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Why these $2.5 billion crypto lenders are trying to get unsecured loans again – DL News

BlockChainGuardian Staff

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Why these $2.5 billion crypto lenders are trying to get unsecured loans again – DL News
  • Cicada Markets and TrueFi launch unsecured loans on Arbitrum.
  • This niche has led to some of the largest and costliest bankruptcies in recent years.
  • There is little to no standardization in how crypto companies are evaluated for underwriting.

TrueFi, a lending protocol, is partnering with risk managers Cicada Markets to bring what has been a cornerstone of traditional finance – borrowing more with less – to crypto.

Undercollateralized lending is a tough business, marred by catastrophic bankruptcies in recent years.

The multibillion-dollar collapse of centralized lenders Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis has had ripples across the industry, defining the crypto winter of 2022 and 2023. Decentralized lenders have also had their share of carnage.

Recent attempts at unsecured lending on DeFi protocols like Goldfinch resulted in defaults worth millions of dollars.

Despite previous catastrophic failures, TrueFi and Cicada are trying again.

After all, this is a huge opportunity.

A 2023 report of Allied Market Research predicts that the global unsecured commercial loan market across all sectors will reach $12.5 trillion by 2031.

“A lot of the negative stigma comes from a lack of education on the topic,” said Ryan Rodenbaugh, CEO and co-founder of Wallfacer Labs, a major contributor to the TrueFi protocol. DL News.

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Sure, loans exist in the crypto industry, but the majority of loans require borrowers to provide more collateral than they can borrow. In the permissionless world of DeFi, this is the only way to minimize the risk of your counterparty running away with the money.

For unsecured loans, the only guarantee of repayment is the reliability and track record of the borrower.

It all depends on a company’s ability to accurately assess risk. In this case, that means TrueFi and Cicada.

“Since loans are issued based on on-chain and off-chain balance sheets, there needs to be a centralized underwriter who needs to analyze all this data and issue an opinion,” said Ashwath Balakrishnan, director at Delphi Creative. DL News.

Take things slowly

Both companies will provide lines of credit to crypto-native trading firms, a demographic notoriously unable to take out loans from traditional banks that cannot bear the risk.

But for an industry with a disastrous history of undersecured lending, attracting businesses is a challenge. When DL News When asked how they were going to differentiate themselves from previous disasters, Rodenbaugh responded by slowing things down.

“Underwriting for risk management and slow growth works well,” he said, referring to the process by which entities calculate and assume the financial risk of loans.

The new platform is not their first foray into lending. TrueFi already runs a small, unsecured network loan market on Ethereum worth almost $24 million.

Cicada also took out unsecured loans from DeFi lender Maple Finance, a company not without its failures.

Lenders on Maple suffered a major blow in December 2022 when borrower Orthogonal Trading by default on eight loans totaling $36 million.

A few months ago, crypto hedge fund Invictus Capital and crypto investment firm Blockwater Technologies failed to repay loans on TrueFi totaling $4.4 million.

But Rodenbaugh said the TrueFi platform, which has lent $1.7 billion over its lifetime across more than 150 loans, has a default rate of less than 1%. Similarly, Cicada Markets, which has underwritten more than $850 million in loans since 2021, has a default rate of 1.2%.

“Both protocols suffered losses, as you would expect for any form of credit, but neither of our protocols suffered the catastrophic losses seen by companies like BlockFi, Genesis, Celsius, etc.,” a Rodenbaugh said.

Default rates for TrueFi and Cicada are comparable to traditional financial markets. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average delinquency rate on business loans across all commercial banks was 1.13% in the first quarter of 2024.

“The lack of standardization means there is no way to confirm with certainty that the data is legitimate.”

—Ashwath Balakrishnan, Head of Delphi Creative

Sefton Kincaid, founder of Cicada Markets, said DL News The low default rates are because both companies were very selective about who they lent to and followed a strict due diligence process.

He said the two men reviewed potential borrowers’ performance histories over several trading cycles before agreeing to underwrite loans.

Yet that might not be enough. Compared to traditional markets, there is little to no standardization in how crypto companies are valued for underwriting.

“The lack of standardization means there is no way to definitively confirm that the data is legitimate,” Balakrishnan said. DL News. “As a lender, you need to be sure that the underwriter is doing their job properly. »

Deployment on Arbitrum

The pair built their new lending marketplace on Ethereum’s layer 2 Arbitrum.

