DeFi | Crypto

The proposal, with input from major industry players, aims to bring tax rules in line with how DeFi works, reducing outcomes that don't reflect reality.

Despite a sharp $55 billion decline in total value locked since October, the DeFi sector remains structurally strong, with rising DEX activity and steadily growing protocol fundamentals.

Federal Decree Law No. 6 expands the UAE central bank’s authority over DeFi, ending the “just code” defense and imposing penalties of up to $272 million. A new financial law in the United Arab Emirates is set to bring decentralized finance (DeFi) and the broader Web3 industry under regulatory parameters, signaling an important shift for the industry. The UAE’s new central bank law, Federal Decree Law No. 6 of 2025, introduces “one of the most consequential regulatory shifts” for the crypto industry in the region, Irina Heaver, a local crypto lawyer and founder of NeosLegal, told Cointelegraph. “It brings protocols, DeFi platforms, middleware, and even infrastructure providers into scope if they enable activities such as payments, exchange, lending, custody, or investment services,” Heaver said. Read more

Tokenizing stocks and physical assets could let investors self-custody, borrow in DeFi, and easily transfer ownership, says Superstate CEO.

Superstate founder and CEO Robert Leshner (@rleshner) said tokenization will hit velocity when end users start to get excited about applications, like borrowing cash against stock to help fund a vehicle purchase. But we're not there yet, he said 00:00 - An Intro to Robert & his story in DeFi 02:05 - Tokenisation now vs it’s ideal state 07:40 - Has the stablecoin explosion impacted other RWA’s moving on-chain? 11:25 - Robert’s Tokenisation “Wish List” 15:35 - What problems were you hearing from issuers? 22:46 - Where do you expect you toughest competition to come from? 24:22 - Predictions for the end of the year?

Superstate founder and CEO Robert Leshner (@rleshner) said tokenization will hit velocity when end users start to get excited about applications, like borrowing cash against stock to help fund a vehicle purchase. But we're not there yet, he said 00:00 - An Intro to Robert & his story in DeFi 02:05 - Tokenisation now vs it’s ideal state 07:40 - Has the stablecoin explosion impacted other RWA’s moving on-chain? 11:25 - Robert’s Tokenisation “Wish List” 15:35 - What problems were you hearing from issuers? 22:46 - Where do you expect you toughest competition to come from? 24:22 - Predictions for the end of the year?

The DeFi Education Fund estimated that decentralized finance technology could potentially save people up to $30 billion annually by reducing remittance costs. The DeFi Education Fund, an advocacy organization focused on decentralized finance, has proposed utilizing the technology to reduce costs, aiming to address poverty in the United States and globally. In a Wednesday blog post, the group said DeFi infrastructure could potentially save unbanked and underbanked people around the world about $30 billion annually through reducing remittance costs. The organization cited examples of workers sending funds home and paying fees to do so, which could be reduced “by up to 80%” with DeFi. “The poverty premium [the expenses incurred by low-income households that wealthier individuals are often able to access at a lower cost] persists because the current, layered, antiquated financial infrastructure makes it expensive to serve low-income customers profitably,” said the DeFi Education Fund, adding: Read more

For more than a decade, the DeFi sector has operated on a fractured promise. The theoretical pitch of a fairer, more accessible global financial system has consistently crashed against the rocks of practical reality. In practice, DeFi has delivered a user experience defined by hostility of confusing interfaces, punitive gas fees, risky workflows, and the […] The post Aave launches first DeFi app that feels like a real bank — and it might finally bring crypto to everyone appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Threshold has introduced upgrades to its tBTC bridge, which it claims will better position the $500 billion worth of Bitcoin held by institutions and whales to access DeFi opportunities. Crypto infrastructure platform Threshold has rolled out a major upgrade for its tBTC bridge, aimed at enticing institutions to put their billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin to work in decentralized finance protocols.  Threshold’s latest upgrade now enables institutions to mint tBTC directly to supported chains in a single Bitcoin (BTC) transaction, without secondary approvals and without gas fees, while redemptions back to the Bitcoin network are equally as straightforward, Threshold said in a statement. Threshold’s head of marketing, Rizza Carla Ramos, went into more depth in an interview with Cointelegraph at the Web Summit in Lisbon this week, explaining that the feature improvements could incentivize more Bitcoin-holding institutions to put their BTC to work in DeFi instead of just letting it sit there and waiting for it...

