Compound

Debtors saved over $100M using de-pegged stablecoins to repay loans

Debtors jumped on the opportunity to grab a discount on their loan repayments when USDC and DAI de-pegged from the dollar.

The depegging of USD Coin (USDC) and Dai (DAI) from the United States dollar prompted a frenzy of loan repayments over the weekend, allowing debtors to save a total of more than $100 million on their loans.

Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, the USDC price dropped to lows of $0.87 on March 11 amid concerns about its reserves being locked at SVB.

MakerDAO’s stablecoin DAI also de-pegged briefly, going as low as $0.88 on March 11, according to CoinGecko.

The USDC price briefly dropped to lows of $0.87 on March. 11. Source: Cointelegraph

The depegging, in the backdrop of broader crypto turmoil, led to more than $2 billion in loan repayments on March 11 on decentralized lending protocols Aave and Compound — with more than half made in USDC, according to a report by digital assets data provider Kaiko

Another $500 million in debts were paid in DAI on the same day, it noted.

Digital assets data provider Kaiko found over $1 billion in USDC loan repayments on March. 11. Source: Kaiko

This tapered off as both USDC and DAI started heading back toward their peg. The following days did not have anywhere near as many repayments, with a rough total of only $500 million in loan repayments across Tether (USDT), USDC, DAI and other coins on March 12, and roughly half of that on March 13.

Blockchain analytics firm Flipside Crypto estimates that USDC debtors saved $84 million as a result of paying back loans while the stablecoin was de-pegged, while those using DAI saved $20.8 million.

Debtors used de-pegged stablecoins to save millions in loan repayments. Source: Flipside Crypto

“Overall, DeFi markets experienced two days of huge price dislocations that generated countless arbitrage opportunities across the ecosystem, and highlighted the importance of USDC,” the Kaiko report said. 

Related: USDC depegged, but it’s not going to default

The depegging of USDC also led MakerDAO to reconsider its exposure to USDC, as crypto projects incorporating DAI in their tokenomics suffered losses due to a chain reaction.

Circle’s USDC began its climb back to $1 following confirmation from CEO Jeremy Allaire that its reserves were safe and the firm had new banking partners lined up, along with government assurances that depositors of SVB would be made whole.

According to CoinGecko data, USDC was sitting at $0.99 at the time of writing.

Compound pauses 4 tokens to avoid price manipulation: Finance Redefined

The last week of October turned bearish for the DeFi market despite the string of hacks, as the majority of the DeFi protocols registered bullish weekly gains.

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 community voted to approve the custody of $1.6 billion USD Coin (USDC) with the institutional brokerage platform Coinbase Prime.

The top 100 DeFi tokens showed bullish momentum after nearly three weeks of price performance dominated by the bears. Majority of the tokens traded in the green on the weekly charts, with several of them seeing double-digit gains.

After Mango Markets exploit, Compound pauses 4 tokens to protect against price manipulation

Decentralized lending protocol Compound has paused the supply of four tokens as lending collateral on its platform, aiming to protect users against potential attacks involving price manipulation, similar to the recent $117 million exploit of Mango Markets, according to a proposal on Compound’s governance forum that was recently passed.

With the pause, users will not be able to deposit Yearn.finance’s YFI (YFI), 0x’s ZRX, Basic Attention Token (BAT) and Maker’s MKR (MKR) as collateral to take loans.

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Freeway’s withdrawal halt blamed on ‘failed’ trading strategy

Crypto staking platform Freeway pointed at the failure of one of its cryptocurrency trading strategies, along with market conditions, as the leading reason for halting user withdrawals earlier this week.

The crypto yield platform on Oct. 23 announced it was halting various transactions relating to its high-yield Supercharger product, citing “unprecedented volatility” at the time, without giving any more details at the time, which saw its token price plummet.

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Team Finance exploited for $14.5M during protocol migration despite contract audit

DeFi lockup protocol Team Finance said that over $14.5 million worth of tokens were exploited through the Uniswap v2 to v3 migration function on its platform. As told by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the hacker transferred liquidity from Uniswap v2 assets on Team Finance to an attacker-controlled v3 pair with skewed pricing. By locking tokens to the contract, the attacker bypassed existing validation mechanisms and pocketed the huge leftovers as a refund for profit.