Rodenbaugh said TrueFi and Cicada chose Arbitrum over other blockchains because it is Ethereum’s layer 2 with the most deposits and also the most advanced in terms of decentralization.

The network’s foundation also agreed to provide a token ARB grant to encourage interest, but it has not publicly disclosed the amount of the grant.

The question now is whether TrueFi and Cicada can attract enough quality borrowers.

Cicada’s Kincaid said his company has identified more than 20 borrowers – mostly commercial companies – seeking to take out lines of credit worth more than $300 million at an interest rate of 13 to 15 %.

If the two men courted all of these borrowers, that would make the new protocol the the fourth largest Real-world asset DeFi protocol as tracked by DefiLlama.

Tim Craig and Liam Kelly are DeFi correspondents at DL News. Do you have any advice? Send them by email to [email protected] And [email protected].

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We are the editorial team of BlockChainGuardian, where seriousness meets clarity in cryptocurrency analysis. With a robust team of finance and blockchain technology experts, we are dedicated to meticulously exploring complex crypto markets with detailed assessments and an unbiased approach. Our mission is to democratize access to knowledge of emerging financial technologies, ensuring they are understandable and accessible to all. In every article on BlockChainGuardian, we strive to provide content that not only educates, but also empowers our readers, facilitating their integration into the financial digital age.

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DeFi

Cryptocurrency and defi firms lost $266 million to hackers in July

BlockChainGuardian Staff

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Crypto companies, defi lost $266m to hackers in July

In July 2024, the cryptocurrency industry suffered a series of devastating attacks, resulting in losses amounting to approximately $266 million.

Blockchain Research Firm Peck Shield revealed in an X post On August 1, attacks on decentralized protocols in July reached $266 million, a 51% increase from $176 million reported in June.

The most significant breach last month involved WazirX, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which lost $230 million in what appears to be a highly sophisticated attack by North Korean hackers. The attack was a major blow to the stock market, leading to a break in withdrawals. Subsequently, WazirX launched a program in order to recover the funds.

Another notable incident involved Compound Finance, a decentralized lending protocol, which suffered a governance attack by a group known as the “Golden Boys,” who passed a proposal who allocated 499,000 COMP tokens – valued at $24 million – to a vault under their control.

The cross-chain liquidity aggregation protocol LI.FI also fell victim On July 16, a hack resulted in losses of $9.73 million. Additionally, Bittensor, a decentralized machine learning network, was one of the first protocols to suffer an exploit last month, loming $8 million on July 3 due to an attack targeting its staking mechanism.

Meanwhile, Rho Markets, a lending protocol, suffered a $7.6 million breach. However, in an interesting twist, the exploiters research to return the stolen funds, claiming the incident was not a hack.

July 31, reports The Terra blockchain protocol was also hacked, resulting in a loss of $6.8 million across multiple cryptocurrencies. As crypto.news reported, the attack exploited a reentrancy vulnerability that had been identified a few months ago.

Dough Finance, a liquidity protocol, lost $1.8 million in Ethereum (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) to a flash loan attack on July 12. Similarly, Minterest, a lending and borrowing protocol, saw a loss of $1.4 million due to exchange rate manipulation in one of its markets.

Decentralized staking platform MonoSwap also reported a loss of $1.3 million following an attack that allowed the perpetrators to withdraw the liquidity staked on the protocol. Finally, Delta Prime, another decentralized finance platform, suffered a $1 million breach, although $900,000 of the stolen funds was later recovered.



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DeFi

Centralized crypto exchanges are slowly losing ground to their DeFi counterparts

BlockChainGuardian Staff

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Centralized crypto exchanges are slowly losing ground to their DeFi counterparts

Centralized crypto exchanges are slowly losing ground to their DeFi counterparts, according to an in-depth data analysis conducted by Decrypt.

DeFiLlama’s decentralized exchange (DEX) volume data and CoinGecko’s total cryptocurrency trading volume data show that the percentage of cryptocurrency trading volume occurring on DEXs relative to total trading volume has increased from 4.6% in February to over 7% this month. This is an increase in the share of trading volume driven by DEXs of over 52%.

Source: Adrian Zmudzinski

Kunal Goel, a senior research analyst at Messari, told Decrypt that several factors are fueling the growth in DEX market share. He cited “the growth of meme coins and long-tail assets” as one of the reasons, explaining that they tend to list first on DEXs and only appear on centralized exchanges much later.if they last that long.