Wrapped Bitcoin's move to Hedera brings tokenized BTC and increased liquidation to the network's growing decentralized finance ecosystem. Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), the largest tokenized version of Bitcoin, has expanded to the Hedera network — a move that could open the door to more decentralized finance (DeFi) options for BTC holders. The integration, announced Thursday, brings additional liquidity to Hedera, which already supports smart contracts and native tokenization and markets itself as a low-fee network with no frontrunning or miner-extractable value (MEV).  Frontrunning and MEV are tactics where validators reorder transactions to profit at users’ expense — a problem Hedera’s consensus mechanism is designed to avoid. Read more

BNY Mellon just joined Citi, Bernstein, and a chorus of Wall Street analysts calling for up to $3.6 trillion of digital cash by 2030. The bet is that stablecoins and tokenized deposits will become core market plumbing, replacing correspondent banking friction and lubricating corporate treasury operations. The question: does that world exist outside a slide […] The post Bank Rails vs DeFi: Now $3.6T of “Digital Cash” Bypasses Bitcoin and Ethereum appeared first on CryptoSlate.

In crypto, MEV typically refers to bots and searchers on chains like Ethereum reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions around DEX trades and liquidations to extract value from users in the form of worse prices, failed transactions, and higher costs. However, did you know that Bitcoin also has MEV-like dynamics at the mempool and policy layer? […] The post Does Bitcoin use MEV to order your transactions like DeFi? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Balancer and Stream Finance incidents totaling over $200 million shook DeFi as RedStone and major Ethereum protocols launched reform initiatives. Balancer suffered one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits on Monday, with more than $116 million in staked Ether and liquidity pool tokens drained from Balancer v2 contracts and several forks.  The decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM) investigated what appeared to be faulty access control in its smart contracts, which allowed the attackers to withdraw funds directly from liquidity pools.  The exploit began with a $70 million loss, which ballooned to $116 million, primarily affecting liquid staking assets such as Lido’s wstETH and StakeWise’s osETH. Read more

Balancer and Stream Finance incidents totaling over $200 million shook DeFi as RedStone and major Ethereum protocols launched reform initiatives. Balancer suffered one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits on Monday, with more than $116 million in staked Ether and liquidity pool tokens drained from Balancer v2 contracts and several forks.  The decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM) investigated what appeared to be faulty access control in its smart contracts, which allowed the attackers to withdraw funds directly from liquidity pools.  The exploit began with a $70 million loss, which ballooned to $116 million, primarily affecting liquid staking assets such as Lido’s wstETH and StakeWise’s osETH. Read more

For years, DeFi occupied the edges of institutional strategy, a curiosity for crypto-native funds, and a compliance headache for everyone else. However, regulatory moves are slowly changing this stance. Among traditional hedge funds already holding digital assets, 43% now plan to expand into DeFi over the next three years, primarily through tokenised funds, tokenised assets, […] The post From experiment to blueprint: Why 43% of hedge funds plan integration with DeFi appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Despite a dip in active wallets and DeFi losses, blockchain gaming and decentralized finance continued to drive most Web3 activity last month. Blockchain gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) remained the most active sectors in Web3 in October, despite a 3% decline in total daily active wallets to 16 million, according to a new report from DappRadar. Web3 gaming accounted for 27.9% of all decentralized application (DApp) activity over the past month, its highest share of the year, while DeFi maintained solid engagement at 18.4%, despite market volatility and ongoing regulatory pressure. The most widely used DApps include Raydium, Pump.fun, Jupiter Exchange, OKX Dex and PancakeSwap v2. Read more

DeFi can be misunderstood, but it's key to investing's future. Learn about the tech, adoption trends, and how advisors can win with clarity.

RedStone expands beyond price oracles with Credora, integrating risk analytics across DeFi protocols Morpho and Spark. Modular oracle network RedStone launched Credora, a decentralized finance (DeFi)-native risk ratings platform aiming to bring transparency and credit analytics to lending protocols.  RedStone said on Thursday that it had expanded beyond price feeds into the broader domain of credit, collateral and risk intelligence through its Credora acquisition in September.  At launch, Credora by RedStone integrates with DeFi lending markets Morpho and Sparks to offer dynamic risk scores and default-probability analytics, accessible through an API.  Read more

Two headlines hit the internet within hours of each other this week, and together they map the current state of DeFi’s security theater. StakeWise DAO executed contract calls to recover approximately $19.3 million in osETH, along with an additional $1.7 million in osGNO, from the Balancer V2 exploit that drained between $110 million and $128 […] The post What’s happening to DeFi? $231M was just drained but $19M clawed back appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Yields and More maps out over $284 million in DeFi debt tied to Stream Finance, exposing complex loops across stablecoins and lending markets. Decentralized finance (DeFi) researchers mapped out more than $284 million in stablecoin exposure and outstanding loans linked to Stream Finance, following the protocol’s collapse.  On Tuesday, a detailed post by DeFi group Yields and More (YAM) flagged dozens of lending markets and vaults, including platforms Euler, Silo, Morpho and Gearbox, that held positions connected to Stream’s synthetic assets, which include xUSD, xBTC and xETH.  The data highlighted the extent of the fallout. Exposure loops involving Elixir’s deUSD, Treeve’s scUSD and other assets suggested that at least $284.9 million in overall debt is owed to lenders across various markets. This excludes indirect exposure via secondary vaults and other lending strategies.  Read more