The SEC reviews digital asset policies of the Biden era, which may pave the way for regulatory relaxation.
Market Commentary
BTC —— The BTC price has dropped by 5.22% in the past 24 hours, currently standing at 78,236 USDT. Overall, BTC has continued its downward trend recently, with clear bearish momentum. This morning, the price experienced a significant drop, briefly touching the support level near 77,151 USDT. However, a slight rebound followed, indicating that this support level still holds some strength in the short term. Although the short-term moving averages are still in a bearish arrangement, the MACD indicator is about to generate a golden cross, which may suggest a certain rebound momentum in the short term. Attention should be paid to whether the subsequent volume and price can sustain an upward trend.
ETH —— The price of ETH has decreased by 12.13% in the past 24 hours, currently priced at 1,601 USDT. The price of ETH was initially in a consolidation range, but this morning it broke below the support level of 1,750 USDT with increased volume, and found support near 1,530 USDT, showing signs of stabilization in the short term.【2]
ETF —— According to data from SoSoValue, on April 4th, the total net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the U.S. was $64.88 million【3】, while the total net inflow of Ethereum spot ETFs in the U.S. was $2.06 million. The data is as of April 7th, 11:00 AM (UTC+8).【4]
Shanzhai Coins —— The overall price performance of Shanzhai coins is sluggish, with no obvious rising sectors. [5]
Three Major U.S. Indices —— On April 4, the S&P 500 index fell by 5.97%, the Dow Jones index fell by 5.50%, and the Nasdaq index fell by 5.82%.【6】
Spot Gold —— The spot gold price is $2,980.49 per ounce, a daily decline of 1.76%. Data as of April 7, 10:00 AM (UTC+8).【7】
Fear and Greed Index —— Fear and Greed Index 23, the market is in a state of extreme fear.【8]
Popular Tokens
According to Gate.io market data【9】, combined with the trading volume and price performance in the last 24 hours, the popular altcoins are as follows:
**AERGO (Aergo) **—— The daily increase is approximately 50.95%, with a circulating market value of 37.45 million USD.
Aergo is an open-source enterprise blockchain platform designed to meet the needs of both permissioned and permissionless blockchain architectures, thus providing a hybrid deployment model. The platform features integrated SQL support, simplifying data management and providing a familiar environment for smart contract development.
The recent price increase of the AERGO token is mainly driven by the proximity of the AIP-21 proposal vote and the accompanying incentives. The project team announced that it will airdrop 17 million HPP tokens (accounting for 1% of the total supply) to users who participate in the vote, which will be distributed according to the voting weight, which has significantly increased the enthusiasm of the community and prompted a large number of users to transfer AERGO to the support wallet in advance, which directly stimulated the market demand. At the same time, the HPP tokenomics model announced by the AIP-21 proposal shows that 76% of the tokens will be used for community incentives (including airdrops, developers, and ecosystem building), and the "Community Power Sprint" limited-time event has attracted a lot of speculative buying in the short term. From a technical point of view, the proposed plan to build an HPP Layer 2 network based on the OP Stack and achieve Superchain compatibility will create synergies with the existing Layer 1 enterprise services, and this two-tier architecture design reinforces the market's expectation of the long-term value of the project. The combined effect of governance incentives and technological innovation expectations ultimately drove the current round of price increases.
**FORTH (Ampleforth) **—— Daily increase of approximately 36.48%, circulating market value is 29.25 million USD.
Ampleforth is a blockchain-based platform that operates on Ethereum, primarily for lending purposes. It uses an innovative approach to adjust the supply of its native token based on demand, providing a decentralized, elastic supply stablecoin. [11]
Ampleforth's recently launched dual-asset system (AMPL + SPOT) has attracted market attention due to its innovative mechanism, driving up the price of the FORTH token. The core of the system lies in the synergy between AMPL (elastic supply asset) and SPOT (low volatility asset), constructing a decentralized, non-USD pegged monetary system through the "tranching" mechanism, which can maintain long-term purchasing power while optimizing capital efficiency. AMPL serves as the benchmark asset, adjusting elastic supply to maintain system stability, while SPOT provides a low-volatility, yield-enhancing asset option. The dynamic balance between the two (such as the SPOT-stAMPL mechanism) converts volatility into productivity, attracting participation from DeFi protocols and institutional investors, enhancing the market's recognition of Ampleforth's financial architecture. This innovation not only provides new risk management strategies and portfolio construction methods but also increases the demand for FORTH (governance token), becoming an important target for capital inflow, ultimately driving the overall growth of ecological value.
