Finance Redefined: Liquid Staking & Millions Stuck in DeFi Bridge Contracts

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly source for essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights. This newsletter is designed to bring you the most important developments from the past week in the world of DeFi. Let’s dive into what happened.

BNB Chain, a DeFi protocol, announced the introduction of native liquid staking on its BNB Smart Chain (BSC). This move will allow participants in the ecosystem to secure the network while maintaining the liquidity of their assets.

Chainlink, another DeFi protocol, has launched a cross-chain protocol that aims to make cross-chain smart contracts more interoperable across nine different blockchain networks. This protocol will enable developers to use CCIP for cross-chain token transfers and smart contract messaging.

Arkham Research, a blockchain analysis firm, discovered several DeFi wallets with millions of dollars worth of assets stuck in DeFi bridge contracts. These wallets belong to prominent figures such as Coinbase and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Many of these users have forgotten about these funds and need to manually retrieve them.

EigenLayer, the largest restaking protocol on Ethereum, is facing a potential yield crisis. Due to its rapid growth, the protocol may outgrow its Actively Validated Services (AVS), which could lead to a significant reduction in yield. This is a concern raised by industry experts.

In terms of market performance, the top 100 DeFi tokens had a bearish week, with most of them trading in the red on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols also dropped below $100 billion.

That concludes this week’s summary of the most important DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more updates and insights into this rapidly evolving space.