Chill Guy is a viral meme illustration that took social media by storm before a crypto project used the meme to launch a Solana-based token. Learn more here.

What started as a simple illustration of a laid-back dog has become a global meme sensation, with the cartoon character known as Chill Guy dominating both social media trends and cryptocurrency markets. Created by artist Phillip Banks in October 2023, the easygoing canine character sparked a viral movement that has attracted major brands worldwide.

This article follows Chill Guy’s transformation from a social media sensation to a cryptocurrency asset. We'll examine its viral beginnings, community growth, market impact and what potential investors can expect from CHILLGUY in the future.

 is a viral meme illustration by artist Phillip Banks, depicting a laid-back dog in casual clothes whose easygoing attitude took social media by storm before a crypto project used the meme to launch Just a Chill Guy as a Solana-based token.

What Does Just a Chill Guy Aim to Achieve?

The CHILLGUY meme coin aims to spread a "Why worry?" philosophy into cryptocurrency markets by embracing the laid-back, stress-free attitude that made the original meme go viral. The project transforms this easygoing vibe into a community-driven token, where being low-key isn't just a catchphrase — it's a shared mindset among holders.

The CHILLGUY community brings this philosophy to life by sharing endless variations of the CHILLGUY meme across social platforms. Through market swings and viral trends, CHILLGUY keeps his iconic pose: hands in pockets, subtle smirk, perpetually relaxed.

Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY) operates as a Solana Program Library (SPL) token on the 

 blockchain, leveraging the network's ultrafast speeds and low costs to ensure smooth trading. The token was created using Pump.fun, a specialized platform that lets users launch Solana-based tokens without any fees, removing traditional barriers to token creation.

CHILLGUY is a community takeover (CTO), meaning it's completely owned and directed by its token holders with no central team in control. This decentralized structure ensures the project stays true to its community-driven nature, its holders collectively guiding its future while embodying the laid-back spirit of the original meme.

The CHILLGUY token launched with a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 999,965,435 are currently in circulation. This near-complete distribution of tokens to the market supports active trading and community participation.

What makes CHILLGUY's tokenomics particularly notable is its widespread distribution across more than 142,000 unique holders (as of Nov 27, 2024), achieved in just 12 days. This rapid expansion of its holder base demonstrates strong community adoption and aligns with the project's decentralized, community-driven principles.

CHILLGUY has exploded across social media, especially on TikTok, where the meme has amassed hundreds of millions of views. Its laid-back character resonates with users worldwide, inspiring countless creative adaptations.

Major brands worldwide have embraced CHILLGUY in their marketing campaigns. From Sprite Europe to NFL on CBS, the character has resonated across mainstream media, even catching the attention of global figures like El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele.

The “Chill Guy” meme’s influence spans multiple social media platforms, with a growing community of followers: 96.6K on X (

). On the other hand, the meme token itself also has a vast community, with 39.9K on X (

) and an active Telegram channel of over 15,000 members. These numbers reflect the meme's ability to engage audiences across different platforms.

The token's popularity in cryptocurrency markets matches its social media success, with CHILLGUY maintaining a substantial 24-hour trading volume of over $330.03M as of Nov 27, 2024. This high trading activity demonstrates the strong market interest in CHILLGUY beyond its meme status.

Looking to trade Just a Chill Guy tokens? Bybit now offers the CHILLGUY/USDT Spot trading pair and CHILLGUYUSDT Perpetual contract. To get started, you’ll first need to create a Bybit account, then fund it with cryptocurrency and navigate to the 

While CHILLGUY has maintained strong trading volumes and continues gaining mainstream attention through its viral social media presence, investors should carefully weigh its strengths and risk factors before making investment decisions.

With its widespread brand adoption, sustained trading activity and explosive community growth of over 142,000 holders, CHILLGUY demonstrates significant market potential. However, meme coins are inherently volatile. Potential investors should 

 and invest no more than they can afford to lose.

CHILLGUY is the latest viral sensation to harness the power of the attention economy to convert social media momentum into crypto market success. While CHILLGUY has already demonstrated its ability to capture mass appeal, its position as a leading meme token will depend upon how effectively it maintains its cultural relevance and community engagement in this fast-moving market.

