AH DEFIning DOT! (August 11th to August 17th)
Our top story this week covers the recent chatter surrounding the Asset Hub, along with other important news items. In particular, there has been a notion that the Asset Hub should be the sole destination for Polkadot DeFi, building on the concept of The Plaza.
With Polkadot DeFi in the spotlight, we will also take the opportunity to roundup the latest Polkadot ecosystem’s DeFi developments in our featured update.
Finally, we would like to welcome Ajuna as our latest Treasury Partner. We recently featured them in a story in our newsletter. Keep your eyes peeled as there will soon be bounties where you can earn some Ajun token.
The full newsletter can be enjoyed via this link.
Dodow, Chief Editor
Top Story of the Week - DOT System Chain
Written by yay.oi
You may remember we reported on Rob Habermeier’s Polkadot Plaza idea back in June. He proposed to add a lot more functionality to the Polkadot Asset Hub by integrating Rust and EVM smart contracts, bridging pallets, and staking.
The idea was met with excitement, and with the passing of Referendum 885, the wheels are in motion at Parity to have the essentials for EVM compatible dApp building on Polkadot by the end of the year. As for the steps to fulfill the rest of Rob’s vision, the road ahead looks bumpy. Referendum 903 for Plaza Smart Contract Tooling failed, and some new ideas for the Asset Hub have resulted in heated debate.
This week, Colorful Notion made a bold statement that the majority of DeFi needs to move on to Asset Hub. Their reasoning is that they feel that parachains are too small, and the average DeFi investor would rather interact with Polkadot, a well-established brand with proven security. We’ll revisit this debate later, but first, let’s take a look at the current state of Polkadot System Chains and some of the obstacles that would need to be overcome.
System Chains are an evolution of the earlier concept known as Common Good Parachains. The original idea was that Common Good Parachains were dedicated parachains that provided overall benefit to the Polkadot network, while also freeing up blockspace by offloading protocol functions from the Relay Chain. It was decided that the term System Chain is a better reflection of their role as essential infrastructure.............….
Check out our full newsletter for the full story
Featured Update - DOT DeFiing Roundup
Written by Sanchez & Dodow
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is essentially about eliminating centralized intermediaries that provide financial applications and services, using blockchain networks. It embraces the Web3 vision of a more open, transparent, and fair internet where people have greater control and ownership.
To date, DeFi has become one of the most compelling areas of Web3 adoption, offering a plethora of financial services, including asset exchange, lending, borrowing, yield farming, derivatives, payments and remittance, and much more. Recent advancements have centered around liquid staking tokens (LST), unlocking more flexibility and liquidity to users.
While a single application or protocol can offer various financial services, a thriving DeFi ecosystem comprising multiple interconnected protocols and applications is potentially crucial for realizing the full potential of DeFi. It is the sum of many parts that creates a robust, integrated environment, which further enhances functionality and innovation.
Polkadot is a foundational meta-protocol that can enable the development of a powerful DeFi ecosystem. Its inherent modular development framework and cross-chain capability can provide many possibilities for builders. Let’s take a deeper look into the various parts that have been built and provide an update on their latest developments.............….
News from the Finders Program Part 1
Written by yay.oi
Despite some chatter that Agile Coretime would go live on Polkadot in August, according to Radha from Web3 Foundation, we should expect the runtime upgrade referendum by the end of August and Coretime live in September.
Turtle is a new cross-chain transfer app supporting Polkadot<>Ethereum bridging, built by Velocity Labs, and powered by Snowbridge.
Funded by the treasury, Polkadot API 1.0.0 (PAPI), the first stable version, has been released. PAPI offers a suite of modular Typescript libraries to streamline dApp building on Polkadot.
InvArch’s updated roadmap, with a much stronger emphasis on DAO management, is expected to be completed in the next 3 months.
Litmus on Kusama is closing. All LIT token balances will be migrated to Litentry on Polkadot.
OpenGov Referendum 1080 requests 96K DOT to initiate the Open Source Developer Grants Bounty, which aims to fund 15 individual and small-team open source projects with up to USD 30K each.
News from the Finders Program Part 2
Written by Dodow
Moonbeam announces seven winners of The Hug Rarible Illuminate Creativity Open Call, each receiving a $1K grant for their artworks listed on Rariable.
Participant in Astar dApp staking and earn a 20% bonus by choosing Astar Degens.
There are 12 prizes of $200 USDC in The Moonbeam Lunar Gaming Festival August Adventure. Check out the newly added 2D fighter game, Polybots Rumble.
Beefy yields of up to 230% APY, are now available on Stellaswap’s Cowcentrated Liquidity Manager Pools via Beefy Finance.
Acala announces a collaboration with Kylix Finance, a recipient of a W3F Decentralized Futures Grant. Although full details have yet to be released, they have indicated that LDOT will be utilized in a new innovative lending product.
On August 14th, Aventus Network hosted Mandala Chain and Unique Network to discuss the benefits of being a parachain on Polkadot.
Extras
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