Tag: defi

CoinDCX, Mesh Partner to Let Users Integrate DeFi Wallets from Within its App

CoinDCX, the Indian crypto exchange platform, has decided to let its users integrate DeFi wallets from within its platform. The aim is to ease the connectivity between centralised exchanges and DeFi wallets. To do so, the exchange has announced a partnership with a US-based fintech firm Mesh. With this, the exchange could be attempting to have app visitors spend more time on the platform. Indian investors have been flocking to Indian exchanges after the government levied compliance mandates on foreign investors.

CoinDCX claims to be catering to a userbase of 16 million users. The exchange recently declared its compliance with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit the (FIU) certifying its business safe to engage with in India.

Sumit Gupta, the co-founder of CoinDCX, commenting on this matter, called it a ‘game changer’ for CoinDCX. Mesh offers an advanced API integration that could simplify the process of digital asset management for the exchange’s users.

“Solutions like Mesh streamline the complexities of the crypto industry, significantly enhancing the usability factor for our platform,” Gupta said.

Meanwhile, as far as Mesh is concerned, the US-based platform is taking this opportunity to mark its entry into India’s crypto sector.

“We are thrilled about the impact this collaboration will have on one of the most dynamic and important markets. We are thrilled about the impact this collaboration will have on one of the most dynamic and important markets,” said Bam Azizi, co-founder and CEO of Mesh as commenting on the development.

CoinDCX has been taking several steps to establish itself as an investor-popular crypto exchange in India’s evolving landscape. In February, CoinDCX began allowing users of the now defunct KoinX, to access funds that were left locked on the exchange.

The exchange has also initiated its new crypto awareness campaign called KnowBitcoin that aims to provide a detailed overview about the world’s first and most expensive cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.

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Asset Tokenisation, DeFi for Masses: Giottus CEO Lists Crypto Trends Poised to Succeed in 2024

The Web3 industry seems to be on an ever-evolving movement where blockchain-based concepts arrive and die on an everyday basis. Last year, for instance, the sector of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) dropped to its record low in-terms of sales – but then the Ordinals category of these digital collectibles managed to re-ignite the interest of the buyer community. In conversation with Gadgets360, Vikram Subburaj, the CEO of the Giottus crypto exchange shared a list of some Web3 trends that are expected to gain traction this year.

Real world assets (RWAs) and Decentralised Finance (DeFi), as per Subburaj, are enroute mass adoption this year. Through RWAs, digital versions of physical or traditional assets are recreated on a blockchain network as tokens. Each token of an individual property, amount for some percentage of the entity. Tokenising an asset can increase the liquidity of the assets. A property owner, for instance, could sell 50,000 tokens of a tokenised real property instead of selling the entire property and losing its utility as a liveable space.

“Think of them as NFTs for things like real estate, art, or even bonds. Today, the tokenised RWA ecosystem accessible on-chain is about worth $2 billion (roughly Rs. 17,452 crore) currently,” Subburaj said, predicting that tokenising assets is expected to pick pace this year as more people understand the concept.

About DeFi taking the masses by storm, the Giottus chief said, its nature to give people independence and control over their finances is what will propel DeFi to be experimented with heavily this year. DeFi projects like Uniswap, Aave, and Lido among others use smart contracts and cryptocurrencies to offer financial services without involving a middleman. The smart contracts, essentially replace the intermediary.

As per Finbold, the total value locked in DeFi as of December 2023, stood at $52.71 billion (roughly Rs. 4,38,040 crore).

“From staking, lending to market making, there are multiple avenues to earn in this space – DeFi is the fastest growing segment of Web3,” Subburaj added.

2024 marks the fifteenth year since the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was mined in 2009. In these fifteen years, several crypto concepts and projects have matured to accommodate more use cases linked to their ideas – escalating the network’s scalability. This year, some already established blockchains could support ‘layer-2s’. A layer 2 refers to a network, that is built on top of an existing blockchain, that serves as the layer-1 network.

“Ethereum’s upcoming 2024 Dencun upgrade is a pivotal development, poised to significantly benefit Layer 2 solutions by reducing gas fees and improving overall network efficiency. This upgrade and with the support from ecosystem programs, Ethereum’s Layer 2 platforms are well-positioned to gain prominence soon. Key layer 2s to watch out for are: Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP) and Polygon (MATIC),” Subburaj told Gadgets360.

