DeFi


Markets

‘DeFi is dead’: Maple Finance’s CEO says onchain markets will swallow Wall Street

The Maple Finance CEO says institutions will stop distinguishing between DeFi and TradFi as private credit moves onchain, and stablecoins process $50 trillion in payments.

Wall street signs, traffic light, New York City

Finance

Most Influential: Jeff Yan

Jeff Yan, founder of Hyperliquid, has quietly built a $308 billion volume DEX with over half a million users, influencing DeFi while avoiding public attention.

Jeff Yan

Finance

Strata protocol developer Frontera Labs raises $3 million in seed round

The funding will help the London-based team expand Strata, a DeFi protocol that structures onchain yields into senior and junior tranches.

Scattered pile of $1 bills (Gerd Altmann/Pixabay, modified by CoinDesk)

Tech

Most Influential: Sergey Nazarov

Chainlink’s co-founder spent 2025 turning oracles, cross-chain messaging and CRE into building blocks for tokenized funds and on-chain finance.

Sergey Nazarov

Policy

Regulatory Battle Over Tokenized U.S. Stocks Escalates, HSBC Says

Citadel Securities has urged the SEC to treat decentralized finance trading venues like traditional exchanges, a stance facing opposition from the crypto industry.

Wall street signs, traffic light, New York City

Finance

A16z-Backed Daylight Brings Electricity Markets Onchain With New DeFi Protocol

The DayFi protocol aims to turn electricity cash flows into a crypto-native yield product, bridging capital to new solar power installations.

Daylight founder Jason Badeaux (Daylight)

Opinion

Crypto Has Reinvented and Replatformed the Middle Man

For those of us who want to use crypto to make the world better, we need to start calling out this behavior for what it is: short-sighted, selfish, unwelcome greed, says VeChain co-founder Sunny Lu.

CoinDesk

Finance

Blockdaemon, VerifiedX Join Forces to Deliver Mass-Market, Self-Custodial DeFi

The experience, which is designed to feel like Venmo or Cash App, allows users to earn yield on bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins and borrow against their holdings.

Blockdaemon CEO and founder Konstantin Richter (Blockdaemon, modified by CoinDesk)

Finance

Plume Brings Institutional RWA Yield to Solana With Debut of Nest Vaults

Plume is bringing real-world yield to Solana with the rollout of its Nest vaults, giving the network’s users direct access to on-chain credit, Treasuries and receivables.

Plume co-founders Teddy Pornprinya and Chris Yin (Plume, modified by CoinDesk)

Finance

Citadel Securities Challenges DeFi Framework in Letter to SEC, Sparking Industry Outrage

A Citadel Securities letter to the SEC argues that some DeFi systems resemble traditional exchanges and should face comparable oversight.

Securities and Exchange Commission logo (CoinDesk)