**AVAIL (Avail) **—— Daily increase of approximately 9.21%, circulating market value is $57.8 million.
Avail is a modular blockchain infrastructure project focused on solving data availability and interoperability issues within the Web3 ecosystem. Avail utilizes KZG polynomials to provide reliable data availability, enabling scalability solutions to grow securely while simplifying cross-ecosystem transactions, thus providing a unified infrastructure for Web3.
The recent rise of the Avail (AVAIL) token is mainly attributed to the successful launch of Lens Chain and its adoption of Avail's data availability (DA) layer, while the upgrade of the technical roadmap further enhances market confidence. As a large-scale SocialFi platform with over 650,000 users, Lens Chain chose Avail as its underlying DA solution, validating its high availability and practical application value, which directly stimulated market demand for AVAIL. In addition, Avail's latest released technical roadmap proposes a three-step strategy to optimize the block production process, introduce Data Availability Sampling (DAS), and SNARK key transactions, aiming to increase the block size from 4MB to 10GB and reduce block time from 20 seconds to 600 milliseconds, significantly enhancing network throughput. This upgrade plan strengthens investors' expectations for Avail's horizontal scalability. Market optimism also stems from ecological cooperation progress, including collaborations with zkSync and QuickNode, as well as dynamics such as the 10GB Infinity block testing. The active performance of Lens Chain (with tens of millions of on-chain interactions), combined with technological upgrades and endorsements from partners, has jointly driven this round of price increase.
Highlight Data
Aave's borrowing interest on Ethereum exceeds 1 billion dollars
The total interest generated by borrowers on the Aave platform in the Ethereum network has surpassed the 1 billion dollar mark. The chart shows a clear accelerating trend in the growth of this figure, especially with a significant upward curve occurring during the period from 2024 to 2025. Between 2022 and 2023, the total interest generated by borrowers on Aave in the Ethereum network steadily rose from around 300 million dollars to about 500 million dollars. A rapid increase was observed in late 2024, breaking through the 1 billion dollar mark at the beginning of this year. Aave's interest comes from the floating rates paid by borrowers after users provide assets through liquidity pools. The protocol sets reserve factors for different assets to determine the distribution of interest between lenders and the protocol. In recent years, Aave's annual revenue has remained at several hundred million dollars, combined with its continuously expanding locked-in amount, driving rapid growth in accumulated interest.
This significant achievement not only reflects Aave's market position as a leading lending platform in the DeFi space but also showcases the remarkable growth of the entire DeFi industry, particularly the lending market, over the past four years. This ongoing upward trend may indicate that an increasing number of users are turning to decentralized financial solutions for lending activities, further demonstrating that the practical application value of blockchain technology in the financial sector is steadily increasing.
Solana TVL hits a new high since 2023, DEX market share is strong
Recently, Solana has shown strong on-chain performance. Although the price of SOL has dropped by about 19% since March 31, the total value locked (TVL) in the network has reached 53.8 million SOL, a new high since mid-2022, equivalent to about 6.5 billion USD, leading BNB Chain by nearly 780 million USD. Its decentralized exchange (DEX) market share has also risen to 24%, firmly maintaining the second position in the market, second only to Ethereum. Leading DApps such as Jito, Jupiter, and Kamino have performed excellently, attracting continuous capital inflow to the network. However, despite the active on-chain data for Solana, the price of SOL has not correspondingly strengthened. On April 4, the unlocking of about 1.79 million SOL brought over 200 million USD of selling pressure, coupled with the profit-taking willingness of early stakers, creating pressure on the price. At the same time, the popularity of meme coins on Solana has waned, with WIF, POPcat, BOME, and others generally dropping more than 20% within a week, dragging down short-term user activity. Furthermore, the overall cryptocurrency market has recently shown sluggish performance, with mainstream assets retreating and risk appetite declining, which has also intensified the sentiment pressure on SOL.
