September sets 2023 exploit record, and DAOs can democratize science: Finance Redefined

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

In this week’s newsletter, September became the biggest month of crypto exploits in DeFi, with over $300 million in losses, and the popular DeFi lending protocol Yield announced its permanent closure by December.

Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani has stepped down from his day-to-day roles at the firm, saying he will now monitor from the sidelines, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) can help scientists find funding and community, according to a prestigious science journal.

The DeFi market had a mixed week in terms of price action, with most of the top 100 tokens trading in the same price zone as last week.

September becomes the biggest month for crypto exploits in 2023: CertiK

September has officially become the worst month in 2023 (so far) for crypto-related exploits — with a whopping $329.8 million in crypto stolen.

On Oct. 2, blockchain security firm CertiK said the most significant contributor to the month’s totals came from the Mixin Network attack on Sept. 23, when the Hong Kong-based decentralized cross-chain transfer protocol lost $200 million due to a breach of its cloud service provider.

Yield Protocol to permanently “wind down” operations by December 2023

Yield Protocol announced its decision to shut down by the end of the year due to a lack of business demand and global regulatory pressures.

Yield Protocol will cease to exist after its December 2023 series ends, which is due to mature on Dec. 29. Yield Protocol’s announcement detailing the “wind down” operation confirmed that the March 2024 fixed rate series launch had been canceled.

Polygon co-founder steps down, will contribute “from the sidelines”

Jayant Kanani announced that he has stepped back “from the day-to-day grind” on the project for the first time in six years.

In an Oct. 4 X (formerly Twitter) thread, Kanani said he planned to focus “on new adventures” while contributing to Polygon “from the sidelines.” Along with software engineers, including Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun and Mihailo Bjelic, Kanani helped found the Matic network in 2017, which was later rebranded to Polygon.

DAOs can help scientists find funding and community, says Nature science journal

The Nature science journal recently published an editorial in its Nature biotechnology section lauding DAOs as a revolutionary new method by which researchers working in underfunded scientific fields can create communities around their work and raise funding that otherwise might not be available.

In a DAO-based research scheme, a project’s organization, fundraising, feedback and pipeline from discovery to product/industry can all be handled by the same decentralized governing body.

Wirex taps ZK-proofs for noncustodial crypto debit card issuance

Crypto payment service provider Wirex announced the launch of a zero-knowledge proof (ZK-proof)-based noncustodial crypto debit card service called W-Pay on Oct. 3.

Wirex’s new decentralized solution utilizes zero-knowledge technology and is built on Polygon’s Chain Development Kit, promising increased scalability and security. Polygon’s CDK has been built with ZK-proofs in focus, enabling companies and users to develop their own ZK-powered layer-2 rail.

DeFi market overview

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a minor pullback from the last week, with most tokens trading in the green on weekly charts. The total value locked into DeFi protocols dropped to $45.07 billion.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.

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