This Week in DeFi – January 14

To the DeFi community,

This week, the NEAR protocol raised $150 million in a round led by Three Arrows Capital. The funds will go towards developing NEAR’s regional hubs to increase brand awareness, as well as funding various ecosystem projects.

📣 @NEARProtocol raises $150 million to drive ecosystem growth! 🔥#CLOSE announced the closing of a $150 million funding round led by @zhusuis the capital of the three arrows.

Participants included @MechanismCap, @a16z, @dragonfly_cap, #Alameda and much more.

Learn 🔽https://t.co/DjilZpkYPH

– NEAR Blockchain (@NEAR_Blockchain) January 13, 2022

Polygon Zero introduced Plonky 2, a major step in the ZK scaling race that aims to deliver scaling boosts to Ethereum and L2s without compromising security. The Plonky 2 implementation offers a 100x increase in batch ZK transaction processing speed and works natively with Ethereum; while transactions are costly, the optimization marks a major step forward in the continued scaling of the Ethereum ecosystem.

1/5 Proud to present #Plonky2 – the world’s fastest ZK scaling technology, built by @0xPolygonZero! 💫

Plonky2 is a recursive SNARK 100 times faster than existing alternatives and natively compatible with #Ethereum.

A 🧵 why this is exciting… pic.twitter.com/bGOdtyqwM4

— Polygon | $MATIC 💜 (@0xPolygon) January 10, 2022

The 0x API is live on Optimism with launch partners such as Matcha, Set Protocol and others, making 0x one of the most accessible asset exchange protocols in the DeFi ecosystem today . Optimism joins Polygon, Avalanche, BSC, Fantom, and Celo on platforms that offer the 0x API.

Big if true (hint: it’s true).

The 0x API is a critical middleware protocol that allows value to flow freely through the token economy.

We couldn’t be happier to have this important DEX infrastructure on Optimism and we can’t wait to see what will be built with it. https://t.co/m0jwWM9IUZ

— Optimism (@optimismPBC) January 11, 2022

And the DeFi Alliance Accelerator renamed to Alliance DAO after raising $50M from over 300 Web3 aficionados across DeFi, games and more. Alliance DAO will initially continue to offer monetary and mentorship support to Web3 startups, with the goal of adding governance, liquidity, recruiting, and marketing support over time. Alliance DAO has backed seven cohorts of DeFi startups, with applications now open for cohort eight.

It was amazing to be part of the Alliance cohort. I can’t wait to see what @alliancedao can do for founders! 🔥 https://t.co/TP9XWOoN5k

— P◎rt Finance (@port_finance) January 13, 2022

Another week, another major player in the ecosystem goes into DAO. This is likely to be an increasingly common trend as proponents of decentralization and shared ownership continue to cross the chasm from online ideas to real-world organizing principles.

Alliance DAO has already had a massive impact on the rapid development of DeFi protocols, providing financial and administrative support, as well as essential advice to navigate an emerging industry on the periphery of some of the most regulated activities in which humanity commits today. This impact and the growth of the network associated with Alliance makes the transition to a DAO structure even more exciting, as it dramatically increases the resources and expertise that will be devoted to solving the thorny issues of making DAOs work both offline and offline. they do on Discord. Issues such as compensation, dispute resolution, hiring and firing (if necessary), legal representation, taxation and many more will now have the strength of one of the most experienced Web3 pioneer organizations. actively working to provide modern and decentralized solutions.

After really getting started in 2020 (with a few earlier examples), the transition to DAOs has been remarkably fast, even by crypto standards. There is no doubt that 2022 will be the year DAOs enter mainstream consciousness. There is bound to be opposition and resistance, but the bottom-up nature of these executives has already shown an incredible ability to attract highly skilled talent and masses of supporters. DAOs should continue to surprise in 2022 and beyond. Stay tuned!

Thanks to our partner:

Total value locked: $96 billion (up 2.07% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $145.92 billion (up 3.58%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $20.59 billion (down -3.7%)

AID To supply: 9.13B (+2.13%)

Total number of DeFi users: 4,347,000 (+0.68%)

[Samuel Haig – The Defiant] – DeFi Dynamo Paradigm expands bets with investment in Citadel Securities

[Jack Melnick – The TIE] – Do you believe in $MAGIC?

[Anthony Sassano – The Daily Gwei] – Unlimited demand – The Daily Gwei #416

[Liquidity Wizard – Bankless] – Liquidity is bandwidth

[Alex Gallagher – Crypto Briefing] – Guy put $10 in Ethereum DeFi app, then sued

Alex is a content writer at Circle, with previous experience at tech startups, Fortune 500 companies, and as a freelance writer and analyst. His interests include cutting-edge technologies in blockchain, energy, supply chains, transportation, city life, and more. He has been part of the crypto community since 2014.