went live on March 24. The network can process 4.4 transactions per second. The network supports 'ZK rollups,' which are a type of blockchain scaling system based on cryptography known as zero-knowledge proofs. These features are seen as a key advance in speeding up blockchain transactions and reducing the cost of network activity. Populating the zkSync ecosystem are decentralized-finance tokens, which power lending, trading, and borrowing services, and meme coins fashioned after the popular Shiba Inu dog breed. DefiLlama data shows that decentralized exchanges SyncSwap and Mute hold over $30 million in locked tokens. Mute's native MUTE tokens have a market capitalization of $47 million. SyncSwap hasn't issued tokens as of early April. Over $19 million is locked on SyncSwap's liquidity pool for USDC and ether - which is paying annualized yields of 46%, or one of the highest figures in the crypto market as of Monday. As such, meme coins are making a mark as well. DEXScreener data shows tokens such as ZKDoge, ZKInu, and ZkSync SHIB have attracted millions of dollars in trading volumes since their recent launches. Traction on these meme-coin tokens has been tepid so far, with highly volatile prices and market capitalizations of under $5 million. Some say the zkSync launch has been muted relative to the hype, however. 'The recently launched zkSync Era mainnet is a sign that the evolutionary trend in the overall blockchain ecosystem is unimpeded; however, the low number of projects building on it is a sign that the Web3.0 world isn't fully prepared to welcome this innovation for now,' Maia Benzimra, head of institutional marketing at SpoolDAO, said in a Telegram message. Benzimra added that adoption may surge quickly as and when more innovative projects are built for users. 'The trend can change within the twinkling of an eye when innovative products building solutions that address the core needs of users are designed and launched. zkSync is notably a major upgrade for addressing the scalability of the Ethereum protocol, and in no time, it is bound to find its rhythm and carve out a functional niche for itself in the ecosystem.' Edited by Parikshit Mishra.DeFi is rapidly emerging as the biggest loser in the ongoing cryptocurrency bear market. The total amount of capital locked on DeFi protocols dropped to its lowest point since February 2021 on Thursday as traders pull liquidity to secure higher yields that come with less risk. When DeFi burst onto the scene in 2020, many believed that the ability to borrow and lend without an intermediary was groundbreaking and that DeFi firms were about to dislodge traditional finance (TradFi) counterparts. However, DeFi's 'future of finance' narrative was soon knocked over as the wider crypto market succumbed to a bearish cycle in 2022. Interest rates continued to spike across the globe as central banks scrambled for a way to fight inflation, leading to increased yields across money market funds and mortgage funds, leaving the DeFi sector without any incentives for new capital. TradFi competition Now, Vanguard's money market fund is offering clients a yield of 5.28%, while the returns for staking Ethereum on Lido stand at just 3.3%, leaving a minimal risk to reward ratio compared to traditional finance products. This caused DeFi's fragile liquidity to run for the exits, with total value locked (TVL) across all protocols dropping from $163.5 billion in April 2022 to today's figure of $36 billion. There has been a few emerging narratives like liquid staking, tokenization of real world assets (RWAs), on-chain derivatives, and new blockchains, but none of these have been able to capture the level of appetite last seen in the summer of 2020. In that summer, it was not uncommon to see DeFi yields soar to between 18% and 35%. This yield, of course, came with a risk as hackers honed in on the sector with a series of complex exploits to part investors with their money. DeFi hacks proliferated in 2022 and 2023, with a report earlier this month describing how $212.5 million had recently been stolen in a three-week period. In 2023, there have been 297 crypto hacks, resulting in a loss of $1.89 billion, according to Money Monger's crypto heist report.GoldenTree Asset Management has moved the majority of its SUSHI token holdings, sparking fears in the Sushi community that it is exiting its position. At press time, GoldenTree's crypto wallet held just $1 million in SUSHI tokens, a precipitous drop from its nearly $7 million in exposure earlier this week. The move comes as Sushi, a decentralized exchange for trading cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain, faces fresh scrutiny from U.S. regulators. SUSHI is the governance token for Sushi DAO and gives its holders a voice in how the exchange operates. It was trading at $1.22 immediately before Tuesday's news but has fallen 11% in the days since and was around $1.08 at press time, according to CoinGecko. A GoldenTree employee who goes by MarkOKW, who last October announced the firm's SUSHI investment, didn't immediately comment. Grey declined to comment on GoldenTree's SUSHI position. On-chain activity reveals how GoldenTree has shuffled its holding in recent days. The asset manager started the week with xSUSHI tokens worth over $7 million. Then on Wednesday, it swapped 4.4 million of those tokens for 5.95 million SUSHI