Along with these projected trends, the Giottus CEO said Artificial Intelligence (AI) will boost the overall ecosystem of Web3. The emergence of ChatGPT and Bard ignited a rally for AI tokens in 2023.

As per Indian exchange ZebPay, the top five AI crypto tokens are – Injective, Graph GRT, Render, Oasis, and Singularity (AGIX).

“As more companies integrate AI and Web3 solutions, the AI narrative will stand out over time, particularly in sectors like healthcare and finance. As the year 2024 unfolds, these trends collectively shape a dynamic environment, offering promising prospects for the future of crypto assets,” Subburaj noted.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.

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Curve Finance DeFi Exchange Hacked, Losses Estimated to Be Over $40 Million

The native token of one of crypto’s top decentralized exchanges tumbled after the platform said it had been “exploited” as a result of a vulnerability in a programming language.

Curve Finance, like other decentralized finance projects in crypto, relies on different kinds of software built on top of blockchain technology. A glitch in a particular version of Vyper — a programming language similar to Python and widely used in DeFi applications — led to the exploit, Curve tweeted Sunday.

Curve Finance’s CRV token has shed about 13 percent since the problem emerged and was trading at approximately 64 US cents as of 12:50pm in Singapore on Monday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

BlockSec, which provides security audit services for crypto software, estimated the hack had already led to more than $40 million (roughly Rs. 329 crore) in losses. Tarun Chitra, chief executive officer and founder of crypto risk modeling firm Gauntlet, estimated the exploiter made away with about $20 million (roughly Rs. 164 crore) of CRV and a version of Ether.

“We are assessing the situation and will update the community as things develop,” Curve said.

The total value of assets locked on Curve Finance — the largest decentralized exchange after Uniswap — retreated to about $1.7 billion (roughly Rs. 13,987 crore) on Monday from more than $3 billion on Sunday, according to data provider DeFiLlama.

Curve’s founder Michael Egorov did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CRV is used as collateral on a decentralized lending service known as Aave. Gauntlet’s Chitra said that so far there were no signs of “bad loans” on the Aave platform due to the slide in CRV. Aave’s token has declined about 4 percent in the past 24 hours, CoinGecko figures show.

Digital assets like Bitcoin and Ether wobbled a tad on concerns about wider potential knock-on effects but later stabilized. Bitcoin was little changed at about $29,400 (roughly Rs 24.18 lakh), while Ether was steady at $1,865 (roughly Rs. 1.53 lakh).

Hackers pilfered a record $3.8 billion (roughly Rs. 31,266 crore) worth of crypto in 2022 and Curve Finance was among the long list of organizations impacted.

The pace of incidents has cooled but the risk of security breaches still clouds decentralized finance, or DeFi, where people rely on blockchain-based software known as smart contracts to undertake activities like trading or lending.

© 2023 Bloomberg LP

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DeFi Protocol Euler Finance Loses Over $177 Million in Hack, Marks 2023’s Biggest Cyber Ploy: Report

Euler Finance, a decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol that provides crypto lending services, was hacked on Monday, March 13. This hack attack is estimated to have drained at least $177.6 million (roughly Rs. 1,455 crore) from Euler Finance, as estimated by smart contract auditor BlockSec. Other blockchain research firms like Peckshield and Meta Seluth, on the other hand, estimate that the amount of the stolen funds could be as high as $195 million (roughly Rs. 1,603 crore). This incident marks the biggest crypto hack of 2023 so far.

The hacker(s), who remain unidentified, could presently have the stolen funds in ETH 96,833 making for $153 million (roughly Rs. 1,258 crore) in possession. The remaining amount is divided among Dai (DAI), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Staked Ether (sETH), and USD Coin (USDC) cryptocurrencies, BlockSEC said.

Founded in London, UK, the protocol allows its users to deposit their crypto holdings with it and earn interests. It was launched in 2020 by fintech entrepreneurs Michael Bentley, Doug Hoyte, and Jack Prior.

Soon after BlockSec security firms sounded an alert regarding this hack attack, Euler Finance posted an update on the situation.

For now, elaborate details on this attack are awaited.

Meta Seluth, the crypto analytic firm tracking the hack has claimed that the attacker may have exploited a multichain bridge to transfer the funds from the BNB Smart Chain (BSC) to Ethereum in the attack that was launched and executed on Monday.

Euler Finance, as of now, has not officially revealed how the hack may have taken place.

