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Markets

Crypto Banking Crisis

Traders Dump USDC After Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Fail

USDC issuer Circle said it banked with failed SVB and Silvergate

By Owen Fernau

Traders are moving out of USDC, crypto’s second largest stablecoin, after Circle said it banked with failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Silvergate Bank. Circle is the issuer of USDC.

USDC is trading more than 5% below its dollar peg as of early Saturday morning, as its market capitalization dropped to $42.3B on Friday from $43.6B a week earlier.

USDC fears have rippled into DeFi, as reflected in shifts within Curve Finance’s largest stablecoin pool.

Traders have sold USDC and DAI for USDT, fearing that Circle held a significant amount of the reserves backing USDC in SVB.

Read the full story in The Defiant

News

DeFi

Alpha Homora Offers $32M In ‘Seized’ User Assets To Iron Bank To Pay Down Debt

Leveraged Yield Farming Protocol Was Exploited In 2021

By Samuel Haig

Alpha Homora appears to have conceded $32M in customer funds to Iron Bank to service bad debts it incurred in February 2021.

On March 2, Iron Bank, a spin-off from the embattled C.R.E.A.M lending protocol, abruptly paused leveraged yield farming protocol Alpha Homora’s v2 contracts, after talks between the two protocols deteriorated.

On Thursday, Alpha Homora proposed that Iron Bank keep nearly $32M of Alpha users’ funds to satisfy the debt, and return some $8.7M exceeding the debt to its users.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Ethereum

Lido Launches wstETH On Polygon

Liquid Staking Narrative Gains Momentum Ahead of Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrades

By Samuel Haig

Lido, the leading DeFi protocol by total value locked, launched on the Polygon network on Thursday.

Users can now bridge Lido’s Wrapped Staked Ether (wstETH) onto the Polygon network. The popular DeFi protocols Kyber, Balancer, and Beefy Finance will offer liquidity incentives for wstETH markets on Polygon.

Lido said it chose to launch on Polygon due to the volume of its native DeFi activity, track record for security, and the presence of existing Lido partners on the network.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Exchanges

Coinbase Nudges Users On-Chain with New Quests Program

Crypto Exchange Continues to Deepen Its Ties to Layer 2 Blockchain Optimism

By Aleksandar Gilbert

Coinbase is taking a page out of Optimism’s playbook.

The United States’ largest crypto exchange on Thursday announced incentives modeled and named after Optimism’s Quests program, which sent activity on the Layer 2 blockchain to all-time highs early this year.

Coinbase Wallet users who complete certain tasks will be rewarded in crypto, the exchange announced. The first iteration of the program, dubbed “Quests on Wallet,” will encourage users to swap, delegate and stake tokens on Optimism, the second-largest Ethereum rollup.

Read the full story in The Defiant

NFTs

Metalabel

Gitcoin’s Metalabel Drop Tops OpenSea Charts

Major NFT Collector Corners More Than A Quarter Of Supply

By Owen Fernau

An NFT collection with official participation from Vitalik Buterin dropped last week as part of the public launch of a new platform called Metalabel. 

Gitcoin Presents now leads all NFT collections with 3,748 ETH ($5.4M) in trading volume over the past 24 hours, according to Nansen.

A special, limited edition of 12 NFTs that promise signed physical editions has surged to a floor price of 58 ETH, over $82,000 as of Mar. 9, and up nearly 20x from the mint price of 3 ETH.

Minting is now closed, with 9,209 of the Open Edition NFTs minted at 0.05 ETH per token. After rocketing above 0.6 ETH on Mar. 9, the floor price of the collection has settled at 0.4 ETH.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Defiant Video

Trends

Never Lose Your Crypto Again? ERC-4337 Explained

Podcast Video

Everything you need to know about Eigen Layer – Sreeram Kannan Interview