defi

Multicoin Capital Managing Partner Tushar Jain shared in detail his valuation logic and investment framework for HYPE during the "When Shift Happens" podcast. He believes that HYPE is currently severely undervalued, with a benchmark valuation of $319, and recommends a pragmatic accumulation strategy to cope with volatility.Tushar candidly stated that trying to precisely time the market is nearly impossible. The recommended framework is: the first third: buy immediately (enter the market right away); the second third: invest according to a fixed schedule (for example, in batches over 1-2 months); the third third: increase positions opportunistically when prices dip. This method can significantly reduce psychological burden while achieving a good average cost when optimistic about the long-term prospects of the asset.Tushar's valuation model is based on four relatively conservative assumptions: the trading volume of crypto derivatives will maintain a 35% annual compound growth rate over the next two years; the DeFi derivatives market share will increase to 32%; the USDC collateral balance will grow in sync with trading volume; and the "false prosperity" currently created by some projects relying on subsidies will disappear after the subsidies are withdrawn, leading to an increase in Hyperliquid's true market share. Even with these conservative assumptions, HYPE's current price still has significant upside potential, possibly exceeding $600 in some optimistic scenarios.Tushar believes that Hyperliquid is far more than just a rapidly growing perpetual contract platform; it is expected to become a core part of crypto financial infrastructure.

Starknet announced the opening of its privacy development stack to developers, launching a privacy SDK and privacy wallet API, allowing applications, wallets, and protocols to integrate private balances, private transfers, and related DeFi interaction features based on STRK20.

According to RootData, the total financing amount in the cryptocurrency industry in the first half of the year was $9.081 billion, with a total of 259 financing events; among them, the primary market financing amount (excluding IPO/Post IPO/M&A rounds) was $8.658 billion, a decrease of 26.1% compared to the same period last year, and the number of financing events decreased by 28.5% year-on-year.March and May were the two peaks for financing amounts in the first half of the year, with the number of financing events reaching 66 and 68 respectively; in June, the number of financing events fell back to 43, indicating that after entering the end of the second quarter, market funding activity has cooled down. Overall, large financing still significantly boosts monthly financing scale, but the enthusiasm for regular financing rounds has begun to shrink.In the first half of 2026, there were a total of 75 M&A transactions in the cryptocurrency industry, of which 16 disclosed specific amounts (totaling approximately $3.836 billion). M&A activities were mainly concentrated in the CeFi, tools and information services, DeFi, and infrastructure sectors. Representative M&A events include: Mastercard acquiring BVNK ($1.8 billion), Kraken acquiring Reap ($600 million), etc.Leading cryptocurrency venture capital firms still maintain a high frequency of investments, with Coinbase Ventures participating in 25 investments in the first half of 2026, ranking first; Animoca Brands participated in 20, while a16z and Tether participated in 14 each. In the past 12 months, Coinbase Ventures participated in a total of 68 investments, continuing to lead the industry, followed by Animoca Brands, Pantera Capital, YZi Labs, a16z, Tether, and GSR.From the perspective of sectors, DeFi, infrastructure, and CeFi were the three most active directions for financing in the first half of 2026. In the first half of the year, DeFi completed 129 financing events, infrastructure completed 116, and CeFi completed 69. AI, payments, prediction markets, and RWA were also key sub-sectors of capital focus, with AI-related financing at 59 events, payment-related projects at 46 events, and RWA-related projects at 28 events.Overall, the primary market for cryptocurrency in the first half of 2026 has not completely stagnated, but the market structure has changed: the total financing amount is still supported by a few large transactions, institutional investments are more concentrated, sector preferences are more pragmatic, and M&A has become an important means of industry consolidation. Funds are shifting towards structural allocations around infrastructure, DeFi, CeFi, payments, AI, and RWA.