However, Solana's progress in infrastructure, user experience, and developer activity is still recognized by the market, despite the controversy surrounding the MEV mechanism, and the community continues to push for optimization solutions. Overall, Solana's competitive platform position within the DeFi ecosystem remains solid, and its future performance is still worth paying attention to. [14]
Mainstream DeFi protocol revenue significantly declined in March, while Sky (formerly MakerDAO) grew against the trend
In March, the revenue of most major DeFi protocols on Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain saw a decline of over 50%. The mainstream DeFi protocols on Solana, Pump.fun, Jito, and Raydium, had a total revenue of approximately $42 million in March, a month-on-month decrease of 55%. PancakeSwap on BNB Chain had a revenue of only $21 million in March, a decrease of 54% compared to the previous month. Meanwhile, DeFi protocols on Ethereum, such as Ethena, Lido, and Aave, also showed a similar trend, with a total revenue of only $24.5 million in March, down 52% from February. However, Sky (formerly MakerDAO) experienced a month-on-month growth of 49% in March, reaching a revenue of $13.5 million, making it the only protocol with revenue growth. Its revenue primarily came from stablecoin stability fees and liquidation revenue, highlighting the importance of a sustainable business model.
The decline in mainstream DeFi revenue may be due to a general decrease in on-chain activity and transaction volume, as well as a decrease in user activity. Reflects a decrease in demand for decentralized finance, resulting in a decrease in interactions such as transaction volume and lending activity. As the number of DeFi protocols increases, the market becomes more competitive, impacting the revenue of mainstream DeFi. In addition, some protocols may face sustainability issues with monetization models, many of which rely on token inflation to incentivize users to provide liquidity rather than real revenue (such as transaction fees or borrowing interest), a model that is difficult to sustain during market downturns. Unsustainable high-yield designs and over-leverage lead to panic withdrawals by users, creating a "death spiral". 【15】【16】
Hot Comments
Tariff policies impact global markets, global stock markets and cryptocurrency markets accelerate their decline
On April 2, 2025, President Trump announced a new round of tariffs on imported goods from multiple countries, including China, Canada, and Mexico, aimed at protecting American domestic industries and reducing the trade deficit. However, this policy quickly triggered market turmoil. On April 3, the S&P 500 index plummeted nearly 5%, marking its worst single-day performance since 2020, and further declined on April 4, with a market value evaporation of over $5 trillion within two days, setting a record for the largest drop in history. The Japanese stock market was similarly affected, with the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices dropping approximately 9% and 10% respectively over the week, indicating that the policy's impact has spilled over to global markets. As of April 7, 2025, the global financial markets were still digesting the effects of the large-scale tariff policy announced by the Trump administration on April 2, with panic sentiment continuing to spread. S&P 500 index futures continued to drop by 5%, and Bitcoin's price fell to as low as $75,000.
The tariffs have had an impact on the market and the economy on multiple levels. Although the US is trying to support local manufacturing through tariffs, it may also push up the cost of imports, increase the pressure on consumers, and lead to potential inflation. At the same time, if countries implement retaliatory measures, the U.S. export industry will also suffer. Risk aversion quickly rose in the market, with the VIX fear index surging above 40 on April 4. The uncertainty in the capital market is also reflected in corporate behavior, with companies such as Klarna and Circle announcing the postponement of IPOs, indicating that investors and companies are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards the direction of policy, and market confidence has been significantly frustrated. Against the backdrop of global stock markets falling alongside gold, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 3.7% last week, but rebounded over the weekend, showing a degree of resilience and stability. However, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's recent remarks have suppressed market expectations for easing policy, which is bearish for risk assets. BTC re-weakened on Sunday night and is now falling further to $75,000 due to the decline in index futures prices, showing that it is still unable to fully escape the downward pressure on the overall market. 【17】
The Lens Protocol mainnet went live on April 4. Lens Chain uses Avail's data availability layer and ZKsync technology to improve the scalability and security of the network. In addition, Lens Chain uses the GHO stablecoin as fuel, enabling scalable, fast, and zero-gas transactions. To support the construction of decentralized social applications, the Lens Protocol mainnet integrates several core infrastructures. First, the Social Protocol provides pre-built social primitives, such as accounts, feeds, and groups, that are modular and flexible for developers to embed into existing applications as standalone features. Second, Grove serves as an on-chain permissioned storage system to ensure users' autonomy over content and data security. Third, the Developer Dashboard provides a simple and intuitive tool interface to help developers quickly integrate social modules, even without professional programming knowledge.
