Ethereum projects launch MEV Blocker to protect users from high prices: Finance Redefined

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week.

A total of 27 Ethereum projects joined hands to minimize the cost incurred by users in the form of maximal extractable value (MEV). The launch partners include Balancer, Gnosis DAO, Shapeshift and StakeDAO, to name a few.

Rugpulls in the DeFi ecosystem are nothing new, but in the first quarter of 2023, 73.3% of all rug pulls happened on Binance’s BNB Chain.

The DeFi ecosystem has become increasingly popular among North Korean hackers for money laundering, according to a new report from the United States Department of the Treasury.

Arbitrum Foundation has introduced a couple of new governance proposals following the fracas that occurred over its first attempt. The two new proposals were then put on community vote.

The top 100 DeFi tokens by market value have another mixed week in terms of price action with little change to the total value locked in DeFi protocols.

Ethereum projects unite to protect users from MEV-induced high prices

Over 27 prominent Ethereum projects joined hands to launch MEV Blocker, a solution that aims to tackle and minimize the amount of value extracted from their users, known as the maximal extractable value, Ethereum’s invisible tax.

MEV is a transaction tax imposed on DeFi users. MEV bots can hijack transactions midway, such as Ether (ETH) trades, nonfungible token (NFT) purchases and Ethereum Name Service registrations, inflating prices for users.

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73.3% of Q1 rug pulls happened on BNB Chain: Immunefi

BNB Chain was the king of rug pulls in the first quarter of 2023, with over 73.3% of such scams in the entire crypto ecosystem happening on the network, according to an April 4 report from blockchain security firm Immunefi.

The report, titled “Crypto Losses in Q1 2023,” investigated a variety of crypto hacks and scams in the first quarter of the year. It found that Ethereum and BNB Chain were the two largest targets for hackers and scammers, with 68.8% of total losses from these networks combined. BNB Chain, in particular, made up 41.3% of total losses from hacks and scams.

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North Korea and criminals are using DeFi services for money laundering — US Treasury

A new report from the U.S. Department of the Treasury analyzing decentralized finance concluded that actors from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and other scammers could exploit vulnerabilities to facilitate money laundering.

In its “Illicit Finance Risk Assessment of Decentralized Finance” report released on April 6, the U.S. Treasury said many groups engaged in illicit activity from North Korea benefited from some DeFi platforms’ non-compliance with certain Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regulations. According to the report, insufficient AML/CFT controls and other shortcomings in DeFi services “enable the theft of funds.”

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Arbitrum poses new governance proposals after community furor

The Arbitrum Foundation has released a draft of new improvement proposals following the fracas that ensued after its first failed attempt at governance.

The new proposals include AIP-1.1, which covers a smart contract lockup schedule, spending, budget and transparency. The other, AIP-1.2, tackles amendments to current founding documents and lowers the proposal threshold from 5 million Arbitrum (ARB) tokens to 1 million ARB “to make governance more accessible.”

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DeFi market overview

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total market value rose above $50 billion this past week. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most of the tokens trading in green, barring a few.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.