Tag: Cefi

DeFi Funding Skyrockets 190 in 2022

by Blockchain News

The world of digital finance has seen a major shift in investments in recent years, with decentralized finance (DeFi) emerging as a clear winner in 2022. According to a report by CoinGecko, investment in DeFi projects skyrocketed by a staggering 190% in 2022, with digital asset investment firms pouring $2.7 billion into this sector alone. In contrast, investments in centralized finance (CeFi) projects plummeted by 73% over the same time period, with just $4.3 billion invested.

This trend is particularly striking given that overall crypto funding figures fell from $31.92 billion in 2021 to $18.25 billion in 2022, due to the market shifting from bull to bear. Despite this downturn, DeFi investment saw a near three-fold increase, potentially pointing to it as the new high-growth area for the crypto industry. The report also suggests that the decrease in funding towards CeFi could be an indicator that the sector has reached a degree of saturation.

According to CoinGecko’s report, the largest DeFi funding in 2022 came from Luna Foundation Guard’s (LFG) $1 billion sale of LUNA tokens in February. This was followed by Ethereum-native decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, which raised $164 million, and Ethereum staking protocol Lido Finance, which raised $94 million.

Meanwhile, FTX and FTX US were the largest recipients of CeFi funding, having raised $800 million in January 2022, accounting for 18.6% of CeFi funding in that year alone. However, both crypto exchanges later collapsed and filed for bankruptcy just 10 months later.

The report also noted that blockchain infrastructure and blockchain technology companies raised $2.8 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively, making them other areas of significant investment. This trend has remained strong over the last five years, according to CoinGecko.

Henrik Andersson, the chief investment officer of Australia-based asset fund manager Apollo Crypto, says his firm is currently focusing on four specific sectors within crypto. The first is “NFTfi,” a combination of DeFi and NFTs that includes NFT projects using DeFi to implement various trading strategies to earn passive income, or long or short-trade NFT projects, among other things.

Overall, the rise of DeFi investment is a clear indication of the rapidly changing landscape of digital finance. As the market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how DeFi and CeFi continue to compete and evolve, and what other trends and innovations emerge in this exciting and ever-changing industry.

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DeFi Funding Skyrockets 190 in 2022

by Blockchain News

The world of digital finance has seen a major shift in investments in recent years, with decentralized finance (DeFi) emerging as a clear winner in 2022. According to a report by CoinGecko, investment in DeFi projects skyrocketed by a staggering 190% in 2022, with digital asset investment firms pouring $2.7 billion into this sector alone. In contrast, investments in centralized finance (CeFi) projects plummeted by 73% over the same time period, with just $4.3 billion invested.

This trend is particularly striking given that overall crypto funding figures fell from $31.92 billion in 2021 to $18.25 billion in 2022, due to the market shifting from bull to bear. Despite this downturn, DeFi investment saw a near three-fold increase, potentially pointing to it as the new high-growth area for the crypto industry. The report also suggests that the decrease in funding towards CeFi could be an indicator that the sector has reached a degree of saturation.

According to CoinGecko’s report, the largest DeFi funding in 2022 came from Luna Foundation Guard’s (LFG) $1 billion sale of LUNA tokens in February. This was followed by Ethereum-native decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, which raised $164 million, and Ethereum staking protocol Lido Finance, which raised $94 million.

Meanwhile, FTX and FTX US were the largest recipients of CeFi funding, having raised $800 million in January 2022, accounting for 18.6% of CeFi funding in that year alone. However, both crypto exchanges later collapsed and filed for bankruptcy just 10 months later.

The report also noted that blockchain infrastructure and blockchain technology companies raised $2.8 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively, making them other areas of significant investment. This trend has remained strong over the last five years, according to CoinGecko.

Henrik Andersson, the chief investment officer of Australia-based asset fund manager Apollo Crypto, says his firm is currently focusing on four specific sectors within crypto. The first is “NFTfi,” a combination of DeFi and NFTs that includes NFT projects using DeFi to implement various trading strategies to earn passive income, or long or short-trade NFT projects, among other things.

Overall, the rise of DeFi investment is a clear indication of the rapidly changing landscape of digital finance. As the market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how DeFi and CeFi continue to compete and evolve, and what other trends and innovations emerge in this exciting and ever-changing industry.

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DeFi Funding Skyrockets 190 in 2022

by Blockchain News

The world of digital finance has seen a major shift in investments in recent years, with decentralized finance (DeFi) emerging as a clear winner in 2022. According to a report by CoinGecko, investment in DeFi projects skyrocketed by a staggering 190% in 2022, with digital asset investment firms pouring $2.7 billion into this sector alone. In contrast, investments in centralized finance (CeFi) projects plummeted by 73% over the same time period, with just $4.3 billion invested.

This trend is particularly striking given that overall crypto funding figures fell from $31.92 billion in 2021 to $18.25 billion in 2022, due to the market shifting from bull to bear. Despite this downturn, DeFi investment saw a near three-fold increase, potentially pointing to it as the new high-growth area for the crypto industry. The report also suggests that the decrease in funding towards CeFi could be an indicator that the sector has reached a degree of saturation.