The launch of the Lens Protocol mainnet has brought a comprehensive upgrade to the platform itself, significantly enhancing the performance and functionality of the SocialFi infrastructure. With the scalability and flexibility of zkSync cross-chain technology and the Avail data availability layer, Lens Chain not only achieves efficient and secure on-chain transactions but also supports permanent storage and flexible deletion of user content, meeting data management needs in different scenarios, thus providing solid support for large-scale decentralized social applications. Meanwhile, competitors like Farcaster are still in the stage of only putting user profiles on-chain, and their mainnet has not yet been fully launched. As a result, the launch of Lens's mainnet has obvious advantages in terms of security, scalability, and functional integrity, which could have a profound impact on the future landscape of the SocialFi market. Currently, Lens has about 650,000 user profiles and 28 million social connections. Although there is still a gap compared to traditional social platforms, the vision of "social media on the blockchain" is gradually becoming a reality. The community has reacted positively to the mainnet launch, and this move may drive growth in SocialFi investments, leading to new capital inflows in the financial market.
SEC Reviews Digital Asset Policies of the Biden Era, Possibly Paving the Way for Regulatory Easing
On April 6, 2025, the SEC announced the initiation of a review of the digital asset regulatory policies during the Biden administration, involving staff statements on investment contract analysis frameworks, guidance on the Bitcoin futures market, and disclosure letters in the crypto market. This move stems from Executive Order 14192 "Unlocking Prosperity through Deregulation" signed by President Trump in January 2025, which required agencies to identify and eliminate redundant regulations, prioritizing economic growth and technological innovation. The goal of the review is to "identify staff statements that should be modified or rescinded" to align with the new administration's more favorable and development-promoting policies towards digital assets. The staff statements issued between 2023 and 2024 were core bases for digital asset regulation, including how to define whether a token constitutes a security, disclosure requirements for companies entering the crypto market, and risk guidance for investing in Bitcoin futures funds. These frameworks may be weakened or abolished in the future.
The SEC's policy shift indicates that it is actively adjusting to align with the new government's policy direction. The Trump administration had nominated Paul Atkins, who supports deregulation, to serve as SEC chairman, which strengthened the collaborative relationship between the SEC and the government; however, this also raised concerns among consumer advocates who believe that lax regulations could increase the risks faced by investors in the crypto market. The SEC needs to strike a balance between fulfilling its statutory duties and achieving the new government's goals of promoting technological innovation and economic growth, which will impact its internal resource allocation and enforcement priorities. Overall, the crypto industry may benefit from regulatory easing, stimulating innovation and attracting more investment, but it must also guard against market manipulation and fraud risks to avoid undermining investor confidence.
Integrated Information
According to RootData, a total of 4 projects publicly announced funding in the past 72 hours, with a funding amount exceeding $29 million, involving fields such as infrastructure and AI. Here are the specific details of the funding projects:【20】
Codex — Codex completed a $15.8 million seed round financing, with participation from Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, and others. Codex is a startup focused on developing dedicated blockchains for stablecoins. It aims to create a more efficient platform for stablecoin trading by optimizing its infrastructure from the ground up, compared to general-purpose blockchains. This includes features such as stable transaction fees, built-in exits for converting stablecoins to fiat, and potential confidential transactions. This financing will be used for further development of their stablecoin-focused blockchain.
**Ultra **—— Ultra has completed a financing round of 12 million dollars, led by well-known institutions such as NOIA Capital and MV Global. Ultra is a next-generation PC game distribution platform based on blockchain, dedicated to empowering developers and players, ushering in a new era of gaming. Ultra provides a carbon-neutral, fast, and free Layer 1 blockchain that supports NFT standards and markets, creating a complete blockchain solution. Its core application, Ultra Games, is a self-service publishing platform aimed directly at Steam, intending to reshape the game distribution landscape.【22】
**P2P.me **—— P2P.me has completed a $2 million seed round financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Multicoin Capital. P2P.me is a decentralized peer-to-peer payment platform focused on enabling fast conversions between cryptocurrencies (primarily USDC) and fiat currencies. Users can complete transactions simply by scanning a QR code, and the platform uses zero-knowledge proof technology for identity verification, thereby reducing the risk of fraud and the likelihood of bank accounts being frozen while protecting privacy.【23]
Airdrop Opportunities
CESS Network
CESS Network is a decentralized data infrastructure designed to redefine data ownership in AI, DeSci, and gaming by providing users with secure, transparent, and ultra-fast storage solutions. It builds a decentralized cloud storage infrastructure for AI, DeSci, and the digital industry, giving users complete ownership and control over their data. CESS paves the way for next-generation decentralized storage solutions by using CD²N for ultra-fast data access while using proxy re-encryption (PReT) technology for secure sharing. 【24】
CESS is conducting a points activity called "CESS DeShare Airdrop". Users can earn points by completing simple social tasks and inviting friends, which can be exchanged for $CESS tokens.
