The DeFi Drop Volume 17 | Bittrex Exchange

Each week, we’ll round up the hottest news across the DeFi ecosystem to help you keep up to speed. 

Is crypto actually bad for the environment, or is that just a bearish talking point? This writer purports that even though the Web 3 / DeFi world is growing, the environmental cost is decreasing. (Medium) 

Tether agreed to settle with the CFTC by paying a $41 million fine for claiming that its tokens were fully backed by fiat currencies. Clarity on this situation has spurred positive sentiment across the industry, and specifically DeFi protocols who use Tether for reserves or staking. (Tether Press Room) 

Thanks in large part to DeFi transactions, Ethereum user paid ~$1.0B in transaction fees over the past 30 days. Of that ~$1.0B, 82.45% or ~$824M was burned* and thereby returned to $ETH holders under the EIP-1559 update. (Token Terminal) 

Abracadabra ($MIM, or Magic Internet Money) and Terra are teaming up to take on the centralized stablecoins that currently dominate DeFi. UST is an algorithmic stablecoin that is collateralized by Terra’s LUNA token, and borrowing markets are currently available on Ethereum, Avalanche, Fantom and Arbitrum. (The Defiant) 

Axie Infinity, the popular blockchain gaming ecosystem on Ethereum, has just under $2.5B of its governance token, staked on its Ronin sidechain. That’s more than a quarter of AXS’s total circulating supply. (The Defiant) 

In his article “Fintech Is A Colossal Disappointment. DeFi Fixes It.”, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan details a future where DeFi primitives can change how we all interact with finance today. (Forbes) 

Last week, we shared that one of France’s largest banks Société Générale (SocGen) made a governance proposal with Maker DAO. Now, news has broken that SocGen is looking to acquire a cryptocurrency custodian, or take a strategic stake in one, ahead of a robust crypto roadmap for the bank. (CoinDesk)