The DeFi Drop Volume 22 | Bittrex Exchange

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

The Ethereum blockchain received a huge monetary policy upgrade in July with EIP-1559, which makes gas prices more predictable and burns a portion of ETH with every transaction. So how has it all shaken out? This thread explores important metrics in detail. (Twitter) 

More and more public figures – politicians, athletes – are electing to get their salaries paid in Bitcoin. Matt Hoecht is the first NFL player to propose getting paid in $ETH and wears the newly popular $ENS DeFi token symbol on his in-game jerseys. (Twitter) 

In a bid to “educate readers” about the metaverse, TIME Magazine announced they will hold ETH on their balance sheet as part of a deal with crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital. (CoinDesk) 

The recent development fund raised $800M in October 2021 for the new NEAR ecosystem. Proximity Labs, a newly formed DeFi DAO, aims to distribute nearly 30% of the fund, nearly 40M NEAR tokens, over the next four years on NEAR’s DeFi sector. (TheDefiant) 

Brave ($BAT) released a crypto wallet built into their desktop browser, enabling Brave users to store, manage, grow, and swap their crypto portfolio from a single wallet. Unlike most crypto wallets, the Brave Wallet does not require extensions; it’s browser-native, reducing security risks and reliance on extra CPU and memory.  (Brave) 

Maple Finance just launched the first DeFi syndicated loan created specifically for a single large-cap institution; Alameda Research is borrowing $25 million to start, with plans to scale to $1 billion in the next year. (CoinDesk) 

Do teams building dApps in crypto need to consider other chains beyond their main intent? This writer thinks multichain optimization, where teams ship their dApps across different, competitive blockchains, is imperative to surviving in crypto. (CoinTelegraph)