DeFi | Crypto

Rails, Yupp, Beam, Frachtis, Interface Labs, Gradient Network, Story, Blueprint Finance and Units Network headline the latest VC Roundup. Venture capital funding in the crypto industry has shown signs of stagnation in recent months, with some firms struggling to close new funds — a trend highlighted by Sarah Austin, co-founder of the real-world asset (RWA) platform Titled, which raised a $1.3 million seed round earlier this year. Despite this challenging macro environment, “Blockchain infrastructure remains the lead story in the crypto space,” said Kaden Stadelmann, chief technology officer at Komodo Platform. He noted that the key crypto themes still attracting investment include AI, decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), tokenization, payments and RWAs. In June, several high-profile funding deals reflected this continued interest, with decentralized finance (DeFi), trading platforms, pre-seed growth funds and projects at the intersection of digital assets and artificial intelligence all sec...

The following is a guest post and opinion of Jeff Garzik, Co-founder of Hemi Labs. Ever since Bitcoin stopped being the one and only crypto, a group of its stalwart devotees emerged called “Bitcoin maximalists,” arguing that BTC is the only “true” digital asset. As the crypto industry moves toward all-pervading decentralized finance (DeFi) interoperability, […] The post DeFi Is outpacing Bitcoin’s maximalist mindset appeared first on CryptoSlate.

JPMorgan’s blockchain lead says merging TradFi with DeFi is accelerating, as the bank’s pilot with Chainlink and Base shows traditional institutions moving onchain. The divide between decentralized finance (DeFi) and traditional finance (TradFi) could disappear within the next few years, according to Nelli Zaltsman, head of blockchain payments innovation at JPMorgan’s Kinexys. Speaking alongside Chainlink Labs co-founder Sergey Nazarov at the RWA Summit Cannes 2025, Zaltsman said JPMorgan is pushing to merge institutional-grade payments infrastructure with emerging onchain assets, signaling what could be a tipping point for mainstream blockchain adoption. “Our goal has always been to find the best way to work with the public blockchain, regulatory environment permitting,” said Zaltsman. She described JPMorgan’s blockchain strategy as “asset agnostic,” aiming to give clients real-time access to multiple networks while minimizing friction. Read more

The DeFi market has rebounded at the beginning of July, with total value locked (TVL) rising to $116.416 billion, a level last seen in April. The 24-hour increase of 4.95% reflects rising crypto asset prices and renewed deposit flows into lending protocols, restaking services, and yield-bearing primitives. As Ethereum and Solana continue to absorb most […] The post DeFi TVL breaks above $116B as lending roars back appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Crypto hacks underscore the urgent need for CEXs and DeFi to overhaul their security, collaborate on risk management and embrace self-regulation. Opinion by: Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer, 1inch Labs The Bybit breach in February smashed the record for the biggest hack in crypto history. More than $1.4 billion was stolen by North Korean cybercriminals in the blink of an eye, with the audacious heist making headline news around the world. Now, as TRM Labs reports, $2.1 billion worth of crypto has been lost to attacks in the first half of 2025. That’s an exorbitant amount of money, and yet, the hacks seem set to continue. Read more

More than 60 tokenized stocks are now live on Kraken, Bybit and Solana DeFi via Backed Finance’s xStocks. More than 60 tokenized stocks are now available on crypto exchanges Kraken and Bybit, as well as on Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. In a Monday announcement from Backed Finance, the company said its tokenized stocks product, xStocks, had launched with over 60 stocks becoming available on Bybit, Kraken and several Solana DeFi protocols, offering users exposure to traditional stocks via blockchain infrastructure. The stock selection is focused on blue-chip giants and crypto firms, emerging and established alike. Supported stocks include Netflix, Meta, Robinhood, Coinbase, Amazon, Nvidia, McDonald’s, Apple, Tesla and Microsoft, among others. Read more

The explosion of new blockchains has fractured DeFi’s once-unified liquidity, threatening its core advantage of composability. Without infrastructure that seamlessly connects siloed markets, DeFi risks losing its revolutionary qualities. Opinion by: Hart Lambur, co-founder of Risk Labs. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is built on composability, but composability is breaking. As new chains proliferate, liquidity fragments and incentives weaken. What was once a single shared environment has splintered into dozens of siloed markets. DeFi isn’t dead, but without the infrastructure that connects these environments, it may lose what made it powerful. Read more

Anchorage Digital is expanding its Porto wallet with Uniswap integration, giving institutions direct access to DeFi swaps and liquidity. Anchorage Digital is adding decentralized finance (DeFi) capabilities to its Porto wallet, enabling institutions to make swaps and access liquidity through the product. The move brings another wallet option to institutional investors. The DeFi capability is made possible through a Uniswap integration. Nathan McCauley, CEO and co-founder of Anchorage Digital, billed the integration as enabling institutions in DeFi to “move at crypto-native speed — without compromising security.” Among the company’s Porto wallet clients are Maple Finance, the Sui Foundation and decentralized exchange dYdX. Other companies that have rolled out institutional wallets or platforms include Blockdaemon, Fireblocks, Consensys and Fordefi. Read more

