Trump Jr. to launch DeFi platform, $510B sell-off wipes 2024 crypto gains: Finance Redefined

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

The crypto market staged a significant recovery this week after the largest crypto sell-offs in over a year wiped over $510 billion from the global crypto market cap, briefly tanking Bitcoin's (BTC) price to a five-month low of $49,000.

Beyond the correction, there have been significant positive developments in the wider decentralized finance (DeFi) space after presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump’s eldest son revealed plans to launch a DeFi platform to rival the banking industry.

While Trump Jr. has yet to reveal more details about the platform, the crypto industry could largely benefit from the mainstream attention.

Donald Trump Jr. is launching a crypto platform to “take on” the banks

Donald Trump Jr. has announced plans to launch a new DeFi cryptocurrency platform to address inequality in banking access. However, the platform is still in the early stages and will take some time to become a reality.

During a Q&A session on subscription-based platform Locals on Aug. 8, Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son of presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump, said he wasn’t launching a memecoin but working on a crypto platform to take on the banks.

“What we’re talking about is a larger type of platform,” that’s very different and not a memecoin, he said. However, he added that it would be a “long time before we can do anything,” not giving anything away on a time frame.

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$510 billion crypto sell-off wipes 2024 gains from top 50 coins

Over half of the 50 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are in the red following the biggest crypto sell-off in over a year.

The entire crypto market saw a $510 billion drop in total market capitalization.

Following the sell-off, over 60% of the top 50 cryptocurrencies lost all the gains made during 2024, according to CryptoQuant author Binhdangg, who wrote in an Aug. 6 X post:

“After Black Monday, 60% of coins in the top 50 have removed all profit since the beginning of 2024 and even get losses.”

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Solana’s first gaming SVM surpasses one million monthly active users

Sonic’s testnet has surpassed one million monthly active users as a testament to the growing adoption of Web3 games.

Sonic, the first gaming-focused Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) layer 2, generated over 600 million transactions from over one million users during its testnet.

The user surge was largely due to the Odyssey testnet campaign, which offered users rewards for playing and transacting on the testnet, according to Chris Zhu, CEO of Sonic SVM.

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Nomad Bridge hacker moves $35.2 million in ETH to Tornado Cash

A Nomad Bridge exploiter-labeled address has transferred 14,500 Ether (ETH), worth approximately $35.2 million, to Tornado Cash, a popular cryptocurrency mixing service.

According to an X post by PeckShieldAlert, funds linked to the August 2022 Nomad Bridge hack were transferred on Aug. 8.

However, the transfer of 14,500 Ether follows another transaction on Aug. 5, when 16,892 ETH was bought using stolen funds linked to Nomad Bridge.

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Ronin “white hat” attacker returns $10 million in ETH after apparent accidental front-run

The maximum extractable value bot that drained nearly 3,996 Ether from the Ronin Network bridge on Aug. 6 has returned nearly all of the funds, according to data from block explorer Etherscan. This indicates that the bot may have accidentally front-run the attack. At the time the ETH was returned, it was worth more than $10 million.

The bot returned the funds at 3:04 pm UTC on Aug. 6. A total of 3,991 ETH was transferred to the Ronin team, while the remaining 5 ETH has not been returned. The Ronin team announced the return on social media platform X and stated that the bot’s owner was being rewarded $500,000 for discovering the exploit.

The team said it would only reopen the bridge after the vulnerability is patched and an audit is performed.

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DeFi Market overview

The majority of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap have ended the week in the red, still recovering from the aggressive crypto market sell-off, according to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView.

Of the top 100, the Lido Dao (LDO) token saw the biggest loss, falling over 26% on the weekly chart, followed by the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) token, which plunged over 23% during the past 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.