Shib Inu Shibarium Introduces Wrapped BONE and Hosted Blockscout Explorer

Shib Inu’s Shibarium, a Layer 2 (L2) blockchain network, recently celebrated a significant milestone of reaching 1 million wallets and is on the brink of achieving 1 million transactions, as reported by Blockchain.News.

The network has also launched its hosted version of the Blockscout explorer and expanded its token bridge to include multiple tokens like USDT, USDC, DAI, WBTC, and XFUND.

Shibarium Hits 1 Million Wallets

Shibarium, a Layer 2 blockchain network, has reached a milestone of 1 million wallets, according to an update by Shiba Inu developer Kaal Dhairya on September 3, 2023. The network aims to maintain its status as one of the fastest and most cost-effective L2 solutions. While some users have expressed discontent over the low gas fees, the network views it as a strength.

Blockscout Explorer Now Available

Shibarium has introduced a hosted version of the Blockscout explorer, available on Shibariumscan. The move allows the protocol team to focus on network upgrades. The Blockscout team will ensure the explorer remains operational and the blockchain is fully indexed. Users are encouraged to “Do Your Own Research” (DYOR) and verify contracts using the Blockscout contract verification system.

Token Bridge Expansion

Shibarium has expanded its token bridge to include additional tokens. The newly mapped tokens are as follows:

USDT: 0xaB082b8ad96c7f47ED70ED971Ce2116469954cFB

USDC: 0xf010f12dcA0b96D2d6685bf4dB3dbB4Ad500B6Ad

DAI: 0x0726959d22361B79e4D50A5D157b044A83eC870d

WBTC: 0xE984D89fb00D0B44E798A55dc41EA598B0b0899d

XFUND: 0x89dc93C6c12CaE47aCAf4aD9305d7A442C30dBB2

Wrapped BONE Contract Verified

The Wrapped BONE (WBONE) contract has been verified and is available for public scrutiny. The contract address is 0xC76F4c819D820369Fb2d7C1531aB3Bb18e6fE8d8.

Future Plans

Shibarium plans to renounce the Bone contract within the week and will add more validators to the network. The platform encourages developers to build on top of Shibarium, aiming for the next big innovation to be founded on their network.

Conclusion

Shibarium’s milestone of 1 million wallets and imminent 1 million transactions mark it as a growing force in the Layer 2 blockchain space. With the introduction of the Blockscout explorer and the expansion of its token bridge, Shibarium is not just scaling but also providing tools for transparency and interoperability. As it moves forward, the network aims to foster innovation and empower its community to lead a self-sovereign life.

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MakerDAO Keeps USDC as Primary Collateral for Dai

Since there is a possibility of hazards being linked with USDC, the MakerDAO Risk Core Unit recently proposed the notion of diversifying the collateral for Dai. This suggestion was made as a response to the proposal. Nonetheless, MKR holders voted decisively in support of maintaining USDC as the major collateral for Dai. With a vote of 79.02% in favor of expanding the USDC-to-DAI minting capacity and decreasing the cost to 0%, MKR holders voted in favor of retaining USDC as the primary collateral for Dai.

Due to USDC’s “possibly more dangerous exposure to uninsured bank deposits” and “a weaker legal framework” in comparison to its rivals, the suggestion advised diversifying collateral into GUSD and USDP. Nevertheless, according to the Risk Core Unit, the risks that are connected with utilizing USDC as collateral have dramatically diminished from the previous week. This information was provided by the Risk Core Unit.

When a string of failed banks forced the USDC to briefly lose its $1 peg, the decision was made to maintain USDC as the principal collateral for Dai transactions. In response to this, MakerDAO has introduced efforts to prevent Dai from being undercollateralized. These actions include increasing the charge to mint Dai using USDC as collateral from 0% to 1%, as well as lowering the daily minting cap for this procedure.

A vote of confidence in the stability of the USDC stablecoin and its capacity to retain its $1 peg can be inferred from the fact that USDC will continue to serve as the principal collateral for the Dai cryptocurrency. Yet, this does bring up concerns about the possible hazards that are connected with placing a significant amount of reliance on a single collateral item.

It is quite possible that new discussions and disputes around collateral diversification will continue to emerge inside decentralized autonomous organizations such as MakerDAO as the cryptocurrency market continues to expand and stablecoins become more widely used.

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Depegging of USDC and DAI Saves Borrowers $100 Million

Over the weekend, the depegging of two major stablecoins, USD Coin (USDC) and Dai (DAI), from the US dollar prompted a frenzy of loan repayments on decentralized lending protocols Aave and Compound. Borrowers saved a total of over $100 million in the process.

The depegging was triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, which raised concerns about USDC’s reserves being locked at the bank. This led to the USDC price dropping to lows of $0.87 on March 11. MakerDAO’s stablecoin DAI also de-pegged briefly, going as low as $0.88 on the same day.

