Latest Trends in the DeFi Industry: Stablecoin Season, Superchain Expansion, and Innovation

In the past week, the DeFi sector has seen several important developments. Competition in the stablecoin market has intensified, with multiple projects collaborating; at the same time, the superchain ecosystem continues to expand, with new innovative projects emerging one after another.

Stablecoin market competition intensifies

Ethena has launched a new stablecoin, USDtb, supported by a certain asset management company, and has partnered with Usual to provide mutual TVL and incentives. Additionally, Ethena has collaborated with WLFI to integrate sUSDe into the lending market. This round of stablecoin competition shows a clear trend of solidarity, with participants being more mature and prudent than in the previous round.

Usual has adopted a stablecoin mining mechanism embedded with multi-party game theory, which is similar to last year's DeFi Summer, but has innovations in the concepts of RWA, the precision of the game model, and liquidity exit. Its early rapid TVL growth relied on the increase in token prices, but as the growth slows down, it may reach a turning point, ultimately forming a reasonable yield that approaches the market.

Another project worth noting is Resolv, whose TVL has increased by nearly 400% in the past two weeks. Resolv adopts a Delta neutral stablecoin protocol similar to Ethena, but introduces RLP as a risk buffer layer. This design provides options for users with different risk preferences.

Frax is also making important adjustments, including collaborating with Symbiotic, launching the veFRAX multi-yield structure, and considering using products from a certain asset management company as collateral for Frax USD.

Super Chain Ecosystem Expansion

The Ink developed by a certain trading platform has launched its mainnet and joined the superchain, with Dinero launching the first LST on Ink. Velodrome plans to integrate into Ink in 2025, which reflects the trend of compliant exchanges developing their own L2. As the liquidity center of the superchain, Velodrome may occupy other superchain members through horizontal expansion.

Innovative Projects Emerge

Convex and Yearn have partnered to launch a decentralized stable protocol called Resupply, which uses reUSD as collateral, generated from the yields of the lending market, and provides an embedded leverage loop function.

GammaSwap is about to complete the development of the Yield Token and send it for auditing. The project focuses on hedging impermanent loss, allowing LP tokens to be lent and split for reorganization, achieving a profit and loss curve similar to options.

Ethena has proposed a new initiative to integrate Derive options and perpetual futures. If approved, Derive will become the on-chain hedging and underlying trading venue for Ethena's $60 billion TVL.

Other noteworthy developments include: Aptos changing its CEO, with the new leadership placing greater emphasis on DeFi development; Babypie incentivizing mBTC-BTC liquidity across multiple chains and DEXs; Fluid expanding to the Arbitrum network; a certain public chain foundation launching AI-related initiatives; LFJ set to launch a DEX aggregator on a certain public chain; Morpho Labs proposing to deploy core smart contracts across multiple chains; Sonic launching its mainnet, offering multiple functions and ecosystem integration.

These developments show that the DeFi industry is undergoing a new wave of innovation, with stablecoins, cross-chain interoperability, and new financial products becoming the focus.