defi

According to SoSoValue data, the cryptocurrency market sector is generally in a downward trend, with the NFT sector down 4.68% in 24 hours. Within the sector, Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) fell by 4.46%, and Audiera (BEAT) dropped by 14.38%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) decreased by 1.21%, falling below $74,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell by 0.79%, briefly dropping below $2,000.Only the DeFi sector rose against the trend, increasing by 0.35% in 24 hours, with Hyperliquid (HYPE) up 6.79% and Dexe (DEXE) up 5.53%.In other sectors, the PayFi sector remained unchanged at 0.00%, with Stellar (XLM) rising 13.35%; the Layer1 sector fell by 0.80%, but Algorand (ALGO) rose by 7.72%; the Meme sector decreased by 1.02%, with Pump.fun (PUMP) down 5.06%; the Layer2 sector dropped by 1.12%, while Stacks (STX) remained relatively strong, rising by 1.84%; the CeFi sector fell by 1.25%, with OKB (OKB) gaining 1.45% during the session.The cryptocurrency sector index reflecting historical market trends shows that the ssiDeFi and ssiPayFi indices rose by 1.44% and 0.65%, respectively, while the ssiAI index fell by 9.50%.

According to Decrypt, analysts at Standard Chartered Bank pointed out in a report on Thursday that the current price of Ethereum does not reflect the growth in its on-chain transaction volume, nor does it reflect the value of digital assets deposited in DeFi applications. The price of Ethereum has "significant room" to catch up with its internal metrics, as its native network is expected to benefit from Wall Street's steady migration to digital assets.Ethereum has dominated the stablecoin and tokenization markets, which are set to experience rapid growth. Analysts reiterated a year-end target price of $4,000 for Ethereum, predicting it could reach $40,000 by 2030. This would bring the price ratio of Ethereum to Bitcoin back up to 0.08. Standard Chartered stated that year-to-date, stablecoins have accounted for 33% of Ethereum transactions.The "Economic Zone" supported by the Ethereum Foundation will launch this summer, further enhancing on-chain activity. As real-world assets go on-chain, if RWAs grow as expected by 50 times, the importance of Ethereum will increase dramatically, with transaction volume and total locked value continuously setting new historical highs.

The tokenized U.S. Treasury fund VBILL under VanEck has officially launched on the DeFi lending protocol Euler. The fund is issued and tokenized by Securitize, allowing investors to use tokenized U.S. Treasuries as collateral for on-chain lending and liquidity operations, while also meeting compliance requirements. This move reflects that DeFi protocols are accelerating their transformation towards institutionalization and compliance to attract traditional financial capital into the on-chain market.Data shows that the scale of tokenized U.S. Treasuries has surpassed $15 billion, growing approximately 150% over the past year. Traditional asset management giants such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Janus Henderson have all launched on-chain Treasury or money market products. Euler has previously integrated Securitize's DS Protocol to support the access of tokenized securities with investor qualification restrictions and transfer rules to the lending market. DeFi protocols like Aave are also laying out institutional-level RWA business. Institutions expect that the asset tokenization market could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033. Securitize executives stated that as traditional financial institutions enter the crypto space, DeFi protocols must find a balance between openness and compliance requirements.

ETH has fallen below $2000 for the first time since March this year. Over the past 7 days, ETH has cumulatively dropped nearly 8%, with a decline of over 5% in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, ETH futures open interest (OI) has risen for the third consecutive day, reaching a historic high of 16.39 million ETH, with a nominal value of approximately $3.25 billion. Analysts believe that the continuous rise in OI against the backdrop of falling spot prices indicates that the market is experiencing more aggressive leveraged short-selling behavior.Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, stated that more and more investors are beginning to abandon ETH, "ETH does not generate cash flow, and in the context of rising U.S. Treasury yields, the attractiveness of staking yields is declining." Additionally, U.S. spot ETH ETFs have seen a cumulative net outflow of $401 million this month, completely reversing the net inflow of $354 million in April. Market sentiment has also continued to deteriorate due to the departure of core members from the Ethereum Foundation.David Hoffman, co-founder of Bankless, previously stated that he has sold his ETH holdings, believing that the narrative of "ETH as currency" has been fully priced in. The Web3 research institution House of Chimera indicated that the market is questioning the advantages of the Ethereum ecosystem in DeFi, RWA, and tokenization, and whether it can truly reflect back to the ETH token itself.