Participation method:
Visit the CESS DeShare Airdrop official website and register an account.
Sign in daily and answer quizzes to earn points.
Invite friends to earn more points.
Tip:
The airdrop plan and participation methods may be updated at any time, and users are advised to follow the official channels of the CESS Network for the latest information. At the same time, users should participate with caution, be aware of the risks, and conduct thorough research before participating. Gate.io does not guarantee the subsequent distribution of airdrop rewards.
Reference Material:
**Gate Research Institute**
Gate Research Institute is a comprehensive blockchain and cryptocurrency research platform that provides readers with in-depth content, including technical analysis, hot insights, market reviews, industry research, trend forecasts, and macroeconomic policy analysis.
Click [link] ( https://www.gate.io/learn/category/research) to go now.
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Gate Research Institute: The US tariff policy has triggered turbulence in the global Capital Market, and Bitcoin has fallen below 80,000 US dollars.
Summary
Market Commentary
Popular Tokens
According to Gate.io market data【9】, combined with the trading volume and price performance in the last 24 hours, the popular altcoins are as follows:
**AERGO (Aergo) **—— The daily increase is approximately 50.95%, with a circulating market value of 37.45 million USD.
Aergo is an open-source enterprise blockchain platform designed to meet the needs of both permissioned and permissionless blockchain architectures, thus providing a hybrid deployment model. The platform features integrated SQL support, simplifying data management and providing a familiar environment for smart contract development.
The recent price increase of the AERGO token is mainly driven by the proximity of the AIP-21 proposal vote and the accompanying incentives. The project team announced that it will airdrop 17 million HPP tokens (accounting for 1% of the total supply) to users who participate in the vote, which will be distributed according to the voting weight, which has significantly increased the enthusiasm of the community and prompted a large number of users to transfer AERGO to the support wallet in advance, which directly stimulated the market demand. At the same time, the HPP tokenomics model announced by the AIP-21 proposal shows that 76% of the tokens will be used for community incentives (including airdrops, developers, and ecosystem building), and the "Community Power Sprint" limited-time event has attracted a lot of speculative buying in the short term. From a technical point of view, the proposed plan to build an HPP Layer 2 network based on the OP Stack and achieve Superchain compatibility will create synergies with the existing Layer 1 enterprise services, and this two-tier architecture design reinforces the market's expectation of the long-term value of the project. The combined effect of governance incentives and technological innovation expectations ultimately drove the current round of price increases.
**FORTH (Ampleforth) **—— Daily increase of approximately 36.48%, circulating market value is 29.25 million USD.
Ampleforth is a blockchain-based platform that operates on Ethereum, primarily for lending purposes. It uses an innovative approach to adjust the supply of its native token based on demand, providing a decentralized, elastic supply stablecoin. [11]
Ampleforth's recently launched dual-asset system (AMPL + SPOT) has attracted market attention due to its innovative mechanism, driving up the price of the FORTH token. The core of the system lies in the synergy between AMPL (elastic supply asset) and SPOT (low volatility asset), constructing a decentralized, non-USD pegged monetary system through the "tranching" mechanism, which can maintain long-term purchasing power while optimizing capital efficiency. AMPL serves as the benchmark asset, adjusting elastic supply to maintain system stability, while SPOT provides a low-volatility, yield-enhancing asset option. The dynamic balance between the two (such as the SPOT-stAMPL mechanism) converts volatility into productivity, attracting participation from DeFi protocols and institutional investors, enhancing the market's recognition of Ampleforth's financial architecture. This innovation not only provides new risk management strategies and portfolio construction methods but also increases the demand for FORTH (governance token), becoming an important target for capital inflow, ultimately driving the overall growth of ecological value.
**AVAIL (Avail) **—— Daily increase of approximately 9.21%, circulating market value is $57.8 million.
Avail is a modular blockchain infrastructure project focused on solving data availability and interoperability issues within the Web3 ecosystem. Avail utilizes KZG polynomials to provide reliable data availability, enabling scalability solutions to grow securely while simplifying cross-ecosystem transactions, thus providing a unified infrastructure for Web3.
