Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter. Despite the market printing bearish numbers for a second consecutive week, the industry is not short of bullish fundamental news. Read on to hear about the most impactful DeFi stories of the last seven days. What you’re about to read is a shorter, more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below. Vitalik is optimistic for multichain, not cross-chain, Web3 world Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, shared a candid assessment of the security limitations in implementing fully functional cross-chain …

Last week, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum (ETH)'s co-founder, voiced his disapproval regarding the emergence of cross-chain bridges, citing security vulnerabilities due to their interdependency. In the days that followed however, developers working on cross-chain technologies largely dismissed his skepticism. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer of atomic swap blockchain Komodo, responded to Vitalik's critique: "What we ultimately need is true decentralization. For example, instead of relying on one or two trusted bridges that have a single point of failure, it would be better to work towards a future where we have numerous bridges that are secure, trustless, …

In the last year, more people than ever before have taken to cryptocurrencies as a medium for investment. It is estimated that this amount is more than 100 million people, including a growing number of Gen X-ers and baby boomers, two groups that were previously skeptical of its place. As a result, trading volumes have reached new all-time highs with volumes of an estimated $3.8 trillion. Many have come to know the value of decentralization in their holdings and monetary transactions, making DEXs a popular choice against a traditional centralized exchange (CEX). A DEX, or decentralized exchange, replaces centralized authorities …

YuzuSwap, the first decentralized exchange operating on the Oasis Network, has seen rapid uptake since launching on Jan. 11, underscoring heightened demand for decentralized finance protocols. In its first 24 hours of operations, YuzuSwap achieved a total value locked, or TVL, of $100 million, the company reported Wednesday. Trading volumes over the 24-hour time frame reached $323 million. Within DeFi, TVL refers to the total value of assets being staked on decentralized protocols. YuzuSwap was built using Oasis Network’s Emerald, a smart contract environment that is fully compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine. The DEX uses a peer-to-peer automated market maker …

dYdX, the layer-two derivates protocol, has published the fourth iteration of its roadmap detailing their intentions to evolve into an open-source, community-governed and fully decentralized exchange by the end of this calendar year. The platform currently runs on a hybrid model whereby a portion of operations are decentralized, most notably staking and governance, while other components such as the off-chain orderbook and matching engine are managed by dYdX Trading Inc, alongside external support from a number of partnered centralized servers such as Amazon Web Services. "There will no longer be central points of control or failure of the protocol", they …

On Wednesday, Komodo, a multichain architecture network, announced the introduction of 12 protocols on its non-custodial multi-coin software wallet and atomic swap-powered decentralized exchange AtomicDEX. The 12 protocols consist of Avalanche, Polygon, Harmony, Fantom, smartBCH, Ethereum Classic, Moonriver, KuCoin Community Chain, Huobi ECO Chain, Ubiq, Arbitrum and Optimism, with the latter two being wallet-only. After the upgrade, users will be able to swap Avalanche tokens to Polygon, Ethereum to Binance Smart Chain (BSC), etc., and vice versa. Unlike cross-chain functionality, multi-chain enables users to access their crypto without the use of wrapped or proxy tokens, with potentially better security results. …

The metaverse is more than a movie concept. It combines all digital experiences a user might encounter, replicating many of the actions one would take in the real world, including the purchase of property, homes and clothing, and the customization of one's own space and avatars. However, unlike a virtual ecosystem in a game, the metaverse considers financial data management and other transactions that can keep an entire economy running and simulate what a user would encounter in the real world. Without it, users are likely to miss out on the completely immersive experience the metaverse can offer. Recognizing this …

The total combined value of treasuries, or assets under management (AUM) for the use of decentralized autonomous organizations, increased by around 40 times between January and September of 2021. According to data from DAO stats platform DeepDAO, the total AUM for DAO treasuries listed on the platform increased from around $380 million in January to a peak of roughly $16 billion in mid-September. Looking ahead at 2022: ✍️How far and how deep will DAOs go into the mainstream, and into which use cases? ✍️(When) will DAO treasuries exceed $100B? Lots of interesting questions, but together we can BUIDL this! pic.twitter.com/JDEC9JBuHC …

Cryptocurrency ATMs offer people the convenience of either physically cashing out their crypto, or in some cases, buying some right off the street. Their spread represents the growing interest in and acceptance of cryptocurrencies. However, despite their growth, most of these ATMs operate in a way that goes against some of the core principles of the underlying blockchain technology. Existing crypto ATMs are not only rather centralized physically, with nearly 75% located in North America and roughly the other quarter in Europe, but have also been monopolized and are anti-privacy by design. In keeping with core blockchain principles of privacy …

As new blockchain applications arise, the number of different projects, independent chains and tokens have only risen in proportion. While some networks have excelled in accelerated payments, others have provided new staking opportunities or improved functionality for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The use cases may all be there; however, taking advantage of this diverse set of functionality becomes an issue of complexity as users attempt to get involved in multiple project opportunities and are unable to swap one token for the next. As it turns out, the most pressing problem faced by the decentralized exchanges that manage these transactions is liquidity. …

Solana (SOL) has become a top contender in the smart contract industry and in the past year the network's total value locked (TVL) grew by $660 million and stretches across more than 40 decentralized applications to hit an all-time high above $11 billion. Even with this growth, investors have reason to question whether the current $56 billion market capitalization is justified and how it compares to competing networks like binance smart chain (BNB), Avalanche (AVAX) and Polygon (MATIC). By analyzing the past 6-month price performance, there's an apparent decoupling from Terra (LUNA), Solana and Avalanche when compared to other smart …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance newsletter. Although the markets may be down and technical indicators built upon AWS malfunctioning, fear not young degens, fundamental news and the spirit of Wagmi is abundant as ever. So, read on and discover all you need to know about the most important events of this week. What you’re about to read is a shorter, more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below. AWS outage highlights the need for truly decentralized exchanges. An Amazon Web Service outage this week produced …