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The Defiant curates, digests, and analyzes all the major developments in decentralized finance, so that readers can stay informed and up-to-date about the most cutting-edge and fastest-changing corner of crypto and finance. It was founded in June 2019 by Camila Russo, a former Bloomberg News reporter and author of the book, The Infinite Machine.
Arbitrum Activates ArbOS 61 Elara Upgrade, Introducing Optional Compliance Filtering and Priority Fee Support for Dedicated Chains
According to The Defiant, Arbitrum officially activated the ArbOS 61 Elara upgrade on August 20, which was approved for deployment via an ArbitrumDAO governance vote. The core features of this upgrade include: introducing an optional protocol-level transaction filtering mechanism for Dedicated Chains, allowing chain owners to independently select external compliance service providers such as TRM Labs and Chainalysis to configure restricted address rules; the filter is disabled by default and does not affect existing Arbitrum One users; adding Priority Fee support, also disabled by default, with its activation on Arbitrum One still requiring a separate DAO constitutional vote; introducing the BaseFeeManager contract, which authorizes Offchain Labs to adjust the L2 minimum Gas fee within a DAO-approved range of 0.01 to 0.10 gwei over a two-year authorization period; additionally, the maximum code size limit for Stylus contracts has been increased from 24 KB to 96 KB, though this does not apply to Solidity contracts.
Ethereum NFT marketplace Foundation permanently shuts down due to failed sales transactions
According to The Defiant, the NFT marketplace Foundation has permanently shut down following the failed sale to digital art display company BlackDove. Its platform infrastructure has been taken offline, and there are currently no plans to relaunch it. Foundation’s founder, Kayvon Tehranian, stated that the company had originally hoped to extend its operations through the sale, but the deal fell through—and the team concluded there was no need to continue seeking a buyer. Foundation previously facilitated approximately $230 million in primary sales. The report notes that BlackDove, after conducting comprehensive due diligence following operational handover, decided instead to build its own proprietary marketplace. Foundation also announced it will continue providing a fixed one-year service for media and metadata hosted on IPFS; users must manually cancel their listings and withdraw their NFT assets.
Core Lightning recommends unupgraded nodes run offline; a fix version has not yet been released.
According to The Defiant, the Core Lightning (CLN) maintainers for the Bitcoin Lightning Network have notified node operators that if they are unable to upgrade to the upcoming patched version, they should run their nodes offline using the --offline parameter. The team stated it will release binaries containing fixes for multiple disclosed vulnerabilities, but specific vulnerability details will remain confidential for two more weeks; as of press time, the relevant binaries and security advisory have not been published. CLN had previously noted that it received several AI-generated CVE reports over the past ten days, and the team is working with open-source contributors to verify, classify, and patch them. The latest public release is v26.06.6, issued on July 22, and the v26.09 release, originally slated for late September, continues to proceed as planned.
Boltz Founding Team Exits, Anonymous Bitcoin Team Takes Over Suspended Swap Service
According to The Defiant, Boltz announced that its original founders have all exited, and an anonymous team of "senior Bitcoin figures" will take over the suspended Bitcoin Swap service. The new team will provide funding and engineering support to fix vulnerabilities and push for the service to resume as soon as possible.
Securitize High-Yield Credit Fund HINC Launches on Solana Lending Protocol Loopscale
According to The Defiant, Securitize's tokenized high-yield credit fund HINC has officially been listed as collateral on the Solana lending protocol Loopscale, enabling accredited investors to stake HINC shares to borrow USDG stablecoins without redeeming their positions. HINC primarily holds high-yield corporate bonds and tranched CLO assets, with Neuberger Berman acting as sub-advisor (managing $613 billion in AUM). With a minimum subscription threshold of $100,000, the fund is exclusively available to accredited investors. This marks the third Securitize product integrated into Loopscale, following the prior listing of Apollo's ACRED and Securitize-listed equity token SECZ as collateral. HINC's net asset value is updated daily and recorded on-chain by RedStone, which Loopscale utilizes for pricing and liquidation triggers. Currently, Loopscale's total value locked stands at $91.3 million, with an active loan volume of $55.9 million.
Aave V4 Deposits Surpass $800 Million, Weekly Gains Reach 30%
According to The Defiant, Aave V4 user deposits reached a new high of $806 million, with a 30% increase over the past seven days. Of these, the Ethereum Core market holds $378 million in deposits, EtherFi Cash (deployed on Optimism) ranks second with $257 million, while Ethereum Global Dollar and Ethereum Prime contributed $75 million and $63 million respectively. The primary deposit assets are weETH ($97 million), USDG ($90 million), and WETH/USDC ($81 million each). V4's current active loan volume stands at $216 million, including $62 million in loans from the EtherFi market, with the utilization rate for borrowing WETH against weETH collateral reaching as high as 92%. In comparison, Aave V3's deposit scale remains at $31 billion, far exceeding V4.