Uniswap v3 was designed with better efficiency for liquidity providers (LP) than v2 on its decentralized exchange. However, v2 smart contracts are still operational, and users must interact with a migration smart contract to migrate their LP assets from v2 to v3. PeckShield estimated that the initial attack vector required for this interaction costs just 1.76 Ether (ETH).

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MakerDAO community votes to approve custody of $1.6B in USDC with Coinbase

Coinbase Prime, an institutional prime brokerage platform for crypto assets, announced on Oct. 24 that it has entered into a partnership with MakerDAO to become a custodian of $1.6 billion worth of the stablecoin USDC, of which MakerDAO is the largest single holder.

The MakerDAO community voted to approve the custodianship, which will allow its community to earn a 1.5% reward on its USDC while holding funds with a leading institutional custodian.

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DeFi market overview

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value registered a surge toward the end of October, with the total value locked (TVL) rising above $50 billion at the time of writing. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView show that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with the majority of the tokens trading in the green on the 7-day chart, barring a few.

Theta Network (THETA) was the biggest gainer over the past week, registering a weekly surge of 14.68%, followed by Avalance (AVAX) with a 12.85% surge on the 7-day chart. Many other DeFi tokens registered single-digit weekly gains, barring a few that traded in the red.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Compound Treasury to let institutions use digital assets as collateral when borrowing USD or USDC

Accredited institutions can borrow USD or USDC starting at 6% APR, according to the company.

Compound Treasury, a cash management solution for institutions powered by the Compound Protocol, announced on Sept. 14 that accredited institutions can now borrow USD or USDC with fixed rates starting from 6% APR, using Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and supported ERC-20 assets as collateral. 

The DeFi-backed company whose notable clients include crypto companies, fintech institutions and banks, shared that the decision was made in response to recent market volatility, which has created a more robust demand for liquidity.

Reid Cuming, vice president of Compound Treasury, said, “Compound Treasury can now address demand for liquidity with simple, reliable borrowing solution, while continuing to provide the same trusted service we’ve delivered to clients earning interest over the past year.” He added:

“Introducing borrowing expands our cash management product to meet more needs of our clients.”

In an official statement, the company announced that borrowing for clients will remain flexible, with “an open-ended term” and “no repayment schedule,” so long as participating clients remain overcollateralized. Collateral provided by borrowing institutions is not expected to leave Compound Treasury’s control, thereby increasing transparency and safety of funds.

Liquidity for the program will be provided by Compound Treasury’s clients and the Compound Protocol, which currently has over $3 billion in assets and has acquired more than $285 billion in total transaction volume since the company began operating.

This announcement by Compound Treasury comes after the company received a B- credit rating from S&P Global in May 2022, making the company the first of its kind to receive a credit rating from a major agency.

What is CeDeFi, and why does it matter?

CeDeFi is a new financial system that combines centralized and decentralized systems. It provides privacy, reduced fees and ease of use.

What are the disadvantages of CeDeFi?

Currently, CeDeFi’s main downside is the high learning curve associated with its protocols because of their complexity. The concept is still young, and more intuitive and user-friendly interfaces are bound to emerge over time.

CeDeFi also relies heavily on Ethereum, given that most CeDeFi protocols are still built on the Ethereum blockchain. If Ethereum fails, CeDeFi will likely fail as well. However, this risk is mitigated by the fact that other blockchains are beginning to adopt CeDeFi protocols.

Another disadvantage of CeDeFi is that it’s still relatively new and unproven. While the sector has seen tremendous growth in the past year, it’s still in its early stages. As such, CeDeFi protocols are subject to high volatility and therefore may not yet be ready for mass adoption.

Finally, CeDeFi is not without its fair share of scams. Due to the lack of regulation, there have been several scams in the CeDeFi space. Therefore, it is essential to be vigilant, use only reputable CeDeFi protocols and view CeDeFi as a possible solution for integrating DeFi products and applications into mainstream financial systems.

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What are the advantages of CeDeFi?

Among the advantages of CeDeFi are lower fees, better security, accessibility, speed and lower cost.

CeDeFi’s innovative approach to decentralized banking enables users to trade CeDeFi crypto assets without requiring a centralized exchange. This implies that users may transact directly with one another, removing the need for an intermediary.

Among CeDeFi’s major advantages is lower fees. CeDeFi transactions cost lower than those on comparable platforms since there are fewer middlemen involved, especially on networks that are not Ethereum-based. 

