Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.
The past week in DeFi was filled with artificial intelligence (AI)-centered developments on Etherscan, Polygon’s latest security update and on-chain sleuth ZachXBT’s ongoing lawsuit supported by multiple crypto personalities.
Etherscan launched an AI-powered code reader to retrieve and interpret the source code of specific contracts, while the Polygon co-founder proposed a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) upgrade to improve the protocol’s security.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao rallied behind ZachXBT and donated to his lawsuit fund, which has now grown to over $1 million. The community-funded effort is to help the blockchain investigator fight a defamation case brought against him by Jeffrey Huang, better known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother.
The top 100 DeFi tokens broke out of a three-week-long bearish phase aided by a significant Bitcoin (BTC) price surge over the past week, with most DeFi tokens trading in green, barring a few.
Etherscan launches AI-powered Code Reader
On June 19, Ethereum block explorer and analytics platform Etherscan launched a new tool dubbed “Code Reader” that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to retrieve and interpret the source code of a specific contract address. After a user inputs a prompt, Code Reader generates a response via OpenAI’s large language model, providing insight into the contract’s source code files.
Code Reader’s use cases include gaining deeper insight into contracts’ code via AI-generated explanations, obtaining comprehensive lists of smart contract functions related to Ethereum data, and understanding how the underlying contract interacts with decentralized applications. “Once the contract files are retrieved, you can choose a specific source code file to read through. Additionally, you may modify the source code directly inside the UI before sharing it with the AI.”
CZ, Powell and more rally to fund legal fees for on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, surpassing $1 million
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has received over $1 million in donations from the crypto community in just over 24 hours to pay for his legal fees in a defamation lawsuit.
ZachXBT, known for his investigative work in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, has become embroiled in a legal dispute with Jeffrey Huang, better known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother. On June 16, Huang tweeted that he had filed a defamation lawsuit against ZachXBT, accusing him of damaging his reputation through false allegations.
Polygon co-founder proposes zkEVM ‘validium’ upgrade to improve security
Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic has proposed upgrading the Polygon proof-of-stake network to a “zkEVM validium” version, according to a June 20 forum post. If the upgrade is implemented, the new version will rely on zero-knowledge proofs to increase security.
Polygon is an Ethereum scaling solution with over $900 million in total value locked in its contracts and over two million daily transactions. It was first launched in 2019. In March, the Polygon team found a second network, Polygon zkEVM, that uses zero-knowledge rollups to scale Ethereum.
Stablecoin protocol Reserve invests $20 million in Convex, Curve and Stake DAO
Stablecoin protocol Reserve is investing $20 million into the governance tokens of yield farming apps Curve, Convex and Stake DAO, according to a June 20 announcement. The investment aims to increase the liquidity of the Reserve’s stablecoins, called RTokens. It will also increase Reserve’s voting power within these apps’ governance systems.
Reserve is a stablecoin protocol that allows users to create their coins backed by any asset they wish. Electronic USD (eUSD), High-Yield USD (hyUSD), Reserve (RSV), Reserve Dollar (RSD) and ETH+ are a few examples of stablecoins that have been created through Reserve.
DeFi market overview
DeFi’s total market value saw a bullish surge after three weeks. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most tokens trading in the green. The total value locked in DeFi protocols remained below the $50 billion mark despite a surge of over $5 billion this past week.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
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