The UK's HM Revenue and Customs has confirmed that depositing crypto assets into DeFi lending protocols and liquidity pools will no longer be considered a taxable disposal, and capital gains tax will be deferred until the investor actually economically disposes of the asset. This measure was announced on Monday and will take effect on April 6, 2027, amending the 1992 Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act. HMRC estimates that this measure will affect approximately 700,000 individuals and trustees using crypto loans and liquidity pools. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that this practice is "the right direction."

a16z published a blog post stating that as traditional financial institutions accelerate their exploration of blockchain technology, the market generally believes that the future will see a comprehensive integration of DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and TradFi (Traditional Finance), forming a new financial model through the combination of decentralized finance and institutional distribution systems.However, the reality may not be so. The core motivation for traditional financial institutions to adopt blockchain is not to embrace decentralization, but to value its commercial benefits in reducing costs, improving settlement efficiency, expanding distribution channels, and optimizing customer relationship management.What is more likely to emerge in the future is a new type of "programmable financial infrastructure" based on underlying blockchain technology, optimized for institutional needs, rather than a simple integration of traditional finance and DeFi. Institutions are selectively absorbing certain technological capabilities from DeFi and modifying them according to their own regulatory, risk management, and operational requirements.For example, atomic settlement can reduce counterparty risk, shared ledgers can lower back-office reconciliation costs, programmable funds can automatically execute processes such as interest payments, margin management, and corporate actions, and automated market-making models are also being applied to on-chain foreign exchange and tokenized asset pricing.At the same time, the native DeFi features of open access, anonymity, and trustless execution often conflict with institutional requirements for compliance, control, and accountability. Therefore, cases such as JPMorgan's institutional blockchain project, BlackRock's and Franklin Templeton's tokenized funds, are essentially not traditional finance entering DeFi, but rather using blockchain technology to improve existing financial business processes.In the future, the blockchain industry will have two development paths: on one hand, enterprises and financial institutions will continue to promote the implementation of blockchain infrastructure that meets regulatory requirements, expanding the industry scale through applications such as stablecoins, tokenized assets, and on-chain settlements; on the other hand, open networks will continue to play the role of a source of innovation, continuously generating new financial primitives and market mechanisms, providing technical reserves for future institutional infrastructure.TradFi and DeFi are not in competition but are developing together in different directions. Traditional finance may not fully adopt the DeFi model but will gradually adopt parts that suit its own needs. The true integration may ultimately occur at the underlying blockchain network level, rather than one side replacing the other.For developers, the key is not to chase all markets simultaneously but to clarify the target audience: for institutions, products need to be built around compliance, risk control, and long-term business processes; for open networks, there is a need to continue exploring innovation, liquidity, and network effects. The future financial system may operate on blockchain infrastructure, but the most important innovations may still come first from open networks.

According to CoinDesk, Franklin Crypto Chief Investment Officer Seth Ginns stated that although digital asset prices have not reflected the strongest fundamentals in the industry for years, institutional adoption of crypto is accelerating. Ginns pointed out that the momentum of the integration between traditional finance and crypto is strong, and believes that under current market conditions, liquidity crypto investments are becoming increasingly attractive.He mentioned that Robinhood's blockchain initiative is an example of the shift from traditional financial distribution to crypto infrastructure, with the tokenization of money market funds, tokenized stocks, and stablecoin adoption driving the integration of traditional finance and blockchain technology. Ginns expects that the Senate vote on the Clarity Act will provide institutions with more regulatory certainty and is optimistic about Hyperliquid's revenue-driven token buyback model. He also believes that DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Aave, and Chainlink can benefit from improved token value capture mechanisms.

Dragonfly partner Haseeb responded on Twitter to OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz's previous pessimistic view on DeFi security, stating that with models like GLM 5.2, Fable, and GPT 5.6 now online and actively used by attackers, DeFi has not experienced the anticipated "hacker apocalypse."Chart data shows that based on current year-to-date figures and operating rates, the annualized amount stolen in DeFi by 2026 is approximately $1.89 billion, with a cumulative theft of about $986 million this year, which is lower than the levels of 2025 and still within historical ranges.Haseeb believes that the deeper change currently is that while the number of hacker attacks has increased, the scale of individual attacks has decreased more rapidly, with attackers increasingly targeting smaller protocols and abandoned projects, while larger protocols have completed more security enhancements, thus the overall safety of funds has not significantly worsened.