Ethereum has very high gas fees, for instance, with DEX transactions running into hundreds of dollars. It also often causes network congestion issues, leading to delays. Binance CeDeFi, on the other hand, has much lower fees and accelerates transactions by allowing users to accept fees in a few seconds.

Another notable advantage is improved security. Hackers will find it far harder to break into the CeDeFi network than they will with traditional banking systems because of the network’s decentralized structure.

In addition, CeDeFi is incredibly accessible as anyone who has an Ethereum wallet can make use of the CeDeFi protocols. It lowers entry barriers for less experienced users and enables them to explore more about DeFi by presenting verified trade options vetted by multiple criteria, including KYC, fees and more.

Financial transactions conducted through CeDeFi can also be handled considerably faster than those performed through traditional financial systems. This is because CeDeFi doesn’t need to wait for approval from a third party, which can often take several days to weeks.

CeDeFi technologies are also more flexible than conventional financial systems, allowing them to be altered to meet the needs of each user. For instance, the automated yield portfolio (YAP) strategy by Midas diversifies portfolio risk by exposing investors to a variety of assets without the burden of buying separate crypto assets. Most significantly, YAPs go through monthly rebalancing at no extra expense to investors to maximize profits. 

By securing profits from better-performing assets while reinvesting in the underperforming assets, this rebalancing enables Midas to take advantage of market fluctuations in the hope of providing steady portfolio growth over the long term.

Furthermore, as projects and tokens are evaluated and audited thoroughly by CeDeFi exchanges, safer transactions are possible. CeDeFi provides more privacy than conventional payment systems because its decentralized network makes it harder for outside parties to track user transactions.

Who introduced CeDeFi to the crypto market?

Binance plays a huge part in the rise of CeDeFi — it was Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, who coined the term “CeDeFi,” in September 2020, during the launch of Binance Smart Chain.

Considering that Ethereum’s popularity is attributable to smart contracts functionality, Binance also realized it had to create another blockchain network to compete with Ethereum and its DeFi ecosystem. As a result, Binance rebranded its existing blockchain network to BNB Smart Chain, a fork of Ethereum with optimizations for low fees and high transaction throughput. 

While it sacrifices decentralization and censorship resistance — it still seems to be paying off. Although it was criticized by decentralization advocates, BNB Chain grew exponentially from September 2020, thanks to its ability to fund projects quickly, leading to the rise of CeDeFi.

In addition to Binance, investors can establish hedged yield streams through existing digital tactics using Midas’s hybrid CeDeFi investing platform for dependable passive income. Moreover, Midas claims to have a massive network of backend procedures in a volatile cryptocurrency market that seek to hedge and protect the front-end investment options offered to individuals.

Integration with a highly secure Fireblocks cryptocurrency custody and transfer technology has protected the Midas digital ecosystem. For stored custody assets, FireBlocks provides commercial-grade digital protection.

What is DeFi?

DeFi refers to a broad range of financial products and services built on blockchain technologies in the public blockchain space. It functions outside of traditional centralized systems like banks and credit cards.

These are accessible through decentralized applications (DApps), which operate on a peer-to-peer basis, removing the need for centralized authorities like banks, credit card companies or brokers. With DeFi, anyone can access alternative financial systems like lending and borrowing.

In CeFi, a centralized exchange handles all crypto trading, meaning users don’t have access to private keys or really own their crypto. They are also subject to the exchange’s terms and conditions, prices and gas fees.

In contrast, DeFi users have complete control of their funds since no centralized authority handles transactions. Instead, a blockchain-based protocol allows users to buy, sell, store and trade their funds as they please. Both DeFi and CeFi have their pros and cons. CeFi makes it easier to convert fiat to crypto, unlike DeFi. But DeFi is permissionless and does not require a KYC process.

What is CeFi?

CeFi is a structured financial institution that lets consumers borrow or lend cryptocurrency through a controlled exchange.

It functions similarly to the conventional banking industry. Users use their cryptocurrency as collateral when borrowing money or earn interest on it when lending. The CeFi platform serves as the “custodian” of your digital assets. You relinquish control of your cryptocurrency when the CeFi platform “safeguards” it to make money. If the platform is hacked, your assets could be at risk.

CeFi has a larger market share than DeFi because CeFi platforms are more widely used. Binance, Coinbase and Diem are among the popular CeFi platforms. However, due to CeFi’s expensive transaction fees brought on by third-party involvements, the lack of transparency and total ownership over your digital assets, DeFi became popular.