tokens that it had staked with Sushi. CoinDesk identified the wallets using Nansen. On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, it sent two batches of tokens valued at $5.4 million total to an address controlled by crypto trading desk Cumberland. Cumberland sent the first half to a Binance deposit address Wednesday night; the other half hadn't moved out of Cumberland's wallet at press time. Members of SUSHI's Discord server speculated the on-chain activity indicated GoldenTree had already sold its position.Despite efforts by Solana developers to discourage spammy transactions, a majority of the network's compute is still being wasted on failed trades, according to an analysis by crypto infrastructure company Jito Labs. In one recent epoch, arbitrage transactions took up 60% of overall compute space, with 98% of attempts failing. The result is wasted blockspace and capital burnt on losing trades. The issue is attributed to Solana's infrastructure, which prioritizes the first submitted transaction, creating an incentive for arbitrage bots to submit multiple duplicate transactions. Recent changes to Solana's backend, including the introduction of priority fees and local fee markets, have not effectively addressed the issue. MEV (maximal extractable value) opportunities remain, and spam transactions will persist as long as they do. Jito Foundation is building a specialty client for the Solana network that optimizes for MEV.

A bug in a token issued by decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Yearn Finance was exploited this morning, leading to millions of dollars in losses. The exploit occurred on Aave version 1, and the losses could total over $11 million, with the stolen assets being spread over U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins dai (DAI), tether (USDT), USD coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD), and tru USD (TUSD).nnAccording to security firm PeckShield, the exploit was caused by a misconfigured yUSDT token, which allowed the attacker to mint over 1.2 quadrillion yUSDT using a $10,000 initial deposit. This was then used to trick the Yearn Finance protocol into cashing out millions in stablecoins. nnAave developers have clarified that the protocol was not directly impacted and that the exploit was mainly due to the misconfigured yUSDT token. The current size of v1 is $18 million, and the current size of the Aave safety module is $382.50M. Version 2 and version 3 of Aave were not impacted at writing time. nnThe exploit is the latest in a series of high-profile hacks and exploits in the cryptocurrency space, with over $67 million in crypto lost to hacks and exploits in February alone, according to a report by Immunefi. nnThe incident highlights the risks associated with decentralized finance and the importance of proper security measures to protect against exploits and hacks. It also underscores the need for ongoing monitoring and updates to ensure the security of DeFi protocols and their users.A rise in open interest shows more participation from crypto traders and a bullish market sentiment, a trading firm said.Open interest in bitcoin (BTC) across crypto derivatives exchanges has surged to $10 billion, a five-month high after leverage subsided in the wake of FTX's collapse in November, according to data from Coinalyze.A rise in open interest, which is a metric that assesses the value of all unsettled derivatives positions, alongside an increase in price is often used to confirm the legitimacy of a move. At the time of writing, bitcoin was trading at around $30,000 after it surged to a 10-month high of $30,540 on Tuesday.Zahreddine Touag, head of trading at Woorton, a crypto trading firm and liquidity provider, said that bitcoin broke out in a 'global risk-on environment,' with the Nasdaq also rising by 10% in the last 30 days.'We think this move is driven by technicals, BTC broke a major resistance at $28.5k and rebounded on its 2023 bullish trendline,' Touag said.'We noticed futures open interest has been moving up vertically which shows more participation from crypto traders and a bullish market sentiment,' he added.'For now, we do not see signs of extreme exuberance; indeed, the fear and greed index is at 61, funding rates are still negative on many exchanges for BTC while short-sellers did not capitulate yet. We will monitor these metrics to predict a potential trend reversal.'It's worth noting that an increase in open interest means that whilst short-sellers have added to their shorts in this region, traders betting on long trades are doing so with leverage that may unwind if price begins to reverse.A total of $98 million in crypto derivatives positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours as bitcoin momentarily slipped below $30,000, according to CoinGlass.UPDATE (April 10, 2023, 20:03 UTC): Updates quote attribution.Edited by Parikshit Mishra.DeFi is rapidly emerging as the biggest loser in the ongoing cryptocurrency bear market. The total amount of capital locked on DeFi protocols dropped to its lowest point since February 2021 on Thursday as traders pull liquidity to secure higher yields that come with less risk. When DeFi burst onto the scene in 2020, many believed that the ability to borrow and lend without an intermediary was groundbreaking and that DeFi firms were about to dislodge traditional finance (TradFi) counterparts. However, DeFi's 'future of finance' narrative was soon knocked over as the wider crypto market succumbed to a bearish cycle in 2022. Interest rates continued to spike across the globe as central banks scrambled for a way to fight inflation, leading to increased yields across money market funds and mortgage funds, leaving the DeFi sector without any incentives for new capital. TradFi competition Now, Vanguard's money market fund is offering clients a yield of 5.28%, while the returns for staking Ethereum on Lido stand at just 3.3%, leaving a minimal risk to reward ratio compared to traditional finance products. This caused DeFi's fragile liquidity to run for the exits, with total value locked (TVL) across all protocols dropping from $163.5 billion in April 2022 to today's figure of $36 billion. There has been a few emerging narratives like liquid staking, tokenization of real world assets (RWAs), on-chain derivatives, and new blockchains, but none of these have been able to capture the level of appetite last seen in the summer of 2020. In that summer, it was not uncommon to see DeFi yields soar to between 18% and 35%. This yield, of course, came with a risk as hackers honed in on the sector with a series of complex exploits to part investors with their money. DeFi hacks proliferated in 2022 and 2023, with a report earlier this month describing how $212.5 million had recently been stolen in a three-week period. In 2023, there have been 297 crypto hacks, resulting in a loss of $1.89 billion, according to Money Monger's crypto heist report.The total crypto market capitalization rose, with dogecoin (DOGE) leading gains among major tokens. Hopes surrounding a potential U.S. Bitcoin ETF filing by investment giant BlackRock fueled a bullish sentiment among some traders early Friday. Bitcoin regained the $25,500 level to erase declines of the past two days, when it fell to as low as $24,860. The move provided some respite to major tokens such as Polygon Network’s MATIC and Cardano’s ADA, which eased some losses from a two-day slide. Dogecoin (DOGE) led gains among major tokens with a 4% move in the past 24 hours; litecoin added (LTC) added 3.3%. On Thursday, CoinDesk reported that BlackRock planned to offer a Bitcoin ETF with crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) serving as custodian. This was confirmed later after a filing showed the company’s iShares fund management unit filed paperwork for the formation of a spot bitcoin (BTC) ETF. 'An estimated 20% of Americans have now owned bitcoin at some point. BlackRock’s proposed ETF potentially offers the other 80% an option that is altogether more familiar and accessible,' said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, in an email to CoinDesk. 'BlackRock’s increasing engagement shows Bitcoin continues to be an asset of interest for some of the world’s largest financial institutions.' As such, the market strength of bitcoin impacted shorts – or bets against the currency – the asset with BTC-tracked futures seeing over $16 million in short liquidations in the past 24 hours. This figure was smaller than usual due to large declines in the past week, causing some traders to risk less capital than they normally would. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has previously rejected other attempts by fund managers at listing a spot bitcoin ETF, including those from Grayscale, VanEck, and WisdomTree. However, the stature of BlackRock could make it difficult for the SEC to reject this application – which some say could fuel an outsized bitcoin rally if approved.The price of LQTY, the secondary token for decentralized borrowing protocol Liquity, has gained massive interest following the chaos from the depegging of the second largest stablecoin by market capitalization, Circle's USDC. The price of LQTY was up nearly 20% in the past 24 hours, placing it among the best-performing crypto assets for the period. Moreover, LQTY has soared nearly 500% since the start of the year and was trading around $3.33 at presstime. The most recent price action came after investors balked at Circle's USDC stablecoin, leading to a win for Liquity, a decentralized platform for taking out loans denominated in the protocol's primary token, LUSD. Liquity's LUSD has seen the upside, with a 10% jump in wallets holding the stablecoin since March 6, indicative of a new stablecoin narrative following the depegging of USDC. Liquity allows users to deposit ether (ETH) into the protocol as collateral and take out loans denominated in U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin LUSD. Instead of charging a variable interest rate for drawing loans, Liquity has a 0% interest rate, charging users a one-time fee. With a total value locked (TVL) of $683 million, according to data aggregator DeFiLlama, Liquity has generated $30 million in lifetime revenue. As of March 11, users have borrowed almost $4.5 billion LUSD, according to a dune dashboard created by a Liquity developer. Currently, more than 52 million LQTY worth about $184 million has been staked, which represents 52% of the total supply of LQTY, per blockchain explorer Etherscan. Binance, which opened up trading for spot trading pairs LQTY/BTC and LQTY/USDT on Feb. 28, currently owns roughly 11.57% of the total LQTY supply, data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen shows.