The recent rise of the Avail (AVAIL) token is mainly attributed to the successful launch of Lens Chain and its adoption of Avail's data availability (DA) layer, while the upgrade of the technical roadmap further enhances market confidence. As a large-scale SocialFi platform with over 650,000 users, Lens Chain chose Avail as its underlying DA solution, validating its high availability and practical application value, which directly stimulated market demand for AVAIL. In addition, Avail's latest released technical roadmap proposes a three-step strategy to optimize the block production process, introduce Data Availability Sampling (DAS), and SNARK key transactions, aiming to increase the block size from 4MB to 10GB and reduce block time from 20 seconds to 600 milliseconds, significantly enhancing network throughput. This upgrade plan strengthens investors' expectations for Avail's horizontal scalability. Market optimism also stems from ecological cooperation progress, including collaborations with zkSync and QuickNode, as well as dynamics such as the 10GB Infinity block testing. The active performance of Lens Chain (with tens of millions of on-chain interactions), combined with technological upgrades and endorsements from partners, has jointly driven this round of price increase.
Highlight Data
Aave's borrowing interest on Ethereum exceeds 1 billion dollars
The total interest generated by borrowers on the Aave platform in the Ethereum network has surpassed the 1 billion dollar mark. The chart shows a clear accelerating trend in the growth of this figure, especially with a significant upward curve occurring during the period from 2024 to 2025. Between 2022 and 2023, the total interest generated by borrowers on Aave in the Ethereum network steadily rose from around 300 million dollars to about 500 million dollars. A rapid increase was observed in late 2024, breaking through the 1 billion dollar mark at the beginning of this year. Aave's interest comes from the floating rates paid by borrowers after users provide assets through liquidity pools. The protocol sets reserve factors for different assets to determine the distribution of interest between lenders and the protocol. In recent years, Aave's annual revenue has remained at several hundred million dollars, combined with its continuously expanding locked-in amount, driving rapid growth in accumulated interest.
This significant achievement not only reflects Aave's market position as a leading lending platform in the DeFi space but also showcases the remarkable growth of the entire DeFi industry, particularly the lending market, over the past four years. This ongoing upward trend may indicate that an increasing number of users are turning to decentralized financial solutions for lending activities, further demonstrating that the practical application value of blockchain technology in the financial sector is steadily increasing.
Solana TVL hits a new high since 2023, DEX market share is strong
Recently, Solana has shown strong on-chain performance. Although the price of SOL has dropped by about 19% since March 31, the total value locked (TVL) in the network has reached 53.8 million SOL, a new high since mid-2022, equivalent to about 6.5 billion USD, leading BNB Chain by nearly 780 million USD. Its decentralized exchange (DEX) market share has also risen to 24%, firmly maintaining the second position in the market, second only to Ethereum. Leading DApps such as Jito, Jupiter, and Kamino have performed excellently, attracting continuous capital inflow to the network. However, despite the active on-chain data for Solana, the price of SOL has not correspondingly strengthened. On April 4, the unlocking of about 1.79 million SOL brought over 200 million USD of selling pressure, coupled with the profit-taking willingness of early stakers, creating pressure on the price. At the same time, the popularity of meme coins on Solana has waned, with WIF, POPcat, BOME, and others generally dropping more than 20% within a week, dragging down short-term user activity. Furthermore, the overall cryptocurrency market has recently shown sluggish performance, with mainstream assets retreating and risk appetite declining, which has also intensified the sentiment pressure on SOL.
However, Solana's progress in infrastructure, user experience, and developer activity is still recognized by the market, despite the controversy surrounding the MEV mechanism, and the community continues to push for optimization solutions. Overall, Solana's competitive platform position within the DeFi ecosystem remains solid, and its future performance is still worth paying attention to. [14]
Mainstream DeFi protocol revenue significantly declined in March, while Sky (formerly MakerDAO) grew against the trend
In March, the revenue of most major DeFi protocols on Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain saw a decline of over 50%. The mainstream DeFi protocols on Solana, Pump.fun, Jito, and Raydium, had a total revenue of approximately $42 million in March, a month-on-month decrease of 55%. PancakeSwap on BNB Chain had a revenue of only $21 million in March, a decrease of 54% compared to the previous month. Meanwhile, DeFi protocols on Ethereum, such as Ethena, Lido, and Aave, also showed a similar trend, with a total revenue of only $24.5 million in March, down 52% from February. However, Sky (formerly MakerDAO) experienced a month-on-month growth of 49% in March, reaching a revenue of $13.5 million, making it the only protocol with revenue growth. Its revenue primarily came from stablecoin stability fees and liquidation revenue, highlighting the importance of a sustainable business model.
