US Treasury Report Warns of Defi’s Threat to National Security, Authors Conclude Fiat Is Used in Illicit Finance More Than Crypto

The U.S. Treasury has released a 42-page report assessing the risks of decentralized finance (defi). The report states that specific nation-state adversaries, cybercriminals, ransomware attackers, thieves, and scammers are using defi to “transfer and launder their illicit proceeds.” The Treasury’s report warns that defi could threaten national security and calls for policymakers to increase oversight. … Read more

Arbitrum Registers Record Activity Over the Last 2 Weeks as Transactions per Day Count Surges

In the past 20 days, the Arbitrum blockchain has recorded a significant number of transactions coinciding with the recent ARB airdrop that occurred on March 23. About two weeks ago, on that day, the Arbitrum network recorded an all-time high of 2.72 million transactions settled in 24 hours. L2 Network Arbitrum Records 2.72 Million Transactions … Read more

‘Over-Collateralization Can Help Mitigate the Risk of Stablecoin Depegging’ — Pendulum CTO

Despite being touted as a game-changing innovation, the decentralized finance (defi) ecosystem is still not connected to fiat rails largely because of regulatory and compliance issues, Torsten Stuber, the CTO at Pendulum says. According to Stuber, the defi ecosystem will succeed in getting more traditional financial institutions on board once “a substantial amount of liquidity … Read more

Dfinity Foundation Launches Chain-Key Bitcoin, a Native Internet Computer BTC Derivative Token

On April 3, 2023, the Dfinity Foundation, a development team behind the Internet Computer (ICP) network, announced the launch of a native ICP token called “chain-key bitcoin” or “ckBTC.” The bitcoin derivative is backed 1:1 with the leading cryptocurrency asset. On Monday, Dfinity detailed that the technology “builds on the protocol-level integration with the Bitcoin … Read more

BLUR Token Plummets Over 28% in March, Despite Blur’s Dominance in NFT Sales Market

While the non-fungible token marketplace Blur has captured a significant amount of the market share in terms of NFT sales, the market’s native token, BLUR, lost more than 28% in value last month. At present, BLUR tokens are down more than 88% since the crypto asset’s all-time high recorded on February 14, 2023. Blur’s Native … Read more

Value Locked in Defi Holds the Line at $50B, After Temporarily Shedding $8B in Mid-March

The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (defi) during the first week of April is about $50 billion, roughly the same as on March 1. The value locked dropped to $42 billion on March 12 but has since rebounded as protocols such as Lido Finance, Aave, and Justlend recorded double-digit monthly gains. After the … Read more

Bitcoin’s Average and Median-Sized Network Fees Rose 40% Higher in March

In March 2023, Bitcoin’s average and median-sized fees jumped more than 40% higher after rising 122% in 10 days during the first week of February. The fees have followed the Ordinal inscription trend as more than 662,000 inscriptions reside on the Bitcoin blockchain, and 150 bitcoin worth $4.2 million have been added to fees. Bitcoin … Read more

‘The Only Way to Truly Scale Blockchains Is to Parallelize Processing’ Says Piers Ridyard

Despite being touted as the possible panacea, decentralized finance (defi) still faces obstacles which greatly diminish the prospects of mainstream adoption, asserts serial entrepreneur and CEO of Radix DLT, Piers Ridyard. Ridyard added that while defi is seen as “a fantastic proof of concept,” widespread adoption of this alternative to traditional finance is only possible … Read more