defi

As Wall Street and global financial institutions accelerate their entry into the digital asset space, the boundaries between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) are gradually blurring. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley stated, "The era of 'long Bitcoin, short bankers' is over," as financial institutions are turning to the other side of the crypto industry, promoting the adoption of digital assets.Hunter Horsley mentioned that this summer, two financial institutions managing over $1 trillion in assets approved the launch of crypto products in a bear market environment, indicating that large institutions are expanding channels for clients to access digital assets. "This year, everyone is wearing the crypto industry's jersey. Now, everyone is working for the crypto industry," Horsley said. He pointed out that these financial institutions, which manage over a trillion dollars in client assets, would not have opened related services during the downturn of the crypto market in 2022, but now they are actively embracing this field.Sygnum Chief Investment Officer Fabian Dori also believes that the relationship between banks and the crypto industry has undergone a structural change. "The past trading of 'long Bitcoin, short bankers' is over; banks have shifted from resisting digital assets to building, supporting, and distributing digital assets through custody, tokenization, and compliant trading." This change is primarily driven by increased customer demand and gradually clarified regulatory rules, rather than short-term market cycle changes.Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley stated that over the past two years, its client base increasingly reflects the trend of integration between traditional finance and crypto finance. Large financial institutions typically choose to collaborate with specialized crypto infrastructure companies rather than building their own technology systems. In recent years, more and more financial institutions have entered the crypto space, including Swissquote, DBS, BBVA, BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse-related institutions, as well as Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab.

The digital financial platform ABFinance, founded by former Bybit co-CEO Helen Liu, announced on platform X that its original launch plan will not continue, and the project is currently undergoing an orderly shutdown and liquidation arrangement.The team expressed heartfelt gratitude to the participants, community members, and partners who have built together for their trust, support, and recognition, and thanked them for the direction previously pursued together.

According to SoSoValue data, the cryptocurrency market sector showed mixed results, with the DeFi sector performing prominently, rising by 1.04%. Among them, Hyperliquid (HYPE) rose by 1.74%, and Chainlink (LINK) rose by 2.42%. The Meme sector increased by 0.7% in 24 hours, with Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) rising by 9.04% and Pump.fun (PUMP) rising by 8.76%.In other sectors, the PayFi sector rose by 0.4%, with eCash (XEC) increasing by 1.56%. The Layer1 sector rose by 0.2%, with Cosmos Hub (ATOM) increasing by 8.71%. Additionally, the CeFi sector fell by 0.07%, but Cronos (CRO) remained relatively strong, rising by 1.07%. The Layer2 sector decreased by 0.97%, while Optimism (OP) rose by 4.11%. The cryptocurrency sector index reflecting historical market trends shows that the ssiAI, ssiDeFi, and ssiMeme indices rose by 1.93%, 1.29%, and 1.28%, respectively.

Solstice Finance launches strcUSX on Solana, splitting the dividend income and price risk of the Nasdaq-listed company Strategy's Series A perpetual preferred stock STRC into two types of tokens: senior and junior. The annual dividend yield of STRC is 12%.The senior tranche SR-strcUSX targets an annual yield of approximately 7%, with priority for dividend income and principal repayment; the junior tranche JR-strcUSX bears the first loss from market value fluctuations and receives the remaining income after payments to the senior tranche, targeting an annual yield of over 20%. Users can deposit USX into the strcUSX vault to receive tokens corresponding to the risk level. Both types of tokens are native assets on Solana, tradable, usable as collateral, or accessible for DeFi applications.Solstice Finance will also integrate USX into Zebec Network's payroll infrastructure, which processes over $500 million in payroll annually and has over 50,000 monthly active users.