Investors Track Pepecoin Whales to Cash In on Meme Coin Mania as Wider Market Stagnates

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DWF Labs, a market maker and investment firm, has invested $16 million in Web3 company RACA to help the latter continue its goal of becoming an expansive Web3 gaming ecosystem. RACA, which was founded in 2021, has evolved from managing the NFT collection of Elon Musk's mom to a Steam-like blockchain gaming ecosystem. The funding will help RACA expand its offerings, which already include a R3 game infrastructure, a SimCity-esque sandbox game, a social party game, a cross-game DID wallet, and a NFT marketplace. DWF Labs has emerged as one of the most active investors during the crypto bear market, with recent investments including a $20 million fundraise for derivatives trading platform Synthetix and a $40 million raise for AI-focused crypto protocol Fetch.ai. The RACA token was about flat over the past 24 hours at $0.0001946 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.GMX, the largest protocol on Arbitrum, has announced its integration with Chainlink's low-latency pricing oracles to enhance its derivatives and perpetual swap exchange. The move marks a shift towards low-latency trading in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, as trading firms and hedge funds require faster platforms to execute sophisticated trading strategies without delays. The integration follows a community vote, with over 96% of votes approving the integration and 2 million GMX tokens being used to vote. The low-latency oracles will help mitigate the risks of front-running and bring the industry one step closer to the performance level currently existing outside of it. GMX contributors have been working with Chainlink Labs since last year on the specifications of the new oracles. The total value locked (TVL) on Arbitrum is at $2.1 billion, with $567 million of that value from GMX, according to DefiLlama data. The surge in GMX's native token has seen a 78% increase since the turn of the year, as capital continues to flow to Arbitrum-based protocols.

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Cross-chain router protocol Multichain has been exploited for nearly $130 million after an attacker siphoned capital out of numerous token bridges. The lockup assets on the Multichain MPC address have been moved to an unknown address abnormally, with the team not sure what happened and currently investigating. It is recommended that all users suspend the use of Multichain services and revoke all contract approvals related to Multichain. The unexpected outflows stripped Multichain’s Fantom bridge of nearly its entire holdings in wBTC, USDC, USDT and a handful of altcoins, worth over $130 million. On-chain sleuths described the activity as highly unusual, with Fantom Foundation CEO Michael Kong looking into it. Multichain has been under pressure for over a month due to failing tech and its AWOL CEO. The trio of unexplained outflows from Multichain’s Fantom, Moonriver and Dogecoin bridge contracts sparked fears on crypto Twitter that a hack could be afoot. Binance CEO Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao said that the exploit does not affect users on Binance itself, with assets swapped out and deposits closed a while back. Assets transferred out of the Multichain Fantom bridge include at least $20 million of altcoins going to 0x9d57, with other transfers seeing outbound moves of 1,023 wBTC ($30.9 million), 7,214 wETH ($13.6 million), and $57 million USDC between two separate addresses. Multichain’s Moonriver bridge contract has seen $6.8 million in token outflows with nearly all its wBTC, USDT, USDC and DAI going to 0x48BeAD. An address identified as Mulitchain’s Dogecoin bridge has seen over $600,000 in outflows of USDC. UPDATE (July 7, 2023, 09:17 UTC): Updates headline and adds context on the exploit throughout.Coco, a new crypto casino inspired by the Milady NFT project, has made a cracking debut on the Ethereum blockchain. According to etherscan data, the platform's native token (COCO) has surged to 8 cents, giving it a market capitalization of $8.8 million. The casino has already hit $36 million in transaction volume in the first 12 hours after its release. nnThe platform features a slot machine focused on popular memecoins pepe (PEPE) and dogecoin (DOGE), as well as three traditional casino table games in