Decentral Block Post

Ether (ETH) price has been locked within a tight trading range spanning from $1,800 to $1,900 since July 21. This remarkable lack of volatility has instilled a sense of uncertainty and skepticism among investors, despite recent positive developments which include the launch of PayPal's Ethereum-based stablecoin, and a surge in requests for Ether-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

PayPal's entrance into the world of cryptocurrencies could signify a major step toward mainstream adoption for Ethereum. However, this move also raises concerns about centralization and the potential loss of control over personal assets.

At the same time, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently witnessed a surge in applications for Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which mirrors a trend of major asset management firms seeking to establish spot Bitcoin ETFs.

ETH’s drop in DApp deposits and active users is concerning

The Ethereum network is having problems because of high gas fees, which are the costs for transactions, including those done with smart contracts. For the past two months, the average transaction fee has been more than $4, which limited the demand for its decentralized apps (DApps).

There has been a noticeable decline in the total value of deposits locked (TVL) in the Ethereum network. This decrease marked the lowest TVL level observed over the past three years, as reported by DefiLlama.

Binance Labs, the venture arm of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has invested $5 million in Curve (CRV), the namesake token of the decentralized stablecoin trading platform.

“Curve is the largest stableswap and second-largest DEX [decentralized exchange], with approximately $2.4B in total value locked and $215M in daily volume at the time of writing," Binance Labs said in the Aug. 10 announcement. Yi He, Binance’s co-founder and head of Binance Labs, said the firm is pledging its full support to the DEX “given recent events that have impacted the protocol." 

The firm says in exchange for the investment, Curve will deploy to BNB Smart Chain. The protocol currently operates on multiple chains, having been originally based on Ethereum, and serves as one of decentralized finance's (DeFi's) biggest market makers with several hundred pools in use.

On July 30, Curve was drained of $73.5 million from its stable pools due to a reentrancy vulnerability in its underlying programming language, Vyper. On Aug. 4, the hacker behind the exploit wrote via Ethereum: “I’m refunding you not because you can find me, it’s because I don’t want to ruin your project. I’m smarter than all of you, fuck!!”

Soon after the message, 73%, or around $52.3 million, of the stolen assets were returned to Curve by the hacker. Since the full amount was not returned, Curve subsequently issued a $1.85 million bounty for information pertaining to the whereabouts and identity of the hacker. The return of funds, although partial, prevented the liquidation of $100 million in loans on various DeFi protocols originating from Curve founder Michael Egorov, of which CRV was used as the underlying collateral. 

Stablecoin issuer Circle has a $1 billion cash reserve pegged as insurance against a declining market capitalization and fresh competition from the traditional finance and technology industries, said CEO Jeremy Allaire. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, Allaire revealed the war chest and shared his views on the uptick in competition from organizations such as PayPal that are new to the stablecoin space:

“I expect you will see many many, not just internet payments firms, but also all kinds of financial services companies and others begin to get more involved in this. It’s great to have this new competition. I do think it’s going to drive more and more companies into the field.”

Related: PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin for payment

Circle is best known for its USDC (USDC) stablecoin, a digital token similar in design to regular cryptocurrency but backed entirely by fiat — in this case, the United States dollar.