This Week in DeFi – April 29

To the DeFi community,

This week Optimism $OP token rumors come true, as the Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution announces new plans for its governance structure and token distribution. The “Optimism Collective” will be governed by two houses; The Citizen’s House will govern public goods funding, while the Token House will govern protocol upgrades and project incentives via the $OP token. $OP will be distributed via multiple rounds of airdrops, beginning with a retroactive round for previous Optimism users.

Introducing the Optimism Collective: pic.twitter.com/PbQyBU1J6l

— Optimism (✨????_????✨) (@optimismPBC) April 26, 2022

A new billion-dollar crypto fund may be on the way, with backing from founders of a16z (Marc Andreessen), Solana (Anatoly Yakovenko) and others. The fund comes under a brand new investment firm called Asymmetric, founded by Joe McCann – previously of Passport Capital and Microsoft.

EXCLUSIVE: Founders from a16z, Solana and more back @joemccann‘s new billion-dollar crypto fundhttps://t.co/kRVrByZ4eK

— Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) April 26, 2022

DEX infrastructure provider 0x has secured $70 million in Series B funding from Greylock, Pantera, OpenSea and more. The funding will be used to expand to new chains including Solana and grow its NFT swap feature. 0x also recently partnered with publicly-traded crypto exchange, Coinbase, to power the company’s new NFT platform.

0x Labs has raised $70M in a Series B round led by @GreylockVC to continue expanding Web3’s core exchange infrastructure ????https://t.co/HFch61hH42

— 0x (@0xProject) April 26, 2022

Specialized DeFi wallet Argent has raised $40 million as it looks to become a Web3 super-app. Fabric Ventures and Metaplanet led the funding round, which will be used to expand the wallet’s support of activities in the DeFi and NFT spaces – as well as making a push into Latin America.

We’ve raised a $40m Series B to build the one app for all things DeFi & Web3. And to prove the future of crypto is self-custody – not giant exchanges.

We’ll use the funding for:

1. Product development
2. Expanding into Latin America
3. Hiring

Read on to learn more ???? pic.twitter.com/vj6GvpVvtJ

— Argent (@argentHQ) April 28, 2022

Cryptocurrency has continued to win over small countries and asset management giants this week, as more major dominoes begin to tip. It begins with the Central Republic of Africa becoming just the second country in the world to make Bitcoin legal tender, also legalizing cryptocurrencies in general – yet another historic milestone for the legitimacy of the asset class. Panama is also following closely, on the verge of passing laws to regulate crypto. This includes legalizing cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, as well as potentially exempting them from capital gains taxes.

In addition to embraces from smaller nations, asset management giant Fidelity Investments has given its own nod of acknowledgement to the crypto, announcing that it will enable its clients to invest part of their 401(k)s into Bitcoin. Other cryptocurrencies are also being considered for the future. The implications are enormous given the size and reach of Fidelity, not to mention the stamp of approval it will give to the sector.

Although none of the above are a direct pathway into decentralized finance in of themselves, they provide a crucial primary to crypto for the masses. The combination of first-hand crypto adoption across entire populations – along with a rapidly-increasing acknowledgement of crypto as a legitimate asset class – will spark an eventual tsunami of new participation in DeFi. It will take time, but the first ripples have been made.

Thanks to our partner:

Total Value Locked: $75.55B (down 0.97% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $117.50B (down 5.86%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $13B (down 7.14%)

DAI Supply: 8.57B (down 1.61%)

[Vishal Chawla – The Block] – USN Stablecoin Goes Live On NEAR Protocol

[MakerDAO – Maker Governance] – MakerDAO on the Verge of Accepting Stakewise Staked ETH (sETH2) as Collateral

[Yogita Khatri – The Block] – Uniswap Labs Now Blocks Certain Crypto Wallets From Its App’s Frontend

[Tim Copeland – The Block] – Twitter to test out Stripe’s newly added support for USDC payments

Alejandro is a blockchain writer and consultant who has been involved in the space since early 2016. Being extremely passionate about this emerging technology, he has written content for a myriad of projects and news outlets.