First Published on @IOSG Medium on Jul 1, 2020
Welcome to our bi-weekly newsletter date from 19th June to 1st July.
š±āš¤IOSG Insight
(1/4) Announcement:
We are proud to be among the 20 initial validators for Polkadotās NPoS consensus algorithm. This signifies that Polkadot has enter Phase 2, where DOT holders are allowed to nominate validators in receiving token rewards. Besides that, IOSG is also hosting nodes for projects including Cosmos, Kusama, KAVA, ETH 2.0 testing network as well as NEAR protocol.
(2/4) Ethereum DeFi Ecosystem Map
From the vertical direction, usersā interests are expressed in different forms of tokens from the underlying assets, and finally flow into the top-level user-aggregation layer to meet usersā various economic activities and requirements. Ether, for example, can be secured in a Maker Vault pool to lend out Dai, a stabilising currency, which can be re-collateralised into Compound or Aave agreements representing an interest in the form of cDai or aDai, while a top-tier repay-maximising tool such as RAY can automatically allocate the userās equity to different lending agreements for maximum benefit. This shows a complete vertical flow case.
From a horizontal direction, decentralised exchange and oracle are the basic application modules throughout all projects. Among them, decentralised exchange provides token exchange and oracle provides pricing mechanism for each DeFi protocol. They serve as the infrastructure of DeFi throughout the value flow of DeFi.
(3/4) Who is safe guarding smart contracts for us?
We recently did some research on the landscape, i.e., the professionals safeguarding smart contracts for us. Security auditing service providers have been going through a huge effort of technique and process automation; most DeFi projects have gone through at least one round of security auditing; latest technologies are increasingly being included into security audit practices.
(4/4) Security Audit Techniques for Smart Contract
The broad sense of security audit typically employs a combination of techniques as show below to look for *known* or *suspected* bugs in the smart contracts that may allow attackers for instance, steal funds. Security audit significantly raises the bar for attacks on smart contracts, so every public program should get it audited. However, most security audit approaches are less effective in detecting unsuspected issues and are nowhere close to declaring any audited smart contract as 100% āsecureā or free from any future attacks. Also, due to budget constraints, sometimes thereās a tradeoff to make in terms of how much security audit to do. What does this mean for us as users of smart contracts?
Below are a few points that we want to raise. 1) As always, only send to smart contracts the funds you will afford to lose in the worst case scenario; 2) only send funds to projects that have been security-audited; 3) the potential return or yield out of (especially new) DeFi applications should compensate for its additional security risks involved.
š±āšIndustry
Decentralised finance (DeFi) liquidity provider Balancer Pool admitted early Monday morning it had fallen victim to a sophisticated hack that exploited a loophole, tricking the protocol into releasing $500,000 worth of tokens. Read more
SYNQA, Omiseās Thailand-based parent company, announced on June 22nd that it has raised $80 million in a Series C funding round, led by SCB 10X and SPARX Group. Read more
Compound Tops MakerDAO, Now Has the Most Value Staked in DeFi. As of June 30, Compound has $636 million in cryptocurrency locked while MakerDAO has $448 million. Read more
Ren Synthetix and Curve Team Up For BTC Yield Farming Users who deposit either sBTC, renBTC, or WBTC into Curveās new sBTC pool will be offered an attractive basket of token incentives in the form of SNX, REN, CRV and BAL when staked via Mintr. Read more
Bitcoin Mining Device Maker Ebangās Shares Drop 10% On Day One Trading At Nasdaq. The Chinese company sold over 19.2 million shares priced at $5.23 each. The shares closed 4.4% lower at $5 in the regular session and dropped another 5.6% in the after-hours session at $4.72. Read more
AVA Labsā Avalanche raises $12m in private token sale. Investors in the project including Galaxy Digital, Bitmain, Initialized Capital, NGC Ventures, Dragonfly Capital and many more. Read more
š±āš Our portfolio companies
Polkadotās NPoS is live! With 197 active community validator nodes. Read more
Interlay has released the Proof-of-Concept for a trustless bridge from Bitcoin to Polkadot: the BTC Parachain. Read more
Filecoin announce Filecoin Ignite, a series of events gathering the community, to learn, show, and build together. Read more
VeChain managed to build several partnerships aiming to support the fight against coronavirus pandemic. The recent cooperation with I-Dante resulted in the E-HCert solution ā an electronic COVID-19 test. The solution is adopted at Larnaca airport (Cyprus). Read more
IoTeX announced Burn-Drop program ā tokenomics design that will burn 900 million IOTX (9% of total supply) while 100 million IOTX will be distributed to voters that auto-stake for at least 91 days. Burn-Drop will occur in ten phases, with earlier phases having a higher Burn-Drop rate. Read more
Kyber Network scheduled Katalyst upgrade on July 7th, meaning that KyberDAO will go live enabling KNC holders to stake tokens and participate in network governance. Read more
Maker Governance approved KNC (Kyber Network) and ZRX (Ox) as new collateral assets in the Maker Protocol. Additionally, Maker Governance decided to reintroduce Stability Fees. Read more
š¦ About IOSG
Founded in 2017, IOSG Ventures is a research and community-driven concept.we are focusing on Open Finance, Web 3.0, and cross-chain industry. We have over 60 investments and been actively involved in various developer & DAO communities. We invest in top teams with innovative ideas, operational excellence, and a robust community, and always supportive to IOSG portfolios to grow local communities in China, the US, and Germany.
If you would like IOSG Ventures to consider your project, please send a summary of your project along with a pitch deck and/or white paper to [email protected]
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