According to a report by digital assets data provider Kaiko, more than $2 billion in loan repayments were made on March 11, with more than half of them in USDC. Another $500 million in debts were paid in DAI on the same day. However, repayment activity tapered off as both USDC and DAI started heading back toward their peg.

The depegging of USDC and DAI led to borrowers saving a significant amount of money. Blockchain analytics firm Flipside Crypto estimates that USDC debtors saved $84 million, while those using DAI saved $20.8 million. This is because borrowers were able to pay back their loans while the stablecoins were de-pegged, allowing them to take advantage of the lower prices.

The depegging also had wider implications for the DeFi ecosystem. The Kaiko report noted that the price dislocations generated countless arbitrage opportunities across the ecosystem and highlighted the importance of USDC.

The depegging of USDC also led MakerDAO to reconsider its exposure to the stablecoin, as crypto projects incorporating DAI in their tokenomics suffered losses due to a chain reaction.

However, Circle’s USDC began its climb back to $1 following confirmation from CEO Jeremy Allaire that its reserves were safe and the firm had new banking partners lined up, along with government assurances that depositors of SVB would be made whole. According to CoinGecko data, USDC was sitting at $0.99 at the time of writing.

Overall, the depegging of USDC and DAI from the US dollar resulted in significant loan repayments and savings for borrowers. It also highlighted the importance of stablecoins in the DeFi ecosystem and the need for proper risk management in the use of these assets.

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Russian Crypto Startup InDeFi to Launch Ruble Stablecoin following DAI Model

InDeFi, a Russian crypto startup founded by the former owner of Russia’s National Standard Bank, Alexander Lebedev, has announced plans to introduce a ruble-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain.

Sergey Mendeleev, the Co-founder and CEO of InDeFi, made such revelations on Wednesday, September 13, at the Blockchain Life conference in Moscow.

Mendeleev, the founder of the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in April, said that the new stablecoin project has nothing to do with the Bank of Russia’s digital ruble.

Mendeleev said the InDeFi’s crypto ruble will be decentralized, and one InDeFi token will be equal to one ruble fiat currency.

He further stated that a trial version of the stablecoin with minimal features is available for testing and feedback.

“The coin will not only make it easier for Russian citizens to access international cryptocurrency exchanges but also, after changes in legislation, provide transactions with foreign counterparties via crypto,” Mendeleev said on stage.

He explained that the crypto ruble will follow the model of MakerDAO’s DAI algorithmic stablecoin. This means that the issuance of the ruble stablecoin will be performed by a decentralized smart contract with over-collateralization.

In MakerDAO’s system, users lock Ether (ETH) in a smart contract and take out loans in DAI stablecoin. The loans are backed by the Ether collateral locked in the smart contract escrow.

Mendeleev acknowledged that recently InDeFi has not been performing well, just like any other DeFi project on the falling market. He mentioned that the DeFi startup is looking for new forms of business and apps to diversify and stabilize its operations.

“Just imagine, it would be as easy to trade ruble on DEXes as USDT, for example,” he said, referring to decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges and Tether, the largest dollar stablecoin by market cap.

Last year, Lebedev and Mendeleev introduced InDeFi, a service that offers loans in stablecoins.

Why Russia Now Embracing Cryptocurrency

Last week on September 6, Russia initiated talks with several friendly countries about launching clearing platforms for cross-border settlements in stablecoins.

Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseyev revealed that the country is exploring stablecoins to make payments with friendly nations.

According to Moiseyev, Russia is working with a number of countries to create “bilateral platforms” with “tokenized instruments” to avoid using U.S. Dollars and Euros.

The Deputy Finance Minister did not mention which countries they are working with nor specify what the “tokenized instruments” would be pegged to.

In July this year, Putin signed a law banning Russian citizens from using digital assets to make payments. However, last week, the Deputy Finance Ministry disclosed that the country expects to resolve issues related to cross-border payments in cryptocurrencies this autumn session.

The West heavily sanctioned Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February. As a result, Russia’s access to the Dollar and Euro markets has been limited and it is hitting the country’s economy hard.

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MakerDAO Intends to Depeg DAI from USDC

Announcing through Discord, MakerDAO’s founder Rune Christensen revealed that the DeFi protocol might consider depegging its native token DAI from stablecoin USD Coin (USDC).

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Christensen pointed out:

“Will be discussing it at tonight’s call but I think we should seriously consider preparing to depeg from USD … it is almost inevitable that it will happen and it is only realistic to do with huge amounts of preparation.”

This decision might have been reached based on tornado sanctions, given that MakerDAO might replace USDC as collateral with Ethereum (ETH).

Christensen added:

“I have been doing more research into the consequences of the TC sanction and unfortunately it is a lot more serious than I first thought.”