The founder of the DeFi platform Flying Tulip and creator of the Fantom Network, Andre Cronje, stated that most DeFi protocols are no longer truly decentralized, with only a few niche areas still qualifying as DeFi. He believes that DeFi has evolved into "on-chain finance" or "open finance."He pointed out that true DeFi should possess characteristics such as decentralization, immutability, and the absence of intermediaries, while the intermediaries in most current protocols have become companies, taking on the roles of decision-makers and risk committees typical of traditional financial institutions. Cronje stated that this does not mean that true DeFi no longer exists, as some protocols are still innovating.Data from DefiLlama shows that the total value locked in DeFi has dropped from $167 billion at the beginning of October 2022 to $75 billion at the time of the original publication, a decline of more than half.The European Central Bank (ECB) analyzed Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth, and Uniswap in a working paper released in March, finding that based on snapshots of holdings from November 2022 and May 2023, the top 100 addresses holding governance tokens in these protocols control over 80% of the token supply. The ECB thus questioned the degree of decentralization of the relevant DAOs and whether they should continue to be regarded as "fully decentralized" services not subject to the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). (Cointelegraph)

ChianCatcher news, Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder tweeted that Arbitrum has been ahead of its time in several aspects. The team strongly advocated for interactive proof design (which was controversial at the time and has now become the standard for optimistic Rollups); chose to establish a business when the business model was still highly controversial; focused on DeFi when most people had not yet understood perpetual contracts and many had given up on DeFi; and launched a dedicated blockchain when the industry generally believed that more chains were unnecessary.Facing backlash each time, but now the industry is aligning with the direction they set from day one: building robust and high-performance financial infrastructure. Goldfeder is proud of the Offchain team for delivering world-class products at an incredibly fast pace and stated that they will continue to deliver, even if most people currently do not understand its necessity; the industry will soon understand.

According to The Block, Hyperliquid's treasury company Hyperion DeFi achieved a net profit of $31 million in the second quarter, setting a historical high, more than doubling from $8.8 million in the previous quarter, and compared to a net loss of about $9 million in the same period last year. The total value of the company's HYPE holdings increased from $71 million at the end of Q1 to $133 million.Hyperion's CEO stated that the company not only significantly increased its HYPE reserves but also launched several scalable businesses and new products on Hyperliquid while continuously reducing costs. The company announced a partnership with HIP-3 deployer Entropy, committing to stake 500,000 HYPE, and pledged another 500,000 HYPE to Skew Technologies to support the HIP-4 outcome market. At the end of the quarter, the company held approximately 2 million HYPE, and the stock price rose about 5% in after-hours trading.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced that the budget deficit for July was $432 billion, exceeding market expectations of $346 billion, compared to a budget deficit of $291 billion in the same period last year.

The TRON DeFi Summer S2 event is currently ongoing. Users can stake TRX through JustLend DAO to exchange for sTRX, continuously accumulating returns while maintaining asset liquidity; the Energy generated from staking can also be rented to users with on-chain demand, forming a revenue cycle within the TRX ecosystem.As the largest single prize pool of this season, the 1.2 million USD TRX incentive pool remains open. Users can enter JustLend DAO through the Binance Wallet DeFi section, and by depositing 500 TRX, they can unlock basic staking returns and a Boosted APR of over 20%, and additionally share rewards daily. The S2 season covers core asset pools such as TRX, USDD, JST, and SUN.

TRON DeFi Summer S2 is in full swing, and this season's largest single reward pool of 1.2 million TRX incentive pool has been fully launched. Participating users can earn dual TRX rewards: basic staking rewards from JustLend DAO, plus a boosted APR of up to 20%+, along with daily sharing rewards.Users only need to enter JustLend DAO through the Binance Wallet DeFi section and deposit 500+ TRX to participate. The S2 season covers core asset pools such as TRX, USDD, JST, SUN, etc.

Ethereum ecosystem infrastructure provider EthSystems announced a partnership with the local Korean institution Undefined Labs. The two parties will jointly promote the application of Ethereum technology in the fields of finance and digital assets in Korea.EthSystems will provide technical support in areas such as privacy, tokenization, and financial infrastructure, while Undefined Labs will leverage its deep understanding of the Korean market and local industry resources to assist in education, seminars, technical framework design, and use case development, facilitating the entire process from early exploration to proof of concept and then to production systems. EthSystems stated that Korea is one of the important markets for the next phase of Ethereum adoption, and this collaboration marks the starting point of its expansion in Asia.