Core Lightning recommends unupgraded nodes run offline; a fix version has not yet been released.
According to The Defiant, the Core Lightning (CLN) maintainers for the Bitcoin Lightning Network have notified node operators that if they are unable to upgrade to the upcoming patched version, they should run their nodes offline using the --offline parameter. The team stated it will release binaries containing fixes for multiple disclosed vulnerabilities, but specific vulnerability details will remain confidential for two more weeks; as of press time, the relevant binaries and security advisory have not been published. CLN had previously noted that it received several AI-generated CVE reports over the past ten days, and the team is working with open-source contributors to verify, classify, and patch them. The latest public release is v26.06.6, issued on July 22, and the v26.09 release, originally slated for late September, continues to proceed as planned.
Arbitrum Activates ArbOS 61 Elara Upgrade, Introducing Optional Compliance Filtering and Priority Fee Support for Dedicated Chains
According to The Defiant, Arbitrum officially activated the ArbOS 61 Elara upgrade on August 20, which was approved for deployment via an ArbitrumDAO governance vote. The core features of this upgrade include: introducing an optional protocol-level transaction filtering mechanism for Dedicated Chains, allowing chain owners to independently select external compliance service providers such as TRM Labs and Chainalysis to configure restricted address rules; the filter is disabled by default and does not affect existing Arbitrum One users; adding Priority Fee support, also disabled by default, with its activation on Arbitrum One still requiring a separate DAO constitutional vote; introducing the BaseFeeManager contract, which authorizes Offchain Labs to adjust the L2 minimum Gas fee within a DAO-approved range of 0.01 to 0.10 gwei over a two-year authorization period; additionally, the maximum code size limit for Stylus contracts has been increased from 24 KB to 96 KB, though this does not apply to Solidity contracts.
Crypto KOL Ansem Launches Token Launchpad ansem.io
According to The Defiant, crypto influencer Zion "Ansem" Thomas officially launched ansem.io on August 17. The platform disrupts the traditional KOL paid promotion model—project teams do not need to pay cash or tokens to KOLs, but instead airdrop at least 3% of the token supply to $ANSEM holders and burn $ANSEM to improve their ranking on the platform's leaderboard z500. The platform features two tiers of badges: Gold (requires burning 25,000 $ANSEM, approx. $7,600) and Diamond (requires burning 100,000 $ANSEM, approx. $30,300). Diamond-level projects can receive pre-launch audit and cross-channel promotion from Thomas's team. All tokens created on ansem.io are pump.fun tokens. As of 5:19 PM on the launch day, the platform had launched 19 tokens, airdropped approximately $211,500 to 26,700 wallets, burned 929,647 $ANSEM, and reached a cumulative trading volume of $103 million. Affected by this news, $ANSEM rose 27.5% within 24 hours, trading at $0.303, with a circulating market cap of approximately $126 million.
Boltz Founding Team Exits, Anonymous Bitcoin Team Takes Over Suspended Swap Service
According to The Defiant, Boltz announced that its original founders have all exited, and an anonymous team of "senior Bitcoin figures" will take over the suspended Bitcoin Swap service. The new team will provide funding and engineering support to fix vulnerabilities and push for the service to resume as soon as possible.
Related news
Securitize High-Yield Credit Fund HINC Launches on Solana Lending Protocol Loopscale
According to The Defiant, Securitize's tokenized high-yield credit fund HINC has officially been listed as collateral on the Solana lending protocol Loopscale, enabling accredited investors to stake HINC shares to borrow USDG stablecoins without redeeming their positions. HINC primarily holds high-yield corporate bonds and tranched CLO assets, with Neuberger Berman acting as sub-advisor (managing $613 billion in AUM). With a minimum subscription threshold of $100,000, the fund is exclusively available to accredited investors. This marks the third Securitize product integrated into Loopscale, following the prior listing of Apollo's ACRED and Securitize-listed equity token SECZ as collateral. HINC's net asset value is updated daily and recorded on-chain by RedStone, which Loopscale utilizes for pricing and liquidation triggers. Currently, Loopscale's total value locked stands at $91.3 million, with an active loan volume of $55.9 million.
