Market Summary

Bitcoin Price: U$50,053.90 (+1.34%)
Ethereum Price: U$4,130.00  (+0.99%)

Yield Strats #38 – Liquid Staking, New Chain, Stable Farms & Alpha Leaks

• Stader Lab‘s mission is to simplify staking & offer the best risk-adjusted returns to delegators. In the long run, Stader will become a platform for DAOs and developers to build custom staking solutions consisting of chosen validator pools.
  • LunaX touts that users will have the following benefits:
    • Auto-compounding Luna and stable coins (after conversion to Luna)
    • Continue to earn airdrops (based on weekly snap-shots taken randomly)
    • Instant liquidity and yield-enhancing opportunities
• Wannaswap is aiming to be the liquidity central on Aurora EVM, which is built on Near Protocol. Partnered with Near Protocol and Aurora, Wannaswap currently has the basic functions of swapping between two ERC20 assets and being able to add liquidity to become an LP for rewards.
• Frax Finance is a fractional-algorithmic stablecoin protocol. Frax is open-source, permissionless, and entirely on-chain – currently implemented on Ethereum and other chains. The end goal of the Frax protocol is to provide highly scalable, decentralized, algorithmic money. FRAX is a unique hybrid stablecoin, implementing both a collateralized and algorithmic design.
• Enso Finance enables protocol users, strategists, DAOs, and syndicates to maximize the capabilities of DeFi to create new and more efficient ways for capital deployment. Enso’s vampire attack will be the first liquidity migration event simultaneously executed on six different protocols in parallel (Tokensets, IndexCoop, Indexed, PieDAO, dHedge & PowerPool). Enso Finance is not a fork of any of the protocols mentioned. Importantly, it is seeking to migrate over the underlying assets of the other pools, not simply their LP tokens.
• In response to OpenSea’s alleged IPO, Oxmons, founder of ‘the Oxmons’, has announced the token SUDO for SudoSwap. SudoSwap is a free tool for swapping any combination of assets powered by Oxproject. Soon, it will also be an NFT swap protocol.
• SUDO will be airdropped to $XMON and Oxmons holders. The SUDO token launch will be a fair launch and a generous amount will be committed towards the community.
• G-UNI offers automated liquidity provisioning for Uniswap V3, and is powered by Gelato Network. G-UNI combines the capital efficiency of Uniswap v3 with the simple user experience of Uniswap v2 by enabling users to simply deposit their funds in a G-UNI ERC-20 that automatically manages v3 liquidity on their behalf.
• Convex Finance is a platform built on top of Curve Finance which allows Curve liquidity providers to earn trading fees and claim boosted CRV without locking CRV themselves. 
• As per Andre Cronje’s tweet, trades from MIM into ibEUR, ibCHF, ibJPY, ibKRW and ibAUD will have zero fees and zero slippage.

Crypto exchange AscendEX hacked for $78 million in latest swindle

• Crypto exchange AscendEX — formerly known as BitMax — has been hacked for an estimated $77.7 million. That’s according to the exchange, which acknowledged the hack, and security researchers PeckShield who have estimated its losses.
• “We have detected a number of ERC-20, BSC, and Polygon tokens transferred from our hot wallet. Cold Wallet is NOT affected. Investigation underway. If any user’s funds are affected by the incident, they will be covered completely by AscendEX,” tweeted the exchange.
• According to PeckShield, the assets were taken across three blockchains. The exchange lost $60 million on Ethereum, $9.2 million on Binance Smart Chain and $8.5 million on Polygon (formerly Matic).

Brazilian fintech Nubank is now publicly listed in the US and Brazil

• Brazilian fintech unicorn Nubank listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Brazil’s B3 this week, starting its journey as a public company.
• Nubank listed on the NYSE (NU) and Brazil’s B3 exchange (NUBR33) on Dec. 9, after announcing tentative dates last month.
• According to Reuters, Nubank is now the most valuable listed bank in Latin America. The neobank finished its first day of trading on the NYSE with shares up by close to 15%, CNBC reported. This valued the company at $45 billion, according to Forbes.

Metaverse opens the gateway for luxury NFTs to become a multi-billion market

• Thanks to the Metaverse, luxury NFTs from premium brands can see their total value skyrocket, potentially reaching $56 billion by 2030.

FATF guidance on virtual assets: NFTs win, DeFi loses, rest remains unchanged

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released its long-awaited guidance on virtual assets, laying out standards that have the potential to reshape the crypto industry in the United States and around the world. The guidance addresses one of the most important challenges for the crypto industry: To convince regulators, legislators and the public that it does not facilitate money laundering.
• In a positive note for the industry, the FATF is seemingly less aggressive toward NFTs and arguably calls for a presumption that NFTs are not virtual assets. 
• “DeFi application (i.e., the software program) is not a VASP under the FATF standards, as the Standards do not apply to underlying software or technology…”
• The FATF emphasizes that regulators should “consider the nature of the NFT and its function in practice and not what terminology or marketing terms are used.” In particular, the FATF argues that NFTs that “are used for payment or investment purposes” may be virtual assets.
• The new guidance reaffirms the organization’s previous position that stablecoins — cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to a store of value such as the U.S. dollar — are subject to the FATF’s standards as VASPs.

Chainalysis adds Lightning Network support

• Blockchain data platform Chainalysis will start supporting the Lightning Network in February, the company announced Friday. 
• The Lightning compatibility will be available for customers of Chainalysis’ cryptocurrency compliance software, KYT (Know Your Transaction). KYT helps virtual asset service providers (VASPs) like exchanges detect risk patterns and illegal activity.

Pepsi is going to launch a generative NFT collection next week

• Soft drink manufacturer Pepsi, under its parent company PepsiCo, announced on Thursday that it is releasing a collection of 1,893 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on December 14. 
• As Pepsi wrote on Twitter, the NFT collection is only available for individuals on their waiting list, which opens on December 10th. The first 1,893 people who made it on the list will then have the opportunity to mint a Pepsi NFT on December 14th.
• Pepsi follows the popular American beer company Budweiser in launching an NFT collection. However, unlike Budweiser’s NFTs which cost at least $499 to purchase, Pepsi’s are free — buyers only need to pay for gas fees.