blackjack, baccarat, and casino hold'em. Coco brands itself as 'provably fair,' using the SHA256 algorithm to ensure that each game is tamper-proof. nnThe success of Coco has also had an impact on other crypto casinos, with Rollbit's native token (RLB) rising to 7 cents from 2 cents. The stable market this month has led to increased traction for crypto casinos like Rollbit and Coco. nnHowever, VanEck CEO Gabor Gurbacs does not think that Bitcoin ETFs will be approved by the SEC in May. He believes that the 'dominant narrative' driving Bitcoin's 2024 rally is not the ETFs, but rather the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies and the growth of decentralized finance. nnMeanwhile, the supply of inactive Bitcoin for a year has dropped to an 18-month low, according to Glassnode. This could be a sign that the current Bitcoin rally may continue after the halving. nnIn other news, Eisenberg's $110 million fraud trial has opened, and the Foundation for the Study of Innovative Technologies (FSI) has called for consistency in stablecoin regulation. nnAs the wider crypto market continues to stagnate with a lack of volatility, crypto traders are frequently turning their attention to on-chain betting platforms like last week's phenomenon; hamster racing. The success of Coco and Rollbit suggests that crypto casinos may be the next big thing in the cryptocurrency space.

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Pepecoin, one of the biggest meme coins of 2023, has been plagued by internal conflicts and 'bad actors' on the team, according to a recent tweet from a developer. The team member claimed that millions of dollars worth of PEPE tokens were stolen from the project's multisig wallet and sold on crypto exchanges, causing a nearly 20% slide in the token's value. The developer also stated that the project will be fully decentralized in the months ahead and that they plan to burn the remaining tokens from the multisig wallet. The incident has raised concerns about the limited liquidity and the concentration of tokens in the hands of a few investors, known as 'whales', who hold up to 25% of the currently circulating supply. Analysts have repeatedly warned about the risks of such a centralized ownership structure and the potential for a 'high-stakes game of music chairs'.Crypto traders are turning to over-the-counter (OTC) markets to source elusive liquidity following a regulatory crackdown that has resulted in a substantial decrease in market depth on centralized exchanges. OTC demand has been steadily on the rise since the collapse of FTX in November, with subsequent spikes being attributed to the collapse of several crypto lenders last year and more recently the SEC's decision to sue Binance. Market depth is a metric that measures liquidity by assessing how much capital would be required to move an asset in either direction, typically measured at a spread of 2%. Last month, Jane Street and Jump, two prominent market makers, announced that they were at very least reducing their trading activity, compounding the liquidity woes that had been felt since FTX's collapse. As a result, the OTC market, which allows traders to conduct large transactions without needing to go to an exchange, looks to be becoming more prevalent. We've been receiving a lot more [OTC] demand, spreads are tight due to daily recurring flow we have on both sides from payment providers, brokers and algorithmic traders. This trend is eerily reminiscent of the time after Mt Gox, the largest crypto exchange at the time, got hacked and subsequently ceased operations in 2014. Despite the largest exchange falling, the demand for digital assets continued, with peer-to-peer markets on exchanges like LocalBitcoins emerging as the champions of the 2014 bear market. But as crypto continued to thrust itself into the world of traditional finance, the stature of firms getting involved in the industry began to notably increase. By 2020, counterparties would no longer be an arbitrage trader on LocalBitcoins, and publicly-listed companies like MicroStrategy dealt directly with Nasdaq-listed exchange Coinbase. This week the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, filed for a spot bitcoin ETF as it attempts to create a secure investment vehicle for funds and trading firms to gain crypto exposure. But until that is approved by the increasingly combative SEC, traders will have to turn back to OTC deals.