The decline in mainstream DeFi revenue may be due to a general decrease in on-chain activity and transaction volume, as well as a decrease in user activity. Reflects a decrease in demand for decentralized finance, resulting in a decrease in interactions such as transaction volume and lending activity. As the number of DeFi protocols increases, the market becomes more competitive, impacting the revenue of mainstream DeFi. In addition, some protocols may face sustainability issues with monetization models, many of which rely on token inflation to incentivize users to provide liquidity rather than real revenue (such as transaction fees or borrowing interest), a model that is difficult to sustain during market downturns. Unsustainable high-yield designs and over-leverage lead to panic withdrawals by users, creating a "death spiral". 【15】【16】
Hot Comments
Tariff policies impact global markets, global stock markets and cryptocurrency markets accelerate their decline
On April 2, 2025, President Trump announced a new round of tariffs on imported goods from multiple countries, including China, Canada, and Mexico, aimed at protecting American domestic industries and reducing the trade deficit. However, this policy quickly triggered market turmoil. On April 3, the S&P 500 index plummeted nearly 5%, marking its worst single-day performance since 2020, and further declined on April 4, with a market value evaporation of over $5 trillion within two days, setting a record for the largest drop in history. The Japanese stock market was similarly affected, with the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices dropping approximately 9% and 10% respectively over the week, indicating that the policy's impact has spilled over to global markets. As of April 7, 2025, the global financial markets were still digesting the effects of the large-scale tariff policy announced by the Trump administration on April 2, with panic sentiment continuing to spread. S&P 500 index futures continued to drop by 5%, and Bitcoin's price fell to as low as $75,000.
The tariffs have had an impact on the market and the economy on multiple levels. Although the US is trying to support local manufacturing through tariffs, it may also push up the cost of imports, increase the pressure on consumers, and lead to potential inflation. At the same time, if countries implement retaliatory measures, the U.S. export industry will also suffer. Risk aversion quickly rose in the market, with the VIX fear index surging above 40 on April 4. The uncertainty in the capital market is also reflected in corporate behavior, with companies such as Klarna and Circle announcing the postponement of IPOs, indicating that investors and companies are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards the direction of policy, and market confidence has been significantly frustrated. Against the backdrop of global stock markets falling alongside gold, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 3.7% last week, but rebounded over the weekend, showing a degree of resilience and stability. However, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's recent remarks have suppressed market expectations for easing policy, which is bearish for risk assets. BTC re-weakened on Sunday night and is now falling further to $75,000 due to the decline in index futures prices, showing that it is still unable to fully escape the downward pressure on the overall market. 【17】
Lens Protocol Mainnet Lens Chain Officially Launched
The Lens Protocol mainnet went live on April 4. Lens Chain uses Avail's data availability layer and ZKsync technology to improve the scalability and security of the network. In addition, Lens Chain uses the GHO stablecoin as fuel, enabling scalable, fast, and zero-gas transactions. To support the construction of decentralized social applications, the Lens Protocol mainnet integrates several core infrastructures. First, the Social Protocol provides pre-built social primitives, such as accounts, feeds, and groups, that are modular and flexible for developers to embed into existing applications as standalone features. Second, Grove serves as an on-chain permissioned storage system to ensure users' autonomy over content and data security. Third, the Developer Dashboard provides a simple and intuitive tool interface to help developers quickly integrate social modules, even without professional programming knowledge.
The launch of the Lens Protocol mainnet has brought a comprehensive upgrade to the platform itself, significantly enhancing the performance and functionality of the SocialFi infrastructure. With the scalability and flexibility of zkSync cross-chain technology and the Avail data availability layer, Lens Chain not only achieves efficient and secure on-chain transactions but also supports permanent storage and flexible deletion of user content, meeting data management needs in different scenarios, thus providing solid support for large-scale decentralized social applications. Meanwhile, competitors like Farcaster are still in the stage of only putting user profiles on-chain, and their mainnet has not yet been fully launched. As a result, the launch of Lens's mainnet has obvious advantages in terms of security, scalability, and functional integrity, which could have a profound impact on the future landscape of the SocialFi market. Currently, Lens has about 650,000 user profiles and 28 million social connections. Although there is still a gap compared to traditional social platforms, the vision of "social media on the blockchain" is gradually becoming a reality. The community has reacted positively to the mainnet launch, and this move may drive growth in SocialFi investments, leading to new capital inflows in the financial market.