DeFi protocols, that offer anonymity and autonomy to user to control their funds, are built on blockchain networks and are not controlled by any bank, broker, or intermediary.

Hackers who target DeFi protocols often identify vulnerabilities in the open-source nature of the platform’s code to gain unauthorised access and process their criminal objectives. 2022 witnessed a plethora of hack attacks on DeFi protocols.

Hackers managed to steal as much as $3.8 billion (nearly Rs. 31,100 crore) from the crypto-dominated DeFi sector last year, a recent report by Chainalysis had said.

This year, meanwhile, had so far been relatively quieter in terms of recording massive crypto hacks.

In January this year, a total of 24 crypto exploits were recorded by Peckshield. These exploits amounted to $8.8 million (roughly Rs. 72 crore), which is significantly lesser than $120 million (roughly Rs. 980 crore) worth of crypto being reported lost in January 2022.

Losses incurred dur to crypto exploits dropped by 93 percent in January 2023, as compared to the same month last year, PeckShield had said in its February report which, however, changed today.

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Indian DeFi-Enthusiasts Call FTX Collapse ‘Good on Macro Level’, Here’s Why

FTX, the US-based crypto platform that succumbed to liquidity crunch and shook-up the crypto market in November, led to the wipe-off of nearly $200 billion (roughly Rs. 16,53,499 crore) from the market. The drastic reaction from investors who pulled back capital from digital assets left several crypto firms gasping for breath. As per Indian Web3 builders, this FTX collapse, despite its severity, must be seen as a ‘blessing in disguise’ that has already begun to push for more finetuned financial structure around crypto that would slash its often-criticised element of volatility.

“The companies that do not have a strong foundation and have strong investments will be flushed out,” said Tarusha Mittal, the COO and Co-Founder of Web3-focussed app store, Dapps and group farming and staking protocol, UniFarm.

In conversation with Gadgets 360, Mittal said that crypto players and investors need to realise, now more than ever, that Web3 is all about decentralisation.

“The FTX collapse is good on the macro level for the industry. FTX collapse is a good reminder that crypto is all about removing centralised bodies and re-gaining financial responsibility and independence,” Mittal noted.

Web3 is popularly explained as the upcoming next generation of Internet as we know it today. Instead of being controlled by servers and big tech companies, Web3 will be based on blockchains, which are not controlled by centralised bodies and hence, offer complete freedom with irreversible records of all processes.

Cryptocurrencies, Metaverse, NFTs, and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) — are the new technologies that will make for special elements that will be part of Web3.

Mahin Gupta, the founder of digital wallet service provider Liminal, also weighed in on the FTX situation. He said that major incidences like this could push the adoption of important Web3 tools, which are available but not the first choice for investors as yet.

“Moving towards DeFi at the earliest is the key to learning from FTX collapse and the onus lies on industry players to build a safety net around user funds. Self-custody or licensed custodian services should be actively used for storing digital assets which are under the complete control of the users rather than with companies,” Gupta told Gadgets 360.

After FTX declared for bankruptcy, several crypto exchanges seemingly lost active users.

From India as well as other nations, established exchanges like Binance, KuCoin, and Giottius conducted audits of their reserves to ensure customers that their funds were safe in times of emergency bulk withdrawals.

Industry leaders still believe that the crypto community is ready to step into the next year, with more transparency than we began 2022 with.

“Significant technological advancements have been made in the industry to enhance transparency and security. The downturn in the crypto and stock markets is a result of various macroeconomic factors that have impacted investor sentiments. As we move into the new year, it is a good opportunity for crypto investors to review their portfolios and strategise their investments and security solutions for better outcomes,” Edul Patel, CEO & Co-Founder of crypto investment firm Mudrex, told Gadgets 360.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article. 

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Mango Markets Exploiter Tried to Exploit Aave Loophole: Here’s How the Attempt Failed

Mango Market’s exploiter Avraham Eisenberg’s attempt to replicate his “highly profitable trading strategy” on decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol Aave has failed, resulting in the loss of millions. As per on-chain analytics firm Lookonchain, an address associated with Eisenberg, transferred $40 million (roughly Rs. 325 crore) worth USD Coin (USDC) into Aave to borrow Curve (CRV) token with the intention of shorting. This resulted in CRV price tanking by roughly 26 percent to $0.464 (roughly Rs. 37.34) from $0.625 (roughly Rs. 51.14) over the past week.

