BIS thinks DeFi has no use cases, but CZ is bullish: Finance Redefined
Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.
The past week in the DeFi ecosystem was filled with ups and downs, from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) investigation into multiple DeFi protocols to Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s forecast that DeFi would outgrow centralized finance (CeFi) in the next bull run.
While CZ anticipates a bright future for DeFi, a report from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) argues that a pure form of DeFi cannot survive independently and has little use case in the real world.
The Shiba Inu ecosystem’s layer-2 network, Shibarium, has continued its rapid growth post-relaunch, with over one million wallets created; however, its progress has yet to impact the price of the Shiba Inu (SHIB) token.
The top 100 DeFi tokens had a late Friday surge, with most of the tokens posting positive weekly gains.
Binance CEO CZ forecasts DeFi outgrowing CeFi in the next bull run
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao predicts that DeFi has the potential to surpass centralized CeFi in the next bull run.
During a Sept. 1 live X (formerly Twitter) Spaces, titled CZ AMA, Zhao shared his thoughts on the future of DeFi. “I think the more decentralized the industry becomes, the better,” he declared, adding that it may not be long before it takes over CeFi trading volumes.
CFTC cracks down on DeFi protocols Opyn, ZeroEx and Deridex
The U.S. CFTC is taking regulatory action against three DeFi protocols for allegedly failing to register various derivatives trading offerings. The U.S. commodities regulator announced it had issued orders against protocols Opyn, ZeroEx and Deridex in a Sept. 8 statement.
Deridex and Opyn were charged for failing to register as a swap execution facility or designated contract market and failing to register as a futures commission merchant. The two protocols also failed to comply with customer provisions set out in the Bank Secrecy Act, the CFTC said.
“Pure” DeFi has little chance for real-world use because of need for oracles: BIS
The need for an oracle in DeFi is a major impediment to adoption in the real world, according to the authors of a Bank for International Settlements bulletin. The problems with oracles are both practical and principled, and the study’s authors saw no way around them.
An oracle is a third party that provides real-world data flowing to or from a DeFi protocol. An oracle is centralized by nature, and its presence means a protocol is not fully decentralized — if that is tolerated, then trustlessness is lost, the authors said. That is likely to be a fatal flaw for use with real-world assets, the authors wrote.
Binance to reimburse users $1 million for Cyber Earn incident
Crypto exchange Binance is refunding users $1 million of Tether (USDT) over its handling of the CyberConnect (CYBER) token incident.
As described by the exchange on Sept. 7, a price discrepancy on listed CYBER tokens occurred the week prior due to a liquidity crunch constricting CYBER cross-chain bridges on the Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit. This led to arbitrageurs borrowing CYBER from Binance to profit from the difference. In turn, Binance users who staked CYBER in its Flexible Earn Program were barred from redemptions, as the staked assets had been borrowed, reaching the loan limit.
Shibarium hits one million wallets amid meteoric growth, SHIB yet to catch up
The total number of wallets on Shiba Inu’s newly launched layer-2 network, Shibarium, has surpassed the one million mark in a meteoric rise since its relaunch.
The milestone — announced in a Sept. 3 blog post by the official Shibarium team — means there were at least 900,000 wallets created since Shibarium’s relaunch on Aug. 28, and only two weeks after the Shibarium network first went live — albeit with some technical hiccups.
DeFi market overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a late bullish surge, with most tokens trading in the green on the weekly charts. The total value locked into DeFi protocols touched $49.73 billion.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
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Politics
Chancellor insists Labour rebels ‘know the welfare system needs reform’ as they push for change
Taiwanese lawmaker Ko Ju-Chun has called on the government to consider adding Bitcoin to its national reserves, suggesting it could serve as a hedge against global economic uncertainty.
Ko, a legislator at-large in Taiwan’s legislative body, the Legislative Yuan, took to X on Friday to report that he had advocated Bitcoin (BTC) investment by the Taiwanese government at the National Conference on May 9.
In his remarks, Ko cited Bitcoin’s potential to become a hedge amid global economic risks and urged Taiwan to recognize the cryptocurrency alongside gold and foreign exchange reserves to boost its financial resilience.
Ko’s announcement came shortly after the legislator held talks with Samson Mow, who advocates for Bitcoin adoption by states like El Salvador at his BTC tech firm Jan3.
Taiwan is an export-oriented economy
Ko highlighted that Taiwan is an export-driven economy that has experienced significant fluctuations in its national currency, the New Taiwan dollar, amid global inflation and intensifying geopolitical risks.
“We currently have a gold reserve of 423 metric tons, and our foreign exchange reserves amount to $577 billion, including investments in US Treasury bonds,” the lawmaker stated.
In a scenario of more intense currency volatility or potential regional conflicts, Taiwan may “very likely be unable to ensure the security and liquidity,” Ko continued, adding that Bitcoin could be a great addition to Taiwan’s reserves for several reasons.
“Bitcoin has been operating for over 15 years. It has a fixed total supply, is decentralized, and is resistant to censorship. Many countries are focusing on its hedging attributes. At the same time, in intense situations, it may not face the risk of embargo,” he said.
Bitcoin is not the only solution
Referring to many global initiatives considering Bitcoin adoption as a reserve asset, Ko stressed that he’s not advocating for Bitcoin as the “only solution” to rising economic challenges.
Instead, the legislator suggested adding a “small proportion of Bitcoin” into the diversified assets as tools for sovereign asset allocation and risk hedging, and backup capacity of Taiwan’s financial system.
Related: Trump tricked into pushing XRP for crypto reserve: Report
He previously suggested that Taiwan could allocate a maximum of 5% of its $50 billion reserve to Bitcoin in an X post on May 6.
“When exchange rate risk and regional uncertainty increase, it is time to introduce new tools to construct a more flexible financial strategy framework,” Ko said, adding:
“As former Dean Chen Chong said, Bitcoin is the gun of the digital era. It may also be the gold of the digital era, the silver of the digital era. Or it could be gunpowder. A wise nation will not let weapons be in others’ hands.”
The news comes as Taiwan is emerging as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction, with the Financial Supervisory Commission pushing institutional trials of crypto custody services in late 2024.
Mainland China continues to maintain its hostile stance on cryptocurrency after imposing a ban on multiple crypto activities, including mining, in 2021.
Magazine: Adam Back says Bitcoin price cycle ’10x bigger’ but will still decisively break above $100K
German law enforcement seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder funds stolen after Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.
The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.
The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.
eXch exchanged crypto without AML
In the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.
The platform had operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated about $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which were believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.
“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on Feb. 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.
Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering cases
According to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.
Those were in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT said.
ZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed.
Related: Hacken CEO sees ‘no shift’ in crypto security as April hacks hit $357M
“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.
eXch announced termination of services by May 1
After initially denying involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack, eXch eventually announced it would cease operations by May 1 in a Bitcoin Talk post published in mid-April.
“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.
Addressing the seizure, senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”
“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he said.
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