Finance Redefined: Swindling the lender and a $100M pot, Aug. 30–Sept. 3

Welcome to the latest iteration of Cointelegraph’s DeFi newsletter.

Just as quickly as the summer departed from our calendars, millions of funds were hacked from the wallets of Cream Finance.

This has been another jam-packed week in the decentralized finance, or DeFi, space. Here are some top picks for the biggest stories on what is my debut appearance as Finance Redefined’s newsletter writer.

What you’re reading is the shorter, snappier version of the newsletter. For the full roundup of DeFi developments across the week delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe below.

Cream of the crop

This week’s cream-of-the-crop story (pun intended) was the news that lending protocol Cream Finance joined the growing list of hacker victims from the world of DeFi.

Following diligent analysis from blockchain security expert PeckSheild, it was identified that the hacker exploited a reentrancy bug introduced by the Amp token, resulting in a total acquisition of 5,758 Ether (ETH), equal to $19 million.

A few days on, Cream Finance released a post-mortem report on the Amp token hack, promising to return the lost Ether and Amp tokens to users by curtailing 20% of future protocol fees until users are fully compensated.

The $100-million DeFi inclusion initiative

This week, a consortium of leading DeFi protocols, including Aave, SushiSwap, Curve and 0x announced a collaborative $100-million financial inclusion initiative, built on the Celo blockchain, designed to propel DeFi to over 6 billion mobile phone users.

The scheme will create educational programs, incentives and grants — supported by Chainlink and The Graph, among others — to foster fair access to finance for the world’s unbanked, marking an evolution from the often exclusive dogmas of traditional markets.

Gary Gensler: Crypto could be as big as the internet

Another headline story this week was SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s virtual appearance with the European Parliament committee where he shared policy recommendations for the regulation of crypto assets.

In what has become a consistent approach since taking office, Gensler remained cautious in not deviating from the pro-regulation script but did offer some bite-sized quotes acknowledging the vast potential of the market, claiming:

“I think the transformation we’re living through right now could be every bit as big as the internet in the 1990s.”

Token movements

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) stands at a record high of $131.32 billion.

Technical data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView reveals that DeFi’s major tokens performed reasonably well across the week, posting healthy gains.

SushiSwap’s SUSHI recorded bullish gains of 14%, Aave by 9%; meanwhile, Synthetix (SNX) is up 8% from last week, while Yearn.finance’s YFI grew by 5.77%.

Following consistent momentum over the past couple of months, conversations are emerging in the DeFi community around a potential “DeFi Summer 2.0.”

Thanks for reading our dissection of DeFi’s biggest developments across the week. To read the full version of this newsletter, subscribe to our mailing list.