That said, the move didn’t go entirely as planned as the community rallied behind CRV, buying the DeFi token and causing its value to spike 46 percent in the last 24 hours to as high as $0.71 (roughly Rs. 57.63).

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence tweeted Eisenberg might be baiting people to believe that he was shorting CRV to cause the liquidation of Michael Egorov, founder of the DeFi network.

According to Arkham Intelligence, Eisenberg’s real target was AAVE’s vulnerable looping system and his borrowings could leave the DeFi network with severe bad debt. The blockchain analytics firm added, “To liquidate Avi’s position, AAVE liquidators will have no way to buy back all the CRV he borrowed. On-chain, there is no liquidity to pay back more than ~20 percent of the position. AAVE will have to sell significant amounts of tokens from the safety module to cover this loss.”

In October, Eisenberg explained that it was possible to manipulate Aave lending policies to borrow massively, dump it, and leave Aave with bad debt.

Following the failure of the short strategy, Aave said the liquidation process of its CRV pool was successful and went as planned. But it noted that the position was not fully covered as 2.6 million CRV ($1.6 million or roughly Rs. 13 crore) remained, representing less than 0.1 percent of the positions on the protocol.

A new governance proposal is now live on Aave that will prevent another price manipulation on the platform.

Meanwhile, the Aave community pointed out that the developers could have done something to prevent this scenario as they had received several warnings about the possibility previously.

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Ethereum Co-Founder Believes Crypto Industry Shouldn’t Put Much Effort Into Attracting Institutional Capital

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, in sharing his opinion on crypto regulation, declared that he is “kinda happy” that exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are being delayed. In a lengthy thread on Twitter, Vitalik Buterin discussed how regulations would impact crypto. According to Buterin, all regulations focus on either consumer protection or making it difficult for bad actors to move large amounts of money around. Buterin also showed support for regulations that could make it easier for the industry to reach mainstream adoption.

Buterin notes that regulations that limit the mainstream growth of crypto are as bad as those regulations that hurt crypto projects internally.

The Ethereum co-founder also reacted to the proposed KYC for decentralised finance (DeFi) frontends put forward by FTX’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried. According to him, KYC for DeFi is pointless and would only annoy the users. In Buterin’s view, all regulations focus on achieving two goals — consumer protection and making it difficult for criminals and bad actors to move large amounts of money around.

When it comes to bad actors moving money around, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said these issues are not only “concentrated in DeFi, but in large-scale crypto payments in general.” Still, he recommended regulations for the DeFi frontends. These included a limit on leverage, requiring transparency on audits and security checks for contract codes, and limiting usage by knowledge-based tests instead of net worth.

Buterin said, “I would love to see rules written in such a way that requirements can be satisfied by zero-knowledge proofs as much as possible. ZKPs offer lots of new opportunities to satisfy reg policy goals and preserve privacy at the same time, and we should take advantage of this.”

Buterin explained that the crypto industry should not be going after institutional capital as the ecosystem needs to mature first. Still, he is somehow happy that the SEC keeps rejecting applications for spot ETFs.

The discussion over regulating crypto has gained traction recently, especially after FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried published a policy statement explaining how he thinks crypto should be regulated.

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CoinDCX Launches DeFi Mobile App ‘Okto’ Aimed at Widespread Expansion of Web3 in India

Crypto exchange CoinDCX launched ‘Okto’, a decentralised finance (DeFi) app to open the Web3 sector for a widespread adoption in India, on Friday, August 26. The company is aiming to help members of the Indian crypto community to dive deeper into the DeFi space. As per Investopedia, DeFi is an emerging financial technology based on secure distributed ledgers. The system removes the control that banks and institutions have on money, financial products, and financial services to democratise existing financial systems.

CoinDCX announced the launch of Okto during its ‘Unfold 2022′ event held in Bengaluru city on Friday. This mobile app will offer a keyless, self-custodial wallet service backed by several layers of security as well as native access to more than a hundred decentralised apps ranging across DeFi, NFTs, synthetics, and cross-chain bridges, among others.

In India, this Okto app will be available within CoinDCX Pro, whereas globally, Okto will be rolled-out as a standalone app.

“We firmly believe that the next phase of growth for the crypto industry will not only come from exchange of value but also from applications built on the underlying blockchain technology. As the technology is maturing, builders are creating use-cases to unlock value and make the internet a more equitable space. Our new Defi offering is the first step in this direction,” Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-Founder, CoinDCX, said in his address at the event.

