Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) exploded into popular consciousness in the first half of 2021. In particular, the art world really began to take notice of this asset class, which allows for clear ownership of a unique virtual item.  Whether it was the digital artist Beeple selling his NFT piece for more than $60 million, Covid Alien…

Ethereum gas prices spiked on Sunday as collectors, bots and apes raced to get their hands on newly launched NFT projects.  Gas fees, which briefly hit 600 gwei on Sunday due to demand, were reminiscent of a time when triple-digit gas fees were the norm. Gas fees for minting an NFT cost around $160. Yet,…

Just 40 days after Ethereum’s hashrate hit an all-time high, the key metric has plunged 17% in the last 10 days, according to data from Glassnode, a blockchain and intelligence provider. That’s the worst drop in a 10-day span in Ethereum’s history. The cause: China, probably. Ever since the Chinese government in May started warning…

Welcome to the first Global Digital Finance x The Defiant column, bringing you the stories and discussions that have caught our eye this month.  From market infrastructure to institutional investors to the digitalization of private markets, we’ll look at how decentralization is reshaping traditional finance. .  ETPs showing that Digital assets are ‘here to stay’ Bitcoin-indexed…

Refund is a word rarely heard in DeFi. So is redemption. Malt protocol is an algorithmic stablecoin that launched two weeks ago on the Polygon network. After an explosive launch, bugs in the smart contracts caused the MALT stablecoin to lose its peg and left many users unable to withdraw their funds. The protocol was…

It’s a he said-she said scenario, and it’s about more than $74M in ETH. Stakehound, a service which gives users a synthetic asset to trade for their staked Ether, has accused Fireblocks, a digital asset security firm, of losing 38,178 ETH. The Ether, worth $74.4M at the time of writing, is staked in the ETH…

Where’s the bottom? That’s the vital question investors are asking with ETH down almost 18% in the last 30 days, and with other major Ethereum-based DeFi tokens nosediving as much as 57% in the same time span.  Clear Deviations The one bright spot is that this week hasn’t been quite as brutal as the horrorshow…

This is a weekly tutorial on the most compelling opportunities in yield farming, written by our friend DeFi Dad, an advisor to The Defiant. The goal is to expose more Defiant readers to new DeFi applications and their associated liquidity mining programs. Background on Protocol: If there’s one word to describe crypto markets, it is…

The explosion of activity in DeFi markets over the last year highlighted both possibilities and problems inherent to blockchain systems, including the phenomenon of miner—or maximal—extractable value (MEV). Since January of this year, MEV amounts to at least USD $370 million, though some sources say the real value is likely higher.  For the technically inclined,…

Who doesn’t love a money printer? Algo Season 2.0 is here.  Last Friday, Malt Protocol launched the latest entry in the algorithmic stablecoin market. This summer, investors have flocked to this corner of the DeFi space to ride out the selloff in the larger crypto universe. Polygon is currently the favored choice of yield farmers…