Babylon unveils a proof-of-concept for using native Bitcoin in DeFi lending, as BNB Chain and Hyperliquid post major updates.
Newsletter
Bitcoin infrastructure company Babylon Labs claimed to have developed a system that enables native Bitcoin to be used as collateral for borrowing assets on Ethereum.
Babylon Labs co-founder and Stanford University professor David Tse said on Wednesday that the company built a proof-of-concept that allows native Bitcoin to be used “trustlessly” as collateral for loans on Ethereum.
The comments follow a white paper release from the company, revealing a Bitcoin trustless vault system that leverages Bitcoin smart contract verification BitVM3 to lock BTC in per-user vaults. Here, withdrawals are gated by proofs of external smart contract state verified on Bitcoin.
This system allows users to lock Bitcoin and bring it to Ethereum without relying on a custodian or bridge.
BNB Chain sees record user activity, transactions up 151% in 30 days
Daily active addresses on BNB Chain hit an all-time high on Monday, as the network’s native crypto token reached a new price record.
According to Nansen, sender-only active addresses on the blockchain reached a record 3.46 million on Monday, surpassing its previous high of 3.44 million in December 2023.
The data analytics platform also showed that in the last 30 days, BNB Chain’s successful transactions reached 500 million, a 151% surge from the previous 30-day period. This puts the network second to Solana, which holds the top spot for transactions.
In terms of active wallet addresses, BNB Chain ranked third with nearly 200 million addresses active during the time frame. This record put it close to surpassing layer-2 network Base.
Hyperliquid now allows anyone to deploy perpetual futures, for a price
Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid introduced a new update that allows third parties to launch their own perpetual swap contracts on its platform.
On Monday, Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal 3 (HIP-3) came into force, allowing permissionless, builder-deployed perpetual futures contract listings.
This update allows anyone who staked 500,000 HYPE tokens, about $20 million, to deploy their own perp swap contract with independent margining, orderbooks and parameters.
Deployers can set a fee share of up to 50% on top of the base fee rate and will be defining the markets, including oracle and contract specifications. They will also be setting the oracle prices, leverage limits and settling if necessary.
Uniswap adds Solana support on web app in $140 billion opportunity
Uniswap added support for the Solana network to its web app, allowing Solana users to link their wallet and trade Solana-based tokens alongside those from other networks.
In a blog post, the DEX said it was exploring bridging, crosschain swaps and full Uniswap Wallet support for the network. Transactions made through the web app will be routed through the DEX aggregator Jupiter.
A Uniswap engineer said the team did not specifically build the integration for Solana, but rather designed “architect layers” that were platform-agnostic.
Uniswap’s trading engineering lead, Danny Daniil, said that Solana’s launch will help Unichain, a layer-2 network made by Uniswap Labs, become the “best chain” for trading.
DeFi market overview
According to data from and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the red.
A token called BNB Attestation Service (BAS) had a 456% gain, becoming the week’s largest gainer after reaching a new all-time high on Thursday. The token was followed by Nockchain (NOCK), which recorded 379% in gains last week.
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.