Do any CeDeFi protocols exist?

Some of the most popular examples of CeDeFi protocols include the MakerDAO, Synthetix and Compound, which offer DeFi-like capabilities while remaining centralized. A custodial crypto-investment platform like Midas.Investments is another example.

MakerDAO, Synthetix and Compound are all built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.  Midas.Investments updated its platform in August 2022 to incorporate CeDeFi strategies. According to the Midas team, the new approach aims to mirror DeFi by creating smart contracts to handle asset management under various lending protocols. These include lending, borrowing and soft leverage, ideally allowing an influx of capital into the DeFi space. 

As with many CeDeFi endeavors, Midas aims to provide its clients with DeFi options tailored to their risk profile while allowing access to hedged instruments from CeFi. To better understand CeDeFi, let’s first understand CeFi and DeFi.

What is CeDeFi?

CeDeFi is a union of CeFi and DeFi, combining the best features and attributes of the two financial systems.

For a while now, financial systems have been split into centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi). CeFi is a traditional, bank-enabled finance system, while DeFi is based on cryptocurrencies and smart contracts.

However, a new system, “CeDeFi,” a combination of centralized and decentralized finance, has emerged and is gaining traction. So, what is CeDeFi, and how does it work?

CeDeFi offers the same features as DeFi protocols while being centralized, allowing people to access DeFi products like decentralized exchanges (DEXs), liquidity aggregators, yield farming tools and lending protocols — yet still leveraging the advantages of CeFi systems.

Unlike DeFi, which is permissionless and available for use by anyone, CeDeFi projects lean more toward centralization. They are often governed by a single or small group of entities, which allows them more control (similar to a CeFi).

Overall, the CeDeFi ecosystem, which is a hybrid of the centralized and decentralized models, aims to improve the traditional cryptocurrency model to allow for faster transactions, improved security, a larger transaction volume and comparatively lower fees than traditional systems.

Cred Protocol unveils its first decentralized credit scores

Releasing the results of its first credit score on the Aave Protocol, a decentralized credit scoring mechanism called Cred Protocol is set to expand to Compound and MakerDAO.

Cred Protocol, a decentralized credit scoring startup has unveiled the results of its first automated credit scoring system for users of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Cred Protocol CEO Julian Gay outlined the results in a Twitter thread, which showed how Cred successfully utilized past transaction behavior on the Aave protocol to assess the creditworthiness of future borrowers based on on-chain behavior in the DeFi space.

By using machine learning to assess time-based account attributes and analyze the user’s past transaction behavior, Cred Protocol generates a health factor score that predicts the likelihood of future liquidation for a single address, which, according to Gay, was one of the strongest baseline creditworthiness predictors.

Julian Gay Twitter Post 

Cred Protocol claims to make decentralized finance more accessible to the world by implementing trustworthy credit scores that would see “anyone with an internet connection” and “a good financial reputation” gain access to loans.

Where borrowers and lenders have their loan worthiness assessed by a central authority such as a credit bureau, DeFi makes it possible to run financial services with a peer-to-peer (P2P) system, eliminating the idea of an intermediary or central authority.

Prominent DeFi researcher Chris Blec raised concerns that a borrower could use multiple Ethereum addresses to skirt credit scoring — to which Gay responded that a potential solution was in Beta.

Cred Protocol is a small nine-person team based out of San Francisco with additional “hubs” in New York and London. However, Gay says that he aims to bring DeFi technology to more than one billion people.

In a Medium post, Cred outlined its plans to grow from the Aave protocol and expand its data analysis to other lending protocols like Compound and MakerDAO.

Two years ago, blockchain lending protocol Teller raised $1 million in a seed funding round to incorporate traditional credit scores into DeFi.

Related: Decentralized credit scores: How can blockchain tech change ratings

In November 2021, Credit DeFi Alliance (CreDA) officially launched a credit rating service that would ascertain a user’s creditworthiness with data from multiple blockchains. CreDA was developed to work using the CreDA Oracle by evaluating records of past transactions carried out by the user across several blockchains with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

Recently, P2P lending protocol RociFi labs concluded a seed funding of $2.7 million in partnership with asset management firm GoldenTree, which is aimed toward expanding on-chain credit ratings for decentralized finance.