1inch Foundation, the non-profit organization of the 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator, has earmarked $3 million to fund new protocol upgrades as part of a grants program targeting developers. Over the next 12 months, 1inch Foundation will disburse grants for projects in the following categories: network development, community development and research and analytics. The network development category targets aggregation products, automated market makers, wallets, layer-2 protocols and integrations involving the 1inch API. For community development, eligible projects include educational materials, local meetups and hackathons. In the research and analytics category, 1inch Foundation is looking to fund projects around data analytics and …

ShapeShift, a leading non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange, is planning to open-source its platform and dissolve its entire corporate structure — an unprecedented move that underscores the company’s commitment to decentralization. Largest airdrop in history As part of its decentralization pledge, ShapeShift plans to airdrop 340 million FOX tokens to over one million users who traded $1 or more of Ether (ETH) or any ERC-20 token through the platform prior to June 9, 2021. Both current and past users of ShapeShift are eligible to receive the airdrop. The breakdown of the FOX token distribution is as follows: 1-4 trades: 200 FOX 5-9 …

A decentralized exchange says its unique dual mining mechanism delivers transaction fees that are “close to zero” — including for major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. MDEX says a blend of liquidity mining and transaction mining results in a deeper liquidity pool and lower slippage, as well as a more user-friendly experience. Data from CoinMarketCap shows that transaction volumes across the blockchains it uses have surpassed big names such as PancakeSwap, Sushiswap and 1inch. MDEX has come a long way since the project launched on Jan. 6. Within a month, the project claims single-day transaction volumes exceeded $1 billion — a …

An up-and-coming decentralized exchange has gone cross chain as it “plants new seeds to grow the jungle.” ApeSwap’s plans to expand to Polygon were driven by an awareness of the multi-chain trend that has emerged in the blockchain sector — and a desire to remain at the cutting edge when it comes to DeFi. The project’s team has also recruited 10 of its close partners on Binance Smart Chain to join them, helping to create an entire DeFi ecosystem on Polygon overnight. The launch has been executed with the full support of the Polygon team through co-marketing and MATIC liquidity …

Back in 2019, an estimated 99% of crypto-asset transfers took place on centralized exchanges (CEXs), according to the number that was used by main crypto critic Nouriel Roubini. CEXs are likely to remain a central fixture of the crypto trading landscape for the foreseeable future. CEXs are fast and convenient, but typically require traders to deposit funds in an account controlled by the exchange. Unfortunately, history illustrates that this loss of sovereignty over a user’s digital assets can be an extreme and costly compromise. Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) offer an intriguing alternative and are gaining momentum, but are still not yet …

Despite ongoing vaccination efforts and pandemic aid, the world’s economy looks remarkably different than it did over a year ago. The new financial landscape and continued uncertainty have accelerated the shift away from traditional financial institutions. As the economy attempts to roar into high gear from a standing start, the world of cryptocurrency has taken to the main stage. It has cemented itself as a recognized asset class by major asset managers, investment banks and hedge funds. As the speed of mainstream adoption continues to take the financial world by storm, it is also paving the way for investors to …

July 11: Updated to include the results of Certik's audit of the platform and DeFi Safety's subsequent upgrade of the rating to 35%. Despite the immediate success of dog-themed decentralized exchange ShibaSwap, there are warnings that the DEX’s liquidity providers are throwing capital into an opaque protocol of questionable security. Building on the popularity of their Doge-style token, Shiba Inu (SHIB), amid the Elon Musk-stoked dog-token trading frenzy, the coin’s developers launched their DEX with enticing yield incentives for liquidity providers on Tuesday. Within 24 hours of launching, the protocol had amassed a total value locked (TVL) of more than …

KuCoin (KCS) prices ticked up in the early Wednesday session on July 7, in part because of an ongoing market rally across the top exchange-based utility tokens. The 72nd-largest cryptocurrency peaked for the day at $14.847 before correcting lower on interim profit-taking sentiment. The move downside accompanied decent volumes, alerting that the sell-off momentum could continue across the European and the U.S. sessions. At the time of writing, the KCS/USDT exchange rate was approximately $14, up more than 100% on a month-to-date timeframe (MTD). Therefore, KuCoin's bearish correction appeared as an attempt to neutralize its overextended upside momentum. The cryptocurrency's …

In this article, I intend to discuss the importance of market data, decentralized finance (DeFi) econometrics and applied DeFi research on crypto (and digital) assets as a corollary to financial econometrics and applied research. I will also attempt to draw upon the perspective and findings from Eugene Fama’s seminal papers based on his interest in measuring the statistical properties of stock prices and resolving the debate between technical analysis (the use of geometric patterns in price and volume charts to forecast future price movements of a security) and fundamental analysis (the use of accounting and economic data to determine a …

As one of the most eagerly anticipated rollouts of the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, Uniswap v3 went live on May 5. The upgrade targeted greater capital efficiency and better flexibility for liquidity providers. The concept of Uniswap v3 includes features such as concentrated liquidity — which allows liquidity providers (LPs) to allocate their capital in certain price ranges rather than distribute liquidity across the entire price curve — as well as multiple fee tier systems which help LPs to adjust to varying degrees of risk. The launch of Uniswap v3 sparked discussions across the crypto community: While some people expected …

Synthetix (SNX) spiked to its three-week high on Monday in reaction to a market-wide upside correction led by Bitcoin (BTC) and other top-cap digital assets. The Synthetix project’s native token reached $9.59 after rising four days in a row by up to 50%. That included a sharp 18.29% upswing in the previous daily session, sparked by Bitcoin’s climb above its key resistance level of $35,000. Altcoins tend to tail the flagship digital asset’s price trends. But more factors were in play during SNX’s comparatively higher price boom. Its jump appeared as speculators returned to bet bullishly on the overall decentralized …

As if 2020 didn’t provide enough nail-biting moments, 2021 is shaping up to be quite an interesting year for cryptocurrency. With the price of Bitcoin (BTC) floating around the $35,000 mark, skeptics and pundits are flocking to the streets of social media to celebrate the long-awaited demise of the decentralized economy. Of course, they quite conveniently forgot that the price of Bitcoin has experienced a 533% increase since the third halving happened in May 2020. Given the number of people claiming the crypto bubble has burst — including former U.S. President Donald Trump — it is almost hard to remember …