DeFi | Crypto

Stablecoins may anchor Ethereum’s real-world adoption, but an analyst warns that the network must solve cross-layer fragmentation to stay ahead in the next phase of DeFi. The Ethereum network is staging a comeback in 2025 as bot-driven activity and stablecoin growth push the mainnet back into the center of decentralized finance (DeFi).  On June 4, crypto trading platform CEX.io reported that automated bots facilitated 4.84 million stablecoin transfers on Ethereum’s layer-1 blockchain in May. The volume reached $480 billion, its highest to date.  Illia Otychenko, the lead analyst at crypto exchange Cex.io, linked the activity surge to lower transaction fees in the first quarter of 2025, which helped reverse a multi-year trend of liquidity and user migration to rival blockchains and Ethereum layer-2 networks.  Read more

Interconnections between centralized and decentralized crypto lending are heightening systemic risk, Galaxy Digital’s research arm said in a June 4 report on first-quarter borrowing data. The report estimated that as of March 31, over $39 billion in crypto-collateralized debt was outstanding across decentralized lending apps, centralized lenders, and crypto-backed stablecoin issuers. DeFi protocols accounted for […] The post Systemic risk on the rise as leverage interdependencies tighten between CeFi, DeFi and crypto treasuries appeared first on CryptoSlate.

To achieve true mass adoption, DeFi must return to its P2P origins, empower people with permissionless interactions, and restore the transparency that early DeFi promised. Opinion by: Jean Rausis, co-founder of SmarDex Decentralized finance (DeFi) began with a clear vision: to enable a global, permissionless financial system built on peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, free from the constraints of traditional finance (TradFi).  Early decentralized lending platforms embraced that vision by connecting lenders and borrowers directly, allowing them to negotiate their terms without TradFi’s rigidities.  Read more

CZ is floating the idea of a dark pool DEX using zero-knowledge proofs to fight MEV and market manipulation in DeFi.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov says the Ethereum Foundation is now both supplying and borrowing from Aave, completing what he calls “the full DeFi circle.” The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has borrowed $2 million in GHO, a decentralized stablecoin developed by Aave, in a move signaling deeper engagement with decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies. In a May 29 X post, Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the foundation borrowed $2 million in GHO tokens. “The EF is not only supplying ETH to Aave, but also borrowing from Aave,” Kulechov wrote, describing the development as “the full DeFi circle.” GHO is a decentralized, overcollateralized stablecoin native to the Aave Protocol. Unlike centralized stablecoins, GHO is governed by Aave’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), which oversees interest rates, collateral requirements and facilitator selection.  Read more

The US Securities and Exchange Commission released the agenda for its upcoming roundtable, “DeFi and the American Spirit,” scheduled for June 9 at its Washington, D.C. headquarters. Organized by the agency’s Crypto Task Force, the half-day event is the fifth in an ongoing series designed to explore regulatory approaches to digital assets. The latest session […] The post SEC’s next crypto roundtable to host DeFi dialogue addressing autonomy in regulation appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Last week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Crypto Task Force intensified studies on how public blockchain technology can support the issuance and trading of tokenized securities. The group held separate meetings with Nasdaq, Plume Network, and Etherealize on how securities can be issued and traded on public blockchains. All three meetings resulted in […] The post SEC Crypto Task Force discusses securities tokenization with Nasdaq, DeFi startups appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Fintechs’ reliance on legacy financial infrastructure keeps them slow, costly and inflexible. It’s time to flip the script with a DeFi mullet. This way, companies can deliver more transparent financial services. Opinion by: Merlin Egalite, co-founder at Morpho Labs Fintechs in the front, decentralized finance (DeFi) in the back: the DeFi Mullet. Today’s fintech companies offer excellent user experiences but are constrained by traditional financial infrastructure — siloed, slow, expensive and inflexible. Meanwhile, DeFi provides lightning-fast, cost-effective, interoperable infrastructure but lacks mainstream accessibility. Read more

Learn what innovations Sonic has over Fantom and what makes it appealing for DeFi enthusiasts. Fantom was one of the pioneers of the directed acyclic graph (DAG) design for distributed ledgers. It featured fast finality and transaction fees of a fraction of a cent. However, Fantom relied on the Ethereum-derived account storage model and the EVM, which led to bloated storage and slow execution times. To address these bottlenecks and implement numerous other updates, the team behind Fantom rolled out Sonic, a fully independent new blockchain network. A new report by HTX  explores Sonic's technological background, its new tokenomics model and the innovations it brings to DeFi.   Download a full version of the report for free here Read more

Aave said the figure is the highest ever across decentralized finance protocols. Aave, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has reached a new record of funds onchain, according to data from DefiLlama. In an X post, Aave said it topped $40.3 billion in total value locked (TVL) on May 12. Onchain data reveals that Aave v3, the latest version of the protocol, has approximately $40 billion in TVL. Aave is a DeFi lending protocol that lets users borrow cryptocurrency by depositing other types of cryptocurrency as collateral. Meanwhile, lenders earn yield from borrowers.  Read more

Without programmable infrastructure, DeFi risks becoming the next frontier for unchecked automation and financial exploitation. DeFi faces vulnerabilities that could hinder its evolution. Opinion by: Sean Li, co-founder of Magic Labs Crypto markets run 24/7. Human traders don’t. As AI agents begin to manage liquidity, optimize yield, and execute trades at all hours, they’re quickly becoming essential infrastructure for decentralized finance’s (DeFi) future. While AI agents are evolving from niche tools for quant traders into mainstream financial operators, they’re rapidly outpacing the wallets meant to secure them.  Advancements in account abstraction and smart contract wallets have emerged, but most DeFi platforms still predominately rely on externally owned account wallets that require manual approvals at every step. Early-stage programmable solutions exist but remain fragmented, costly on layer-1 networks and adopted by only a tiny fraction of users. Read more

The co-founder of Sweat said he prioritizes making multichain DeFi accessible to millions through simple actions like walking and using its wallet. Sweat, a move-to-earn platform that rewards users for physical activity, has launched a personalized AI agent and expanded its multichain infrastructure. The update is designed to improve user onboarding by offering interactive guidance and simplifying asset management across blockchains. The AI agent, named Mia (short for Movement in Action), is powered by Near.AI — an open-source AI model platform with crosschain capabilities. Integrated into the Sweat wallet, Mia helps users to bridge, swap and manage their crypto rewards without needing deep crypto knowledge.. Sweat is rolling out support for Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum and BNB Chain. Within the app, users can now bridge assets and swap native tokens across networks, with the option to pay gas fees in Sweat (SWEAT) tokens. Read more

The network's token price and onchain metrics are rising after a period of stagnation in 2023. Binance-affiliated BNB Chain has rebounded after a period of stagnation in 2023 amid accelerating institutional and decentralized finance (DeFi) adoption.  During the past year, BNB Chain has benefited from multibillion-dollar inflows into DeFi, US exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and rising trading volume at affiliated centralized exchange (CEX) Binance.  Consequently, the blockchain network’s native BNB token (BNB) has emerged as among the market’s most resilient cryptocurrencies, surpassing all-time highs in the first quarter of 2025 even as the broader crypto market trended downward.  Read more