Jupiter exec Kash Dhanda announced a pause in DAO governance voting until 2026, citing the need to prioritize growth and product execution. Kash Dhanda, chief operating officer of the Solana-based Jupiter decentralized exchange (DEX), said the protocol will pause governance voting. In a lengthy Thursday announcement, Dhanda said Jupiter “stands at the edge of an inflection point” and “the window to define the future of DeFi is open, but it won’t stay open for long.” Dhanda highlighted the need to “be laser-focused on growth,” and said Jupiter was suspending the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) structure, which he said “isn’t working as intended.” Read more

Flare Network’s bridging technology and FAssets are bringing institutional and retail XRP holders into DeFi, tapping a massive pool of idle liquidity. Despite its massive popularity, XRP has remained largely absent from decentralized finance (DeFi) because of the technical limitations of the XRP Ledger (XRPL). XRPFi, a DeFi ecosystem centered on XRP (XRP), aims to narrow that gap. It leverages Flare Network’s bridging and smart contract technology to bring XRP into the realm of programmable finance. Flare Network, a full-stack layer-1 blockchain designed for data-intensive applications, serves as a crucial bridge connecting non-smart-contract assets like XRP to the DeFi ecosystem.  Read more

Bitcoin’s foundational security is powering a new frontier: DeFi systems built on self-sovereignty, security and real-world financial inclusion. Decentralized finance (DeFi) will turn Bitcoin from a passive store of value into an asset that can challenge traditional finance, prominent figures in the Bitcoin space say. At the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, speakers shared a conviction that Bitcoin’s infrastructure will power the next generation of DeFi applications in the network’s next chapter, echoing the calls of early builders who envisioned a parallel financial system to fiat currency.  The conference featured DeFi projects like the Liquid Network, which was joined by emerging Bitcoin DeFi companies looking to expand the decentralized “tech set” in the Bitcoin ecosystem.  Read more

ETH leads majors, DeFi coins soar, HYPE hits ATH FOMO HOUR EP375 ETH leads majors as BTC briefly hits $110k. Staking not a securities transaction: Atkins. Atkins set to remove regulatory barriers for DeFi. AAVE & UNI lead DeFi coins higher. HYPE hits ATH, assistance fund now owns $1bn. Staked Ethereum hits ATH. Circle hits 4x IPO price. South Korea unveils plan to allow stablecoins. BTC Coinbase premium at 4-month high. Crypto fund assets hit record high in May. BlackRock BTC ETF fastest ever to hit $70bn AUM . Siebert to raise $100m to buy crypto. Japan’s ANAP adopts BTC reserve. Societe Generale launches USD stablecoin. ADA founder launches BTC DeFi protocol. Tether’s MOS to be open sourced in Q4 2025. Uphold explores IPO, or sale to payments firm. DoJ indicts Gugnin for laundering $530m crypto. FOMO HOUR brings you the biggest daily news, updates and events from inside and outside of the crypto and macro spheres! Join hosts Farokh, Mando and Tyler as they cover some of the biggest topics at present with so...

Cardano has taken a new step in bridging the gap between Bitcoin and decentralized finance by launching Cardinal. This protocol allows the top blockchain network to interact with Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson highlighted the release on June 9, sharing a post from Roman Pellerin, Chief Technology Officer at Input Output Global (IOG), […] The post Cardano launches Cardinal to fuse Bitcoin liquidity with DeFi ecosystem appeared first on CryptoSlate.

US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins told the agency’s fifth cryptocurrency roundtable on June 9 that the ability to hold crypto without an intermediary belongs at the core of US law. Atkins opened the “DeFi and the American Spirit” session by linking decentralized (DeFi) finance with the country’s traditions of private property […] The post SEC Chair Paul Atkins backs DeFi, rejects forced intermediaries during latest roundtable speech appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Europe plans to regulate decentralized finance in 2026, as lawmakers still struggle to define decentralization under MiCA, an EU crypto policy expert said. European lawmakers have yet to define “decentralization,” even as regulators begin preparing for decentralized finance (DeFi) to become a key focus of crypto policy in 2026. The world’s first comprehensive regulatory framework for the crypto industry, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), went into effect on Dec. 30, 2024. Among its aims are to boost investor protection, prevent fraud and address stablecoin reserve management. Still, as MiCA enters its final implementation phase, policymakers are shifting their attention to regulating DeFi, where many questions remain unresolved, according to Vyara Savova, senior policy lead at the European Crypto Initiative (EUCI). Read more

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