The company, which claims to have been handling over 13 million monthly active users, intends to open the Web3 world for everybody with an Internet-enabled smartphone in their hands.

Back in July, CoinDCX had announced the appointment of Gaurav Arora as the Senior Vice President of CoinDCX Pro. Arora, the former Director of Products at Amazon Pay India, has a decade-long industry experience in growing and leading products and businesses.

CoinDCX is the first Indian unicorn (valued over a billion dollars) in the cryptocurrency space. Apart from its recently closed $135 million (roughly Rs. 1,044 crore) Series D funding round led by Pantera and Steadview, the company has previously raised over $100 million (roughly Rs. 760 crore) with Coinbase Ventures and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin-led B Capital as its investors.

In a bid to provide early-stage support to budding blockchain projects in India and around the world, CoinDCX also launched its venture investment arm recently with the plan of investing Rs. 100 crore in the start-up industry.

Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article. 

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‘Total Value Locked’, Here’s What It Means in DeFi

The last few months, several cryptocurrencies have found themselves on the roller-coaster ride of the market. In the midst of this volatile period, several crypto assets saw a pull-out from their investments in decentralised finance (DefI). The total value held by any DeFi platform within its smart contracts is called the Total Value locked or TVL.

The magnitude of the TVL is basically a metric that shows how popular a lending or swapping DeFi app is, in-terms of gaining attention from active and monthly transacting users.

TVL is the amount of user funds deposited in a DeFi protocol. These funds could be vested in the project for several functions like staking, liquidity pools, or lending.

The metric allows investors to understand which DeFi platforms are more lucrative for investments. The higher the TVL of a DeFi platform, the better it is considered.

While the market cap is indicative of the appreciation of a DeFi from active, passive investors – TVL denotes the popularity of a project with the number of active users. It is a good measure to evaluate the robustness of a project.

If someone wishes to measure the future potential of a DeFi project, then one needs to check its market cap. But if someone wishes to check the current scenario of a project, TVL is the indicator you want to consider.

Industry body Nasdaq says that it’s best to only use platforms with a TVL greater than $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,969 crore) and audited by blockchain cybersecurity firms like CertiK.

The Ethereum blockchain has the most amount of total value locked in decentralised exchanges and lending protocols, as per CoinDCX.

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Huobi Global Launches Investment Arm Named Ivy Blocks to Focus on DeFi, Web 3 Projects

Huobi Global, one of the largest trading platforms in the world by volume, has launched a new venture capital arm aimed at investing in upcoming blockchain, Web 3 and decentralised finance (DeFi) projects. The spinoff is called Ivy Blocks, and has over $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,770 crore) in assets under management as part of its “war chest.” According to a statement issued by the company, this pool of funds will be directed towards “identifying and investing in promising blockchain projects.”

Ivy Blocks’ offerings through the fund won’t be limited to investments alone. The VC arm is also planning on setting up an asset management platform, a blockchain incubator, and a specialised research arm for blockchain initiatives. According to Huobi Global’s chief financial officer, Lily Zhang, the company’s asset management division would make “liquidity investments” to aid with the launch of the DeFi and Web 3 initiatives.

As per a press release announcing the new investment arm, Ivy Blocks will be providing three core services. To begin with, there will be a liquidity investment department providing an asset management platform for smart DeFi mining and income aggregation. The other two areas the VC firm wants to focus on from the get-go include a department called Ivy Labs, an innovative crypto and blockchain incubator; and Ivy Research, which focuses on blockchain and cryptocurrency research.

“Many promising projects tend to encounter liquidity constraints and a lack of go-to-market support, which present significant barriers to growth,” said Huobi Chief Financial Officer Lily Zhang in a statement. The new investment arm “will no doubt contribute towards creating a better, more inclusive DeFi and Web 3 blockchain ecosystem.”

Ivy Blocks also announced that Capricorn Finance, an automated market maker decentralised exchange (DEX) built on the Cube blockchain, was the first project to receive funding.

The firm’s focus on DeFi comes at a time when the sector’s overall value has declined by roughly two-thirds from its peak. When measured in total value locked, or TVL, the DeFi sector is currently worth just under $84 billion (roughly Rs. 6,52,535 crore), according to DeFi TVL aggregator DefiLlama. DeFi TVL peaked north of $252.4 billion (roughly Rs. 19,60,634 crore) in December 2021.



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