SEC Reviews Digital Asset Policies of the Biden Era, Possibly Paving the Way for Regulatory Easing
On April 6, 2025, the SEC announced the initiation of a review of the digital asset regulatory policies during the Biden administration, involving staff statements on investment contract analysis frameworks, guidance on the Bitcoin futures market, and disclosure letters in the crypto market. This move stems from Executive Order 14192 "Unlocking Prosperity through Deregulation" signed by President Trump in January 2025, which required agencies to identify and eliminate redundant regulations, prioritizing economic growth and technological innovation. The goal of the review is to "identify staff statements that should be modified or rescinded" to align with the new administration's more favorable and development-promoting policies towards digital assets. The staff statements issued between 2023 and 2024 were core bases for digital asset regulation, including how to define whether a token constitutes a security, disclosure requirements for companies entering the crypto market, and risk guidance for investing in Bitcoin futures funds. These frameworks may be weakened or abolished in the future.
The SEC's policy shift indicates that it is actively adjusting to align with the new government's policy direction. The Trump administration had nominated Paul Atkins, who supports deregulation, to serve as SEC chairman, which strengthened the collaborative relationship between the SEC and the government; however, this also raised concerns among consumer advocates who believe that lax regulations could increase the risks faced by investors in the crypto market. The SEC needs to strike a balance between fulfilling its statutory duties and achieving the new government's goals of promoting technological innovation and economic growth, which will impact its internal resource allocation and enforcement priorities. Overall, the crypto industry may benefit from regulatory easing, stimulating innovation and attracting more investment, but it must also guard against market manipulation and fraud risks to avoid undermining investor confidence.
Integrated Information
According to RootData, a total of 4 projects publicly announced funding in the past 72 hours, with a funding amount exceeding $29 million, involving fields such as infrastructure and AI. Here are the specific details of the funding projects:【20】
Codex — Codex completed a $15.8 million seed round financing, with participation from Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, and others. Codex is a startup focused on developing dedicated blockchains for stablecoins. It aims to create a more efficient platform for stablecoin trading by optimizing its infrastructure from the ground up, compared to general-purpose blockchains. This includes features such as stable transaction fees, built-in exits for converting stablecoins to fiat, and potential confidential transactions. This financing will be used for further development of their stablecoin-focused blockchain.
**Ultra **—— Ultra has completed a financing round of 12 million dollars, led by well-known institutions such as NOIA Capital and MV Global. Ultra is a next-generation PC game distribution platform based on blockchain, dedicated to empowering developers and players, ushering in a new era of gaming. Ultra provides a carbon-neutral, fast, and free Layer 1 blockchain that supports NFT standards and markets, creating a complete blockchain solution. Its core application, Ultra Games, is a self-service publishing platform aimed directly at Steam, intending to reshape the game distribution landscape.【22】
**P2P.me **—— P2P.me has completed a $2 million seed round financing, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Multicoin Capital. P2P.me is a decentralized peer-to-peer payment platform focused on enabling fast conversions between cryptocurrencies (primarily USDC) and fiat currencies. Users can complete transactions simply by scanning a QR code, and the platform uses zero-knowledge proof technology for identity verification, thereby reducing the risk of fraud and the likelihood of bank accounts being frozen while protecting privacy.【23]
Airdrop Opportunities
CESS Network
CESS Network is a decentralized data infrastructure designed to redefine data ownership in AI, DeSci, and gaming by providing users with secure, transparent, and ultra-fast storage solutions. It builds a decentralized cloud storage infrastructure for AI, DeSci, and the digital industry, giving users complete ownership and control over their data. CESS paves the way for next-generation decentralized storage solutions by using CD²N for ultra-fast data access while using proxy re-encryption (PReT) technology for secure sharing. 【24】
CESS is conducting a points activity called "CESS DeShare Airdrop". Users can earn points by completing simple social tasks and inviting friends, which can be exchanged for $CESS tokens.
Participation method:
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Reference Material:
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