Intermediate

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Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY): Embracing the Art of Nonchalance

Zircuit (ZRC) combines optimistic and ZK rollups with AI-driven security, offering fast, low-cost Ethereum Layer 2 solutions. 

 network has flourished, mainly due to the ongoing network congestion, high fees and poor scalability of the latter. Many of these platforms use rollup technology, whereby batches of multiple transactions processed off-chain are bundled together and posted in bulk to the underlying Layer 1. Ethereum-linked rollups mainly come in two varieties 

 (ZK). While optimistic rollups boast lower computational overhead, the ZK variety of these networks features a higher degree of security.

Zircuit (ZRC) is a Layer 2 chain that adopts a hybrid approach, combining the elements of optimistic and 

. This lets the platform offer the performance benefits of optimistic technology along with the security of ZK validity proofs. To further enhance overall security, Zircuit uses a unique 

 (AI)–driven system of monitoring for malicious transactions.

 (ZRC) is a hybrid Layer 2 blockchain that combines the features of optimistic and ZK rollups, and uses AI-driven monitoring for potentially harmful transactions. 

 rollup development technology, a popular framework for building optimistic rollup networks. Additionally, it uses zero-knowledge proofs, which lets the platform offer the best of both worlds 

 the performance benefits of optimistic rollups and the security of ZK technology. Zircuit is 

The Zircuit project takes security very seriously, and has introduced a unique system of AI-based protection against malicious transactions at the sequencer node level. The use of ZK proofs and an AI-based protection system make Zircuit one of the most secure platforms in the competitive world of Ethereum Layer 2 chains.

Along with its excellent security benefits, Zircuit also boasts low costs, fast transactions, excellent scalability and 2-second block production intervals. All these features make it an ideal environment for 

 (DApps) in various niches, particularly 

 (DeFi). In fact, the leading protocols within the Zircuit ecosystem are all dedicated to the finance niche, with Zircuit Staking being the largest application by TVL.

With its heavy focus on DeFi, Zircuit aims to become a leading liquidity hub for various token types within the sector, including 

. These assets can be staked through the Zircuit staking program — supported by the platform's Liquidity Hub — to earn staking APRs, airdrop rewards and points based on the Zircuit Point program (covered further in our article).

The platform also operates a secure native bridging solution, 

, to help users transfer assets between its Layer 2 network and Ethereum Layer 1.

The company behind the project, Zircuit Ltd., was founded in 2021 in Canada by Dr. Martin Derka, Jan Gorzny and Angel Xu. Zircuit's testnet was launched in November 2023, but made headlines in April 2024 when the project reported that its 

 (TVL) had soared past $2 billion. While testnet TVLs are more a gauge of future potential for a blockchain than an indicator of its existing worth, the news attracted the attention of industry observers toward the platform. Following its highly publicized testnet success, Zircuit launched the first phase of its mainnet in August 2024. This was followed by the launch of the platform's native token, ZRC, in November 2024.

As a typical rollup, Zircuit uses an off-chain sequencer node to batch and organize Layer 2 transactions for subsequent posting to the underlying Ethereum Layer 1. The batches have ZK validity proofs attached to them to signal to Layer 1 validators that they’re free from fraudulent transactions. Zircuit's architecture also includes prover nodes, whose job is to produce these validity proofs.

However, unlike other rollups using ZK proofs (also known as validity proofs), Zircuit doesn't generate validity proofs for every block of transactions. Instead, some blocks have pre-generated template proofs, while others go through the process of having a dedicated validity proof created for them. After a few blocks featuring validity proofs, there are several more that utilize template proofs. The image below illustrates this approach.

The key reason Zircuit has adopted this form of proof design is that the process of generating ZK proofs is computationally intensive. By using template proofs for some of the blocks in a sequence, Zircuit can reduce the overall computational overhead. However, the project’s team has stated that the template proof model is temporary, and will be phased out in the future. At that stage, the platform will move to generating ZK proofs for each block.

Zircuit features a highly modular design whereby provers — responsible for generating validity proofs on the platform — can easily be plugged into or removed from the network. This modular approach is distinct from the standard ZK rollup design, in which provers are more tightly and less flexibly integrated into the overall architecture.

As noted earlier, Zircuit uses a dedicated sequencer to organize and batch transactions into blocks. The platform also applies AI-driven monitoring at the sequencer level (the Sequencer Level Security, or SLS) to spot and exclude fraudulent transactions before they’re finalized on Layer 2.

When transactions are first posted to Zircuit, they enter the 

 — a temporary area from which the sequencer picks and organizes individual transactions into blocks. The mempool is being monitored at all times, using AI algorithms to identify suspicious transactions. If a transaction in the mempool raises a flag, it's quarantined and assessed for validity before the sequencer can include it in a block. The image below shows how this process works.