According to CoinGecko’s report, the largest DeFi funding in 2022 came from Luna Foundation Guard’s (LFG) $1 billion sale of LUNA tokens in February. This was followed by Ethereum-native decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap, which raised $164 million, and Ethereum staking protocol Lido Finance, which raised $94 million.

Meanwhile, FTX and FTX US were the largest recipients of CeFi funding, having raised $800 million in January 2022, accounting for 18.6% of CeFi funding in that year alone. However, both crypto exchanges later collapsed and filed for bankruptcy just 10 months later.

The report also noted that blockchain infrastructure and blockchain technology companies raised $2.8 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively, making them other areas of significant investment. This trend has remained strong over the last five years, according to CoinGecko.

Henrik Andersson, the chief investment officer of Australia-based asset fund manager Apollo Crypto, says his firm is currently focusing on four specific sectors within crypto. The first is “NFTfi,” a combination of DeFi and NFTs that includes NFT projects using DeFi to implement various trading strategies to earn passive income, or long or short-trade NFT projects, among other things.

Overall, the rise of DeFi investment is a clear indication of the rapidly changing landscape of digital finance. As the market continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how DeFi and CeFi continue to compete and evolve, and what other trends and innovations emerge in this exciting and ever-changing industry.

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Fundraising by Crypto Companies Accounts for $8.2B in Q3

by Blockchain News

As cryptocurrencies continue gaining steam, crypto companies raised capital worth $8.2 billion in the third quarter of 2021.

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Mason Nystrom, a research analyst at MessariCrypto, explained:

“Total Q3 crypto company fundraising surpassed over 300 funding rounds accounting for $8.2 billion dollars.”

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Centralized finance (CeFi), whose use cases include earning interest on savings, borrowing money, and spending with a crypto debit card, took the lion’s share with $4.1 billion, followed by infrastructure and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) at $2 billion and $1.4 billion, respectively.

Web 3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) took the fourth and fifth position with $410 million and $342 million, respectively.

This study shows that crypto adoption continues to gain traction as more companies seek to enter this space.

Furthermore, crypto users are upward because Coinbase has emerged as the most sought after iPhone app, surpassing social media applications like TikTok and Instagram. Coinbase is a leading American crypto exchange.

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Where is Bitcoin heading?

After surging from lows of $28K to highs of $66,900 in three months, Bitcoin (BTC) has shown how a paradigm shift can be witnessed in this market.

Bitcoin has been correcting since it hit a new all-time high (ATH) of $66,900 on October 20. The leading cryptocurrency has been down 9.13% in the last seven days to hit $60,493, according to CoinMarketCap.

Reportedly, this trend has been triggered by long-term BTC traders taking profits. 

Some analysts believe that it might drop to the $57K and $58K levels. Market analyst Michael van de Poppe noted:

“Bitcoin couldn’t break through $63.6K and tests the other side of the range. Might be dropping another time if $61.6K can’t break, and then I’m looking at $58K next.”

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On the other hand, crypto trader Joseph Young said:

“Bitcoin is at $59K~$60K but doesn’t feel like a blow off top at all. – Overall leverage is a bit high but not very high – Decent support – Strong fundamental news coming from Asia – Institutional catalysts continue to emerge. Eyes on $57K but not worried yet.”

As crypto adoption continues experiencing an uptick, it remains to be seen how the top cryptocurrency plays out in the short term. 

Image source: Shutterstock

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Meet The First Ever Polygon Ecosystem Index Token

by NEWSBTC

Polygon continues to be a substantial force in DeFi. The protocol’s ease of use and lower fees have been major draws for developers, leading to a wide variety of new projects coming to life on the platform.

Meanwhile, the folks over at Amun Tokens are working on DeFi index tokens left and right. In June, the platform announced the launch of two index tokens, $DFI and $DMX, engaged in the Ethereum ecosystem. Given Polygon’s increased presence lately in DeFi, it was only a matter of time before the team at Amun unleashed a Polygon-based token as well.

That time has come, as Amun announced today their latest token headed to pre-sale: PECO. This token looks to encapsulate the best and brightest projects being built on Polygon.

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Amun, PECO, & The Polygon Ecosystem

Amun released their Medium post announcing PECO today in collaboration with the Polygon Foundation and leading Polygon projects. The Foundation is providing $5M in MATIC tokens to seed the index’s launch, according to the Medium post, and many leading projects are providing seed capital for liquidity.

The token initially launches on October 19 and will start with 50% MATIC until the network matures further. Protocol tokens make up the remaining 50%; take a look at the initial PECO compensation on launch below:


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As the Polygon network grows and develops, the PECO portfolio will be rebalanced monthly. PECO will be available on both Polygon and Ethereum, and early participants can earn up to an additional 30% bonus tokens in the pre-sale via airdrop.