Decentralized USDD announced that its yield-bearing token sUSDD officially launched on Pendle's Ethereum chain 91-day fixed income market, marking another breakthrough for USDD in the DeFi yield scenario and capital efficiency layout.This event will take place on May 28 at 8:00 AM (Singapore time), and sUSDD holders can participate by locking in fixed rates, trading yield rights, providing liquidity, and more. During the event, YT users can share over $300,000 in incentives, combined with Pendle's official 30% exclusive rewards, and have the chance to receive random airdrops of TRX.The official stated that they will continue to explore diversified yields in the future, effectively meeting market liquidity demands and promoting USDD's deep integration into the mainstream DeFi ecosystem.

According to CoinDesk, the cryptocurrency exchange platform Kraken announced the launch of the Bitcoin Vault product, allowing users to maintain exposure to Bitcoin prices while earning BTC-denominated yields through DeFi strategies. This product is now available on Kraken Earn.Kraken stated that Bitcoin Vault is primarily aimed at long-term Bitcoin holders, enabling users to automatically participate in on-chain yield strategies through the platform without having to operate complex DeFi protocols themselves.

According to the official announcement, Binance Wallet has launched a brand new DeFi experience, integrating three core functions: DeFi earning, DeFi lending, and liquidity pools, supporting over 40 protocols including BNB Chain, Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum, as well as more than 1000 pools. Users can view staking, liquidity pools, and lending positions on the same interface, and directly operate to add/remove liquidity, collect fees, and borrow through protocols like Venus.To celebrate the launch, Binance Wallet will kick off the DeFi Season event with a total prize pool of $2 million starting from May 28, 2026, covering three main themes: Staking, lending, and liquidity pools.

According to The Block, OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz stated that he now believes "all DeFi is unsafe," and he has advised friends and family to exit all DeFi positions, including Aave, MakerDAO, and Compound.

a16z crypto pointed out that not all tokenized assets are fully utilized on-chain. Bonds are currently the largest category of tokenized assets, with a market value of $15.2 billion, but only about 5% of the supply is used for DeFi; precious metals are similar, having been tokenized but mostly idle.In contrast, smaller categories perform differently: reinsurance tokens have 84% of their supply deployed in DeFi, while private credit stands at 33%. a16z believes this makes sense, as the categories with the highest DeFi usage were built for DeFi from the start, such as Nexus Mutual and Maple Finance.a16z noted that many practices currently referred to as tokenization are actually closer to digitization, meaning that records are moved onto the blockchain but do not unlock more new features, while one of the core value propositions of on-chain financial systems is composability.

According to official news, the smart DeFi assistant Otomato announced the completion of a $2 million financing led by Improbable. Otomato is a no-code Web3 automation protocol and DeFi assistant that allows users to create, monitor, and automate on-chain operations, with over 3,000 users currently.

According to CoinDesk, Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network Base has launched an AI integration tool called Base MCP, which allows users' Base accounts to connect to AI clients such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Cursor. Users can complete transfers, token exchanges, check balances, view transaction records, and interact with DeFi applications through natural language.

According to The Block, since the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge attack in mid-April, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has decreased by about 14%, from approximately $172 billion to $148 billion. The attackers exploited vulnerabilities in off-chain infrastructure rather than smart contract vulnerabilities, stealing about $292 million and exposing new infrastructure risks.The outflow of funds has continued for more than five weeks, indicating that investors are broadly withdrawing marginal capital rather than just targeting specific protocols that were attacked. Lending, as the largest DeFi category, saw its locked amount decrease from about $53 billion to $40 billion, marking the largest decline. Liquidity re-staking protocols also experienced significant drops. The KelpDAO attack indicates that as the security of smart contracts improves, off-chain infrastructure is becoming a more easily exploitable attack surface.

XRP Ledger developers submitted a draft amendment called "AMM Swappable Curves," which plans to introduce three types of swappable curves for the XRPL native automated market maker: constant product, concentrated liquidity, and StableSwap, with a programmable Smart AMM to be added later. This upgrade aims to allow liquidity providers to choose more suitable pricing curves based on asset types, thereby improving capital efficiency.Concentrated liquidity is suitable for trading pairs where most transactions are concentrated within a specific price range, while StableSwap is more appropriate for assets that are close to a 1:1 exchange, such as stablecoins or pegged assets. Existing AMM pools will continue to use the current constant product model and will not require migration. This proposal is seen as an important step in addressing the shortcomings of the DeFi infrastructure on XRPL.Currently, there are over $3 billion in tokenized real-world assets on the XRPL chain, including a recent pilot for tokenized U.S. Treasury redemptions completed by Ripple and JPMorgan. However, to enable these assets to trade, lend, or generate yield more efficiently, a more mature DeFi liquidity infrastructure is still needed. Nevertheless, this proposal is still in the draft stage and will need to go through the XRPL amendment voting process, which may take several months, and there is still uncertainty about whether it will ultimately pass.