“The onchain user experience has improved with low fees and high throughput on Solana and Ethereum L2,” he added, highlighting advancements making decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions increasingly easier to use.

DeFiLlama data further shows that over the past 24 hours, DEX volume accounted for 22% of total trading volume. The crypto price aggregator notes that this percentage is meant to represent the dominance of decentralized exchanges over aggregated decentralized exchanges and centralized exchanges.

So far in 2024, DEX volume has seen a slow and steady increase.

CEX and DEX trading volume increased from $133.5 billion in January to $179.5 billion this month, an increase of about 34%. The year-to-date high was recorded in March, when CEX and DEX volumes saw a sharp increase, reaching $4.8 trillion and $266.89 billion, respectively.

Goel noted that at the time, “Bitcoin hit new all-time highs in March and trading activity is generally positively correlated with price and sentiment.” Looking ahead, he expects centralized exchanges to move on-chain and disrupt their own business models before others can. He added that “Base and BNB Chain are the most prominent examples of this.”

TradingView also shows a DeFi market cap dominance chart, in percentage terms. Currently at 3.86%, it fell from 4.47% on January 1 and hit a 2024 high of 4.81% on February 25. Goel noted that this was unexpected since “DEX volumes are a key driver of DEX value, so it’s a bit contradictory.”

Challenge is an umbrella term for a group of financial tools built on a blockchain, including DEXs, exchanges that operate primarily on-chain. The primary goal of DeFi is to allow anyone with internet access to lend, borrow, and bank without relying on intermediaries.

Similarly, the main goal of DEXs is to allow anyone with internet access to trade or even provide liquidity in exchange for a stake. DeFi and DEXs are one of the main areas of focus in decentralized application (dapp) development, which have seen considerable adoption this year.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.

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DeFi

Pump.Fun Overtakes Ethereum in Daily Revenue: A New Leader in DeFi

BlockChainGuardian Staff

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Pump.Fun Overtakes Ethereum in Daily Revenue: A New Leader in DeFi

In a remarkable turn of events, Pump.Fun, a memecoin launchpad, has surpassed all other platforms in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, achieving the highest gross revenue in the last 24 hours. According to data from DeFiLlama, Pump.Fun amassed $867,429 during this period, surpassing Ethereum’s $844,276. This achievement underscores the growing influence of memecoin infrastructure within DeFi.

Pump.Fun Revenue Milestones

The impressive revenue numbers go beyond daily performance. Pump.Fun is generating $315 million in annualized revenue, averaging $906,160 per day over the past week. This revenue surge is largely due to the recent memecoin frenzy, with Solana-based memecoins being particularly popular among on-chain enthusiasts. The platform’s user-friendly interface allows non-technical users to quickly launch their own tokens, spending as little as $2 without needing to provide any initial liquidity.

How Pump.Fun works

Pump.Fun’s operating model is designed to facilitate the use and rapid launch of tokens. Users can create new tokens in minutes, which are then allowed to trade along a bonding curve until they reach a market cap of approximately $75,000. At this point, the bonding curve is burned on Raydium, establishing a secure liquidity pool. The platform generates revenue through a 1% fee on transactions made on the platform. However, once a token is bonded and burned on Raydium, Pump.Fun stops charging this fee.

Ethereum: Traditional Power

Despite its daily revenues, Ethereum remains a cornerstone of the DeFi ecosystem. It is the blockchain of Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $395 billion. Ethereum powers many applications and digital assets, backing over $60 billion worth of smart contracts. Revenue generation on Ethereum is done through transaction fees, called gas, which are paid in ETH for executing transactions and smart contracts.

Comparative analysis of revenue models

While Ethereum’s revenue model relies on gas fees for transactions and smart contract executions, Pump.Fun takes a different approach. By enabling easy and low-cost token launches, Pump.Fun caters to a broad audience, including non-technical users. This inclusiveness, combined with the excitement surrounding memecoins, has led to rapid revenue growth. The 1% transaction fee ensures continued revenue generation until the token transitions to Raydium, creating a sustainable business model.

Memecoin frenzy

The recent rise in popularity of memecoins has been a major contributor to Pump.Fun’s success. Memecoins, particularly those based on Solana, have captivated the DeFi community, generating substantial activity on platforms like Pump.Fun. This trend highlights a shift in DeFi dynamics, where niche platforms catering to specific interests can achieve significant revenue milestones.