Polygon (MATIC) has seen stable price movement in recent months, but has been slowly becoming a DeFi power player. | Source: MATIC-USD on TradingView.com

Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Is Primed For A Rally And Only One Thing Is Holding It Back

Amun & DeFi Growth

The Amun whitepaper cites the need for scalability in DeFi and looks to provide ERC-20 tokens that address an index of the top DeFi tokens available.

Earlier in the year, Amun unleashed DeFi index token $DFI, aimed to give investors exposure in “blue chip DeFi projects.” This allowed consumers to come to one token for a wide exposure of DeFi’s biggest coins, without incurring individual swap costs. Additionally, Amun released their DeFi Momentum Index, $DMX, which seeks to automate weights based price momentum calculated by a relative strength index. This index sought out momentum riders who “missed out on the last bull run.” Both indices were initially composed of eight tokens per index.

Amun is building out a wide breadth of DeFi exposure during what seems to be an ideal time. A Bank of America report this week cited DeFi’s growth and largely untapped potential, and Polygon and it’s subsequent platforms have been enormous growth drivers in DeFi.

Related Reading | Investors Expect Ethereum To Outgrow Bitcoin, According To CoinShares Survey

Featured image from Medium.com/amun-tokens, Charts from TradingView.com

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As SEC Lawsuit Looms, Coinbase CEO Describes The Agency’s Behavior As “Sketchy”

by NEWSBTC

The regulatory battle with DeFi is heating up. The SEC now seemingly has it’s eyes set on arguably the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States.

The news comes after five U.S. states sent individual notices to DeFi platform BlockFi in recent weeks. This week, reports have surfaced that Coinbase is facing regulatory scrutiny over it’s upcoming, yield-generating Coinbase Lend product.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had quite a bit to say about it, describing the SEC behavior as “sketchy”.

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Coinbase Expresses Frustration

Coinbase issued a strongly-worded blog post that broke the word over the agency’s threats, titled “The SEC has told us it wants to sue us over Lend. We have no idea why.”

Posted by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, the post explains that the government agency issued a Wells notice last week regarding the company’s upcoming Lend product – despite what Coinbase describes as “months of effort by Coinbase to engage productively.” A Wells notice is a regulatory letter that notifies preparation of enforcement action.

The Coinbase Lend product intends to allow consumers to earn 4% APY on stablecoin USDC as a starting point for select interest-earning assets. The blog states that rather than preemptively launching the platform, the company took a proactive approach in advising the SEC regarding it’s intent first. The blog post continues on to state that despite these efforts, along with compliance with reasonable SEC requests, the agency intends to sue should Coinbase launch the Lend platform.

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The post closes stating that for the time being, the Lend platform will not launch until at least October, reiterating that “dialogue is at the heart of good regulation.” Unfortunately, it seems to be a one-way conversation thus far.

The SEC is seemingly incentivizing an “ask for forgiveness, rather than permission” policy.


As crypto's total market cap continues to grow, regulatory question marks becoming increasingly apparent. | Source: CRYPTOCAP - TOTAL on TradingView.com

Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

It Doesn’t Stop There

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took to Twitter to express some frustration as well. In a tweet thread spanning over twenty tweets long, Armstrong leads off with “some really sketchy behavior coming out of the SEC recently…”

Armstrong goes on to recap the blog post in brief, with the sticking point seeming to be that the SEC is describing the lending feature as a security, without providing any sort of elaboration or specification as to how or why that would be the case.

These circumstances could set a very interesting precedent moving forward on the leeway the SEC is given on how, what, and why the SEC determines what is and isn’t a security. To date, Coinbase’s efforts to be transparent and communicative with the agency don’t seem to be reaping rewards.

We’ll see if that continues to be the case. As Armstrong aptly states to close out his tweet thread, “hopefully the SEC steps up to create the clarity this industry deserves, without harming consumers and companies in the process.”

Related Reading | Panama To Recognize Bitcoin As Payment Alternative, Issues New Regulations

Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com

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Celsius becomes first CeFi or DeFi platform to cross $20B AUM

by Cointelegraph

Crypto lending platform Celsius Network has reported it holds more than $20 billion in digital assets, making the company one of the largest in decentralized finance.

In a Tuesday announcement, Celsius said its holdings had grown more than 1,900% in less than a year, from $1 billion in June 2020 to $20.3 billion as of Aug. 13. The company conducted an internal audit using technology provided by analytics firm Chainalysis, also determining it was adding roughly $1 billion in new digital assets monthly.

According to Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky, the platform’s growth could be attributed to its “low-cost lending and high-interest yield on 43 cryptocurrencies” as well as its community-centric model. The Celsius website shows the platform currently has more than 962,000 users, or roughly 1% of its goal “to bring the next 100 million people into crypto.”

Related: The adventures of the inventive Alex Mashinsky

In March, research from Alpha Sigma Capital — also an investor in Celsius — suggested that the platform would reach $30 billion in assets under management by the end of 2025. Though the decentralized finance, or DeFi, space has been disrupted with its largest-ever attack through an exploit in the Poly Network this month, Celsius has paid out $468 million in crypto rewards to depositors in the last year.