One of the distinct features of Zircuit is its hybrid architecture, which combines the properties of optimistic and ZK rollups. At the base level, Zircuit is built using Optimism's Bedrock development framework, a technology popular for optimistic rollup networks. However, the use of ZK proofs — or, to be more precise, a combination of validity proofs and template proofs — ensures that Zircuit enjoys a security level that standard optimistic rollups normally can't match.

The use of AI-based SLS provides robust security to Zircuit, complementing the already highly secure ZK proof system. Very few Layer 2 networks in the industry currently feature anything similar, making the platform a true pioneer of AI use for sequencer-level operations.

Like any rollup based on Optimism Bedrock, Zircuit enjoys EVM compatibility. This allows for smooth interoperability with the underlying Ethereum Layer 1. EVM compatibility also makes it easy for developers familiar with Ethereum’s environment to develop Zircuit-based DApps, or to port existing Ethereum applications to the platform. Developers can take advantage of technologies commonly used for Ethereum (e.g., the Solidity programming language and the Hardhat development framework) to build Zircuit applications and smart contracts.

Zircuit Bridge is a native bridging solution designed to easily transfer tokens between Ethereum and Zircuit. It boasts high security, low transaction fees and fast transfers, and allows users to move a variety of cryptocurrencies between Ethereum and Zircuit, including ETH, 

) and LRTs like Super Symbiotic LRT (weETHs). As of late November 2024, the total number of cryptos supported by the bridge is close to 30.

Zircuit has launched a reward program called Zircuit Points. Users can earn these Points by staking supported assets, and by participating in the Build to Earn initiative (more on this below). Accumulated points will be converted to ZRC tokens in the future. Points also create the opportunity to qualify for token airdrops.

The primary way for most users to earn Zircuit points is via 

. The Zircuit Staking program lets you stake LSTs, LRTs, popular stablecoins, some wrapped tokens and Ether (ETH) to earn points. Using LSTs and LRTs, you can earn yields (along with native Zircuit staking APRs and Points) from the respective staking and restaking platforms that issue these assets.

Zircuit Points earned via staking have different multipliers, depending upon the asset. For example, Ether has a multiplier of 0.5, while LSTs, LRTs and stablecoins have a multiplier of 1. Multipliers for different LST and LRT assets may be subject to change in the future.

Build to Earn is another way to qualify for Zircuit Points. The program allows developers to contribute to the Zircuit ecosystem and earn Points in a number of ways, including:

Launched in November 2024, ZRC is the platform's native cryptocurrency. It's an 

 asset deployed on both Zircuit and Ethereum Layer 1. ZRC is mainly used for reward distributions, and participation in token airdrops for ecosystem DApps. Currently, transaction fees on the network are paid in Ether. It's possible that, in the future, ZRC might be used for some transaction fee payments.

ZRC is also used for rewards under the Gas Rebate program. As users conduct transactions on the platform, they 

. Zircuit’s Gas Rebate program provides rebates to offset some of the incurred fees. The amount of ZRC earned as a rebate is proportional to the amount spent on gas in ETH; the project's documentation states that for each ETH spent on gas, the user earns 125% in ZRC. All kinds of gas fee payments qualify for the rebate, including ordinary asset transfers and transactions involving interaction with Zircuit DApps.

ZRC is a supply-capped token, with a maximum and total supply of 10 billion. The token's supply allocation shares are as follows:

The ZRC token is available on Bybit's Spot market as a swap pair with USDT (

 to grab a share of the 5 million ZRC prize pool. New users who sign up for a Bybit account and complete identity verification can earn ZRC rewards by accumulating a deposit volume of at least 2,000 ZRC, or by depositing 100 USDT and trading 100 USDT worth of ZRC via their first trade with Bybit. 

Meanwhile, existing users can qualify for ZRC rewards by trading at least 500 USDT worth of ZRC on the Bybit Spot market, with the possibility of earning up to 10,000 ZRC based on trading volume. The 

 event will run through Dec 10, 2024, 8:59AM UTC.

Zircuit is among the pioneering Layer 2 platforms to adopt a hybrid design for a rollup network. Thanks to the platform's architecture, users can take advantage of low transaction costs, fast transfers and great scalability while enjoying the benefits of high security delivered by ZK proofs and AI-driven mempool monitoring. AI-based monitoring for fraudulent transactions is a particularly notable feature of the platform and is undoubtedly among the most advanced technologies employed in the blockchain industry.