Aave V4 Deposits Surpass $800 Million, Weekly Gains Reach 30%
According to The Defiant, Aave V4 user deposits reached a new high of $806 million, with a 30% increase over the past seven days. Of these, the Ethereum Core market holds $378 million in deposits, EtherFi Cash (deployed on Optimism) ranks second with $257 million, while Ethereum Global Dollar and Ethereum Prime contributed $75 million and $63 million respectively. The primary deposit assets are weETH ($97 million), USDG ($90 million), and WETH/USDC ($81 million each). V4's current active loan volume stands at $216 million, including $62 million in loans from the EtherFi market, with the utilization rate for borrowing WETH against weETH collateral reaching as high as 92%. In comparison, Aave V3's deposit scale remains at $31 billion, far exceeding V4.
Core Lightning recommends unupgraded nodes run offline; a fix version has not yet been released.
According to The Defiant, the Core Lightning (CLN) maintainers for the Bitcoin Lightning Network have notified node operators that if they are unable to upgrade to the upcoming patched version, they should run their nodes offline using the --offline parameter. The team stated it will release binaries containing fixes for multiple disclosed vulnerabilities, but specific vulnerability details will remain confidential for two more weeks; as of press time, the relevant binaries and security advisory have not been published. CLN had previously noted that it received several AI-generated CVE reports over the past ten days, and the team is working with open-source contributors to verify, classify, and patch them. The latest public release is v26.06.6, issued on July 22, and the v26.09 release, originally slated for late September, continues to proceed as planned.
Arbitrum Activates ArbOS 61 Elara Upgrade, Introducing Optional Compliance Filtering and Priority Fee Support for Dedicated Chains
According to The Defiant, Arbitrum officially activated the ArbOS 61 Elara upgrade on August 20, which was approved for deployment via an ArbitrumDAO governance vote. The core features of this upgrade include: introducing an optional protocol-level transaction filtering mechanism for Dedicated Chains, allowing chain owners to independently select external compliance service providers such as TRM Labs and Chainalysis to configure restricted address rules; the filter is disabled by default and does not affect existing Arbitrum One users; adding Priority Fee support, also disabled by default, with its activation on Arbitrum One still requiring a separate DAO constitutional vote; introducing the BaseFeeManager contract, which authorizes Offchain Labs to adjust the L2 minimum Gas fee within a DAO-approved range of 0.01 to 0.10 gwei over a two-year authorization period; additionally, the maximum code size limit for Stylus contracts has been increased from 24 KB to 96 KB, though this does not apply to Solidity contracts.
Crypto KOL Ansem Launches Token Launchpad ansem.io
According to The Defiant, crypto influencer Zion "Ansem" Thomas officially launched ansem.io on August 17. The platform disrupts the traditional KOL paid promotion model—project teams do not need to pay cash or tokens to KOLs, but instead airdrop at least 3% of the token supply to $ANSEM holders and burn $ANSEM to improve their ranking on the platform's leaderboard z500. The platform features two tiers of badges: Gold (requires burning 25,000 $ANSEM, approx. $7,600) and Diamond (requires burning 100,000 $ANSEM, approx. $30,300). Diamond-level projects can receive pre-launch audit and cross-channel promotion from Thomas's team. All tokens created on ansem.io are pump.fun tokens. As of 5:19 PM on the launch day, the platform had launched 19 tokens, airdropped approximately $211,500 to 26,700 wallets, burned 929,647 $ANSEM, and reached a cumulative trading volume of $103 million. Affected by this news, $ANSEM rose 27.5% within 24 hours, trading at $0.303, with a circulating market cap of approximately $126 million.
Neynar Announces Search for New Owner for Farcaster; Protocol Revenue Plummets 99% Just Seven Months After Acquisition
According to The Defiant, Rish Mukherji, co-founder of Neynar, the current operator of decentralized social protocol Farcaster, announced on August 17 that the company has initiated a process to seek a new team to take over Farcaster, token launchpad Clanker, and its own developer platform, and Neynar staff will be laid off accordingly. This marks the second change of ownership for Farcaster within 2026. In January of this year, the original founding team Merkle Manufactory transferred the protocol contracts, codebase, Farcaster App, and Clanker entirely to Neynar, and original founders Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan subsequently joined Tempo, a payment public chain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm. The sharp deterioration of Farcaster's economic data is the core reason for this sale. According to DefiLlama data, protocol fees fell from $35.43 million in Q1 2026 to $4.67 million in Q2, recorded only $376,700 in the third quarter as of August 17, and revenue in the past 30 days shrank further to $120,000. Meanwhile, CLANKER token buybacks supported by protocol revenue have completely stopped, with CLANKER currently trading at 12