The DeFi platform Solstice Finance has launched strcUSX on Solana, a structured product that allows DeFi users to earn dividend income and price risk exposure without tokenizing the STRC preferred stock of the Strategy.strcUSX splits the exposure into senior tokens and junior tokens, with the former targeting an annualized yield of 7% and the latter targeting an annualized yield of over 20%. If the price of STRC falls, junior token holders will bear the losses first. Users deposit Solstice's USX tokens into the treasury, which can be redeemed after a lock-up period of 7 days; if they exit immediately, a fee will be charged. Earnings are realized through changes in the token exchange rate and are not distributed in a separate allocation form.

JUST officially launches TRON DeFi Summer S2 user voting, from now until August 17, all TRX holders can participate in the voting to decide the final allocation plan for this season's $1.2 million TRX incentive pool. The voting results will directly affect the coverage and allocation weight of the S2 season Boosted APR.TRON DeFi Summer S2 was launched on August 5, lasting for 60 days, with Boosted APR exclusive incentives covering core asset pools such as TRX, USDD, JST, SUN, etc. Users can access JustLend DAO through the DeFi section of the Binance wallet for a one-stop participation. This voting is an important action in the governance aspect of the TRON ecosystem, and community participation will influence the incentive strategy formulation for subsequent quarters. Holders can participate in the voting through the official JUST account.

Ethereum developers proposed a "Tapered Issuance Burn" mechanism, planning to gradually burn a portion of the idealized rewards for validators as the ETH staking ratio increases; when the staking amount approaches 50% of the total supply, the net issuance of ETH will drop to 0%. The author of the proposal stated that the ETH staking ratio exceeded one-third of the total supply in April; if not adjusted, Jerome de Tychey indicated that by January 2028, the staking amount could exceed 70 million, accounting for more than 55% of the supply.Supporters believe that excessive staking may cause small independent validators to lose economic viability first, leading to staking concentration among custodial institutions and large service providers; the plan is proposed to be implemented over 18 months, with an additional approximately 6 months reserved for preparation before potential network upgrades. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that once the staking rate exceeds 50%, rewards will drop to 0%, and the uncertainty of returns may weaken institutional staking and DeFi demand. He pointed out that ETH lending strategies may be affected, and this proposal is still in its preliminary stage.

In 2025, the amount of cryptocurrency theft reached $3.4 billion, with Bybit suffering a loss of $1.5 billion, accounting for 44% of the total for the year. In the first half of 2026, there were 212 related incidents, resulting in losses of approximately $1.1 billion, with about 55% involving the Lazarus-linked group. KelpDAO was attacked in April, resulting in a loss of $293 million.Stolen funds typically undergo a three-phase transfer process lasting about 45 days: the first 5 days involve exchanging through DeFi protocols and entering mixing services, followed by cross-chain bridging and flowing through trading platforms with lower KYC requirements. During the 20 to 45 days period, funds are further cashed out in batches through non-KYC platforms, instant exchangers, and over-the-counter trading networks. Once funds cross multiple blockchains, mixing services, and jurisdictions, tracking may still be possible, but the difficulty of recovery significantly increases. The recovery rate of stolen funds from Bybit is less than 5%; Tether and Circle can freeze USDT and USDC addresses, and attackers typically exchange stablecoins for Ethereum or Bitcoin within minutes after the attack.

According to official news, the global instant delivery track RWA project CCC (Courier Cycle Coin) completed a deep strategic signing ceremony for cross-shareholding with Binance's ALPHA zone Anome on August 5, 2026, achieving deep cooperation. At the same time, both parties jointly launched the three-party co-branded card pre-sale signing ceremony with the global Caishendao organization, completing the inaugural signing ceremony.It is reported that CCC integrates RWA and DeFi, puts the cash flow of electric vehicle rental business on-chain for rights confirmation, and realizes the same source of currency and stock through token dividends, driving business expansion and ecological market value growth with physical profits, thereby building a complete closed-loop operation system.

Flashbots strategic leader Hasu stated that charging fees to passive holders, allowing them to pay for projects investing in your ecosystem (such as Lido, Aave, and DAT, which collectively fund Ethereum client teams, multiple EF derivative projects, overall DeFi construction, etc.), is actually very good. The problem with Ethereum has never been excessive ETH issuance, but rather insufficient ecosystem investment.Reducing inflation will inevitably suppress investment reduction. Unfortunately, the Ethereum research community has never been good at predicting these second or third-order effects.