Token Terminal data shows that despite a cumulative decline of about 42% in the overall total locked value (TVL) of DeFi over the past 365 days, the USDC deposit scale on the lending protocol Morpho has grown by about 86%, reaching approximately $2.8 billion.The data indicates that amidst the overall slowdown in DeFi growth, funds continue to flow into on-chain lending protocols represented by Morpho, reflecting that the market demand for USDC yield-bearing lending products remains strong.

According to Cointelegraph, CryptoRank data shows that Coinbase Ventures completed 30 investments in the first half of 2026, becoming the most active crypto venture capital institution; Animoca Brands, a16z, and Tether completed 19, 18, and 15 investments respectively.In the past 12 months, Coinbase Ventures completed a total of 75 investments, ranking first in the industry, followed by Animoca Brands, YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), GSR, and a16z.Despite the crypto market still being in a downturn, the scale of industry financing continues to shrink, with the total financing for crypto enterprises in June dropping to $1.4 billion, a 63% decrease from $3.8 billion in April; the number of financing rounds also fell from 89 rounds in May to 61 rounds. Meanwhile, the number of independent investment institutions participating in investments decreased from 452 in October 2025 to 242 in June this year.From the perspective of sectors, DeFi, payments, and AI have remained the most favored areas for capital in the past year, completing 216 rounds, 131 rounds, and 128 rounds of financing respectively, with Coinbase Ventures focusing on payment protocols, DeFi, infrastructure, and RWA tokenization projects.

DeFiLlama data shows that Uniswap's trading fees in the past 24 hours were approximately $5.027 million.Uniswap founder Hayden Adams stated that Uniswap's daily trading fees are second only to Tether and Circle, and significantly higher than projects like Hyperliquid and Pump.

According to a post by CoinMarketCap on X, Geoff Kendrick, the Global Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank, expects that the number of announcements related to traditional financial institutions accessing DeFi may increase by 10 to 20 times in the next 3 to 12 months.

The decentralized stablecoin USDD announced that within 48 hours of the launch of the TRON DeFi Summer event, it has attracted over $100 million in net inflows, driving the TVL of USDD on JustLend DAO to surpass $400 million, with strong growth momentum continuing.According to previous reports, the TRON DeFi Summer officially started on July 6, and USDD, in collaboration with JustLend DAO and Binance Wallet, launched the Summer Earning Program, which offers a total of $900,000 in rewards to participating users. The event runs from now until August 5 at 07:59 (Singapore time). Users who purchase USDD through JustLend DAO can enjoy a base APY and also participate in a prize pool of 600,000 USDD.

According to The Block, a report from Immunefi shows that in the first half of 2026, cryptocurrency projects suffered cumulative losses of approximately $972 million due to 207 hacking incidents. Although the number of attacks reached a historic high, the total losses remained below $1 billion and were less than half of the losses in the first half of 2025.The report pointed out that losses from attacks in the DeFi sector have decreased by 74% from the peak of $2.62 billion in 2022, dropping to about $680.3 million, with the median single loss decreasing by 75% during the same period. Immunefi believes that this decline is related to ongoing security coverage, bug bounty programs, audit competitions, and more researchers discovering vulnerabilities early.In addition, the sources of risk are shifting from purely smart contract vulnerabilities to infrastructure failures, private key leaks, cross-chain configuration errors, and weak points in privileged access.

According to Fortune, DeFi asset management and risk analysis company Gauntlet has completed a $125 million financing round, exclusively invested by Japanese financial group SBI Holdings. The financing was completed in June of this year, and the specific valuation has not been disclosed.This is Gauntlet's largest financing round since its establishment in 2018, far exceeding its $24 million Series B financing round led by Ribbit Capital in 2022, which had a valuation of $1 billion.Gauntlet was founded by former Wall Street quantitative trader Tarun Chitra, initially focusing on providing stress testing and vulnerability analysis services for DeFi protocols. As the DAO governance model declined, it gradually transformed into a "vault curation" business—evaluating yield strategy risks through quantitative analysis to help institutional investors manage digital asset allocation. Its current clients include asset management giant Apollo, Coinbase, and stablecoin issuer Circle.