Future prospects

Pump.Fun’s recent successes suggest a potential shift in the DeFi landscape. As the platform continues to attract users with its simple token launch process and low-cost entry point, it could solidify its position as a leader in the DeFi space. The memecoin phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down, indicating that platforms like Pump.Fun could continue to see robust growth.

In conclusion, Pump.Fun’s ability to surpass Ethereum in terms of daily revenue underscores the evolving nature of the DeFi space. By providing a user-friendly platform for launching memecoins, Pump.Fun has tapped into a lucrative niche, demonstrating the potential for niche platforms to thrive alongside traditional blockchain giants like Ethereum. This development signals a broader trend toward diversification and innovation within the DeFi ecosystem, with new entrants challenging established players through unique value propositions and targeted services.

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DeFi

$10 Billion Venture Firm May Target 10x Opportunities in Ripple (XRP) and This DeFi Token

BlockChainGuardian Staff

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$10 Billion Venture Firm May Target 10x Opportunities in Ripple (XRP) and This DeFi Token

According to recent reports, one of the largest venture capital firms is looking for new opportunities in the cryptocurrency space as Bitcoin (BTC) attempts to break its all-time high and start a new bull run in the cryptocurrency market. They are balancing risk with low-risk, low-reward and high-risk, high-reward opportunities.

The first investment candidate is a top cryptocurrency, Ripple (XRP); it doesn’t have much growth potential because it’s already a large cap. Another scenario the firm is targeting is DTX ExchangeThe new hybrid exchange is expected to revolutionize the foreign exchange industry. According to analysts, its growth potential is immense and the risk is also very limited due to its low price.

Market is bullish as Trump wants to make US a Bitcoin (BTC) superpower

Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin (BTC) has increased by about 10%, and one of the catalysts for this price increase has been Donald Trump recently speaking out as a crypto pro. Presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to make the United States the world leader in cryptocurrencies if elected in November. Speaking at the Bitcoin2024 conference in Nashville, Trump compared Bitcoin (BTC) to the steel industry of 100 years ago, highlighting its potential.

Trump’s plans include firing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and immediately creating a “Presidential Advisory Council on Bitcoin (BTC) and Cryptocurrencies.” He stressed the importance of American leadership in the cryptocurrency space, saying, “I am laying out my plan to ensure that the United States is the cryptocurrency capital of the planet and the Bitcoin (BTC) superpower of the world.”

$600 Million Worth of Ripple (XRP) to Be Released in August

Ripple (XRP), the company behind the XRP Ledger blockchain and its native token Ripple (XRP), unlocks up to 1 billion tokens on the first day of every month. Since 2017, they have used several major escrow wallets, including Ripple (XRP) (24) and Ripple (XRP) (25), to evenly distribute these monthly unlocks.

However, Ripple (XRP) often relocks a large portion of newly issued XRP. For example, on June 1, Ripple (XRP) relocked 800 million XRP but still sold about 300 million XRP, worth $182 million at the time.

While Ripple (XRP) releases up to 1 billion XRP tokens each month, the actual amount released into circulation is typically much lower due to this re-escrow process, as noted in a 2017 XRP Ledger blog post.

DTX Exchange Follows Bitcoin (BTC) Path

The main target of large private equity firms is the DTX exchange (DTX), the reason being a clearly high utility like Bitcoin (BTC). This project has attracted global attention thanks to its exceptional pre-sale performance, offering early buyers a 100% return on investment and raising over $1 million. Projections suggest that this figure will reach $2 million by the end of August 2024.

DTX Exchange offers a revolutionary hybrid trading platform, combining the best features of centralized (CEX) and decentralized (DEX) exchanges. Traders can enjoy a seamless experience with access to over 120,000 asset classes, no KYC verification upon registration and ultra-fast transaction speeds of 0.04 seconds.

These benefits have attracted traders to this new cryptocurrency exchange. Currently, in Phase 2 of its pre-sale, DTX Exchange is listed at $0.04, which is double its starting price of $0.02. Market analysts predict that the upcoming listing of DTX Exchange on the Level 1 CEX in late 2024 could trigger a 100x bullish rally, making DTX Exchange the top cryptocurrency exchange to watch.

Learn more:

Visit the DTX Presale

Read White paper

Join the DTX community

Disclaimer: The statements, views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily represent those of Crypto Reporter. Crypto Reporter is not responsible for the reliability, quality and accuracy of the materials contained in this article. This article is provided for educational purposes only. Crypto Reporter is not responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article. Do your research and invest at your own risk.



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