Tornado Cash, a popular crypto mixing platform, was recently slapped with sanctions by the United States Treasury Department based on accusations of facilitating money laundering for hacker groups like the North Korean government-sponsored Lazarus Group, Blockchain.News reported. 

MakerDAO’s consideration of jumping on the Ethereum bandwagon was revealed by Yearn.finance core developer Banteg who tweeted:

“MakerDAO is considering a $3.5 billion ETH market buy, converting all USDC from the peg stability module into ETH.”

Therefore, this will mean that Ethereum will back more than half of DAI stablecoins.

Nevertheless, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin reiterated that caution was not to be thrown to the wind because this was a risky affair. He stated:

“Errr this seems like a risky and terrible idea. If ETH drops a lot, value of collateral would go way down but CDPs would not get liquidated, so the whole system would risk becoming a fractional reserve.”

The MakerDAO was also not contented with this decision because it deemed it another Terra in the making, given that Terraform made the miscalculation of backing its native token UST with Bitcoin (BTC) as the LUNA crash continued. 

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Argentinians Seek Shelter in Stablecoins after Economy Minister Resignation

Argentinians have taken refuge in stablecoins after the nation’s economy minister Martin Guzman resigned over the weekend attributed to the financial crisis crushing the South American country, reports said.

Due to the continuous inflation, Devaluation continues to undermine the Argentine peso (ARS). Three leading crypto exchanges have seen a trend where consumers are looking for hedges, for instance, the peso depreciated by nearly 15% against various stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and MakerDAO (DAI) on leading local crypto exchanges after Guzman resigned. 

Therefore, according to reports, Argentinians purchase stablecoins two to three times more than is the case on a typical weekend. Per the report:

“Argentine exchange Buenbit recorded a 300% increase in trading on Sunday compared to the same day in previous weeks.”

Sebastian Serrano, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Ripio, noted that Argentinians have resorted to the crypto market if uncertain news emerges. Serrano added:

“Whenever there is one of these news stories in Argentina, because of the 24/7 nature of crypto, it is the first market where Argentina starts to look for a price for the U.S. dollar. This drives volumes up.” 

With inflation hitting 60% on a year-over-year basis, Guzman’s resignation was fuelled by the lack of a precise economic direction as differences between the president and vice president took centre stage. 

As a result, Argentinians have been seeking shelter in digital assets despite the nation recently halting crypto operations undertaken by financial institutions. 

Depending on different regulations, crypto usage is speculated to continue rising in Argentina because cryptocurrency is deemed a hedge against a cyclical economic crisis that includes hyperinflation, recession, and repeated currency devaluations.

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Celsius Repays Compound Finance $10m Worth of DAI

Crypto lender Celsius Network has repaid interest-yielding DeFi service Compound Finance with $10 million worth of the DAI stablecoin, according to a report from Crypto Briefing.

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The payment is likely to be an attempt to re-establish solvency following a recent episode of suspension of withdrawals, swaps and transfers, which resulted in rumours of insolvency. Currently, those services are still under suspension.

Crypto Briefing reported that Celsius has made a number of other repayments over the past week. Celsius has paid $53.6 million DAI in a series of transactions to its vault with Oasis Protocol, a yield-bearing DeFi platform.

According to Gemini, DAI is an algorithmic stablecoin issued by Ethereum-based protocol MakerDAO, which seeks to maintain an exact ratio of one-to-one with the US dollar.

Celsius, an Etherscan block explorer, uses DeFi protocols to generate interest for its clients.

Although the $10 million payment is only a small fraction of Celsius’ activity, this step is likely a move towards solvency. The payment is also a potential move to close positions with clients to regain liquidity and re-open withdrawals.

Celsius’ repayment comes shortly after the company confirmed through a blog that the suspension of withdrawals, transactions and swaps will continue.

“Our objective continues to be stabilising our liquidity and operations,” the firm wrote on June 19. It added that this “will take time” and that it will “continue to work around the clock.”

Celsius has also stated that it will cooperate with regulators and officials in investigating the company’s suspension of services.

Celsius further confirmed that it would pause Twitter activities and AMAs to prioritise resolving the current situation.

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MakerDAO Team Recovers 63 ETH for Rightful Owner

Key Takeaways

  • Last month an unlucky Oasis user unwittingly sent approximately 63 ETH to the wrong address.
  • The user assumed the funds were lost forever, but fortunately their plight caught the attention of the MakerDAO team.
  • In a remarkable turn of events, the engineering team was able to recover the funds for the owner.


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After more than three weeks of thinking they had lost 63 ETH forever, an Oasis user was notified that their funds had been returned. The MakerDAO Protocol engineering team was able to return what the user described as “literally everything I had in the world besides my car.”

