Sushi to test Bitcoin swaps and Opyn DeFi protocol founders cave to CFTC pressure: 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.

A new DeFi report has highlighted that a significant amount of crypto lost to exploits was due to traditional Web2 flaws and security issues, such as centralization of information, which makes it easier to exploit.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) platform Sushi is set to begin testing for Bitcoin (BTC) swaps on 30 blockchains using the interoperability platform ZetaChain.

The two founders of the Opyn DeFi protocol have stepped down from their respective positions in the company and announced their intention to leave crypto following enforcement action against them by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The DeFi ecosystem continued to flourish thanks to ongoing bullish market momentum, with most of the tokens trading in green on the weekly charts.

46% of crypto lost to exploits is due to traditional Web2 flaws — Immunefi

A new report from blockchain security platform Immunefi suggests that nearly half of all crypto lost from Web3 exploits is due to Web2 security issues such as leaked private keys. The report, released on Nov. 15, looked back at the history of crypto exploits in 2022, categorizing them into different types of vulnerabilities. It concluded that 46.48% of the crypto lost from exploits in 2022 was not from smart contract flaws but rather from “infrastructure weaknesses” or issues with the developing firm’s computer systems.

When considering the number of incidents instead of the value of crypto lost, Web2 vulnerabilities were a smaller portion of the total at 26.56%, although they were still the second-largest category.

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Sushi taps into ZetaChain to begin testing native Bitcoin DeFi swaps

DeFi platform Sushi has partnered with interoperability platform ZetaChain to explore the possibility of native Bitcoin swaps for its users across 30 different blockchain networks.

Sushi’s deployment of its DEX on ZetaChain is touted to enable trading of BTC without wrapping across several blockchains in what the team describes as a “native, decentralized and permissionless manner.”

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Opyn DeFi protocol founders are leaving crypto after CFTC crackdown

Zubin Koticha and Alexis Gauba, two founders of the Opyn DeFi protocol, are stepping down from the project and “leaving crypto,” according to a statement from Koticha posted to social media on Nov. 14.

The statement comes approximately two months after Opyn settled an enforcement action against it from the U.S. CFTC.

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Layer-2 networks hit $13 billion TVL, but challenges remain

Ethereum layer-2 networks reached a new milestone on Nov. 10, reaching $13 billion of total value locked (TVL) within their contracts, according to data from the blockchain analytics platform L2Beat. According to industry experts, this trend of greater interest in layer 2s is likely to continue, although some challenges remain, especially in user experience and security.

According to L2Beat, 32 different networks qualify as an Ethereum layer 2, including Arbitrum One, Optimism, Base, Polygon zkEVM, Metis and others. Before June 15, all of these networks combined had less than $10 billion of cryptocurrency locked within their contracts, and their combined TVL had been declining since April’s high of $11.8 billion.

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DeFi market overview

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most tokens trading in green on the weekly charts. The total value locked into DeFi protocols remained above $50 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.