MakerDAO Makes Things Right

In a mix of engineering ingenuity and genuine concern, the MakerDao Protocol’s engineering team found a way to recover roughly $240,000 worth of lost ETH for its owner.

In a Reddit post from 23 days ago, a user detailed the harrowing experience of sending roughly 63 ETH to the wrong address. In a video uploaded to YouTube after losing the ETH, the user details exactly what they did as a warning to others. According to the user, they simply connected their Metamask wallet to Oasis, switched the network from Ethereum Mainnet to Arbitrum, and deposited the ETH into the DAI token bridge on Arbitrum. 

The problem was that the token bridge was only available for DAInot ETH. Even though ETH might sometimes be used to interact with the Maker Protocol, that was not the case here. 

In the same Reddit post, the user ended with: 


“This was literally everything I had in the world besides my car. I’m not posting for sympathy, I just want everyone to know so it doesn’t happen to them… I know I’m the one who made the transaction. I take responsibility for that.” 

Yet sympathy they got. Sam MacPherson, of the protocol engineering team at MakerDAO, detailed what happened next in a tweet. Since Ethereum addresses are “deterministically generated,” any smart contact address on Layer 2 that has “previously been deployed by a Layer 1 EOA” can be replicated. 

An EOA is an Externally Owned Account, which is a normal Ethereum address with private keys, rather than simply a contract account (such as might be used in DeFi contracts). The Layer 2 address the funds corresponded with corresponded to a known Proxy contract on Layer 1, and so the engineering team was able to insert arbitrary smart contract code into the receiving Layer 2 address. 

The engineers then used the Layer 1 ProxyRegistry deployment to find the nonce, as the smart contracts need to share the same deploying address and the same nonce in order to deploy on the EOA. They then initiated arbitrary (“self-sends with no call data or value attached”) smart contracts to Arbitrum from the EOA (the user’s ETH wallet) until they got to the desired nonce, which allowed them to deploy the contract they wanted. 

As MacPherson concludes: “Once we have the Proxy deployed at the target address we can issue a command to send the ETH back to the original user and voila we recovered the ETH!”

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In other words, the engineering team effectively found a way to reverse a blockchain transaction. 

Upon receiving the returned ETH, the user updated on Reddit: 

“I honestly cannot believe this. As soon as I realized what had happened, I was positive it was gone forever… These guys had no obligation to me whatsoever and yet they still took the time to figure out how to do something that many people, including myself, thought would be impossible.” 

It may turn out that “impossible” is only a word, after all.

(Disclaimer: At the time of writing, the author of this piece held BTC, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies.)

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Magic Internet Money races past $1B, sets sights on MakerDao

Abracadabra Money’s stablecoin Magic Internet Money (MIM) has surged past a $1 billion total supply this month as the project works to provide competition to MakerDAO.

Abracadabra is a cross-chain stablecoin lending protocol that operates on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Fantom, Avalanche, and Arbitrum. Along with MIM, the project also has a SPELL governance token which can be staked on the protocol.

The project describes itself as a “spell book” that enables users to provide collateral via interest-bearing bearing tokens such as yvUSDC, xSUSHI and to borrow the MIM stablecoin against their tokens.

“To reverse the spell, the caster simply returns the conjured MIMs to the spell book. Then the magically locked interest-bearing tokens are released,” the website reads.

Interest-bearing tokens such as xSUSHI provide the hodler with a cut of the fees from the decentralized exchange (DEX) SushiSwap.

Abracadabra launched in May, and according to Coingecko, MIM has surged to seventh on the stablecoin rankings with a market cap of $1.14 billion at the time of writing.

While MakerDAO’s DAI stablecoin currently sits at fourth with a market cap of $6.4 billion, MIM’s meteoric rise suggests that it could provide strong competition to the popular platform soon.

By contrast, DAI was launched back in December 2017 and surpassed a market cap of $1 billion in late 2020. A caveat to that however, is that there was significantly less activity in the crypto market when DAI was initially launched.

Abracadabra takes fees from the interest paid on the loans. It surpassed MakerDAO last week in terms of fees, generating $1.27 million versus $969,000 respectively. MakerDAO still looms over Abracadabra in terms of total value locked (TVL), with $13.7 billion to $1.7 billion.

Related: MakerDAO founder’s plans to address climate change and pivot back to ETH

The pseudonymous co-founder of Abracadabra, who goes by the name “Squirrel” told The Defiant on Oct. 7 that the project’s success has been driven by its efforts to enable support for multiple blockchains:

“By being multi-chain with Abracadabra, we are the first and only decentralized stablecoin that can be minted on various chains.”

Squirrel also highlighted that its fee structure has contributed to its rapid adoption, as SPELL stakers receive 75% of the interest payments on the protocols’ loans via SPELL tokens that are rewarded to the stakers.