User security combined with faster and cheaper transactions for the Ethereum network — all in one package — is now feasible, thanks to Zircuit's innovative technology and unique approach!

Advanced

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What Is Zircuit (ZRC): Where Performance Meets Cutting-Edge Security

Bybit is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the #Super6Bybit event, offering a $1.2 million prize pool and focusing on its bbSOL token.

Daily Top Performer — Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL)

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.38% as tech stocks dropped and inflation data reinforced a hawkish Fed outlook. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was down by 0.40%, with Bitcoin and Ether dropping by 1.86% and 1.79%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is VIRTUAL, which surged 53.6% following the launch of the $MUSIC token by Agentstarter, featuring AI-driven music video capabilities and community-focused tokenomics.

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), founded in 2021, allows users to invest in and co-own AI-driven virtual assets like companions and influencers. Its model fosters community ownership, transforming AI agents into revenue-generating assets across platforms like Roblox and TikTok. The platform attracts contributors from AI and gaming to drive innovation in virtual economies. 

, using AI to create music videos and offering features like animated videos, voice mimicry, and karaoke tracks. The tokenomics allocate 60% for airdrops, 20% for liquidity, and 10% each for the development team and Virtuals Protocol.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

Bybit is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the 

, offering a $1.2 million prize pool and focusing on its bbSOL token. Launched in September 2024, bbSOL is the first exchange-backed Liquid Staking Token on Solana, providing liquidity and staking rewards. The campaign, running from November 28, 2024, to January 6, 2025, invites participants to build, transform, and supercharge their bbSOL through tasks, leaderboards, and community milestones, increasing rewards. The event combines gaming mechanics, community engagement, and opportunities to win prizes while promoting innovation and growth in the crypto space.

Yesterday, there were no flows in BTC Spot ETFs, including GBTC and non-GBTC categories.

. Stake BNB on Lista's portal to get slisBNB, then deposit it into Astherus to earn airdrop points with multipliers (3X for Lista, 1.15X for Astherus). No lockup is required, and slisBNB is the most efficient option.

Beginner

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Bybit Celebrates 6th Anniversary with $1.2M Prize Pool and bbSOL Supercharging Campaign

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, and futures, options and perpetual contracts.

ETH has outperformed, bolstered by SEC Chair Gary Gensler's announcement of his Jan 20, 2025 departure, and suggested by growing open interest in ETH perpetual. This positive momentum extends to several large-cap altcoins previously scrutinized by the SEC, as indicated by bullish funding rates for long positions.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

ETH Open Interest Grows While BTC’s Declines

ETH is outperforming BTC following the announcement of SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s departure, as evidenced in perpetual swap markets. BTC open interest has decreased from last week's highs, while ETH contracts have increased. Additionally, ETH trade volumes constitute a larger share of daily trading as compared to much of the past six months, despite an overall dip in trade volumes this week. The gradual decline in BTC open interest, without a surge in trading activity, indicates a strategic repositioning, rather than a wave of liquidations.

BTC Option Curve Inversion Deepens as Price Retreats

The pullback in the spot BTC price from the $100K target has led to a flat ATM volatility term structure, with short-tenor options dropping below 60%. 

This trend continues the correlation between term structure inversion and BTC spot price returns observed since the U.S. election on November 5, 2024

. The decline in front-end volatility aligns with lower realized volatility levels. While demand for short-tenor options has moderated, there hasn't been a notable change in open interest for calls or puts. Instead, their growth has stalled at the week's start.

Sentiment in ETH options markets seems moderately more bullish than in BTC's during the recent decline in momentum from the post-election rally. Call options lead in both trading volumes and open interest. 

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Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Nov 27, 2024): Signal on ETH Outperformance Against BTC Surfaces on Long-Term Contracts

Bybit Learn

Crypto Insights

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Since DeFi summer brought about the 2020 bull market, everyone anticipated “institutional adoption” to come to DeFi. Integration between TradFi and DeFi mainly happened on the trading front, where centralized exchanges became a middle ground for TradFi crypto adoption. Market makers and proprietary funds alike began executing carry and price arbitrage on centralized and decentralized venues. To accommodate billions of dollars of flow, key on-chain trading infrastructure projects were incubated and funded by these institutions. An example of such an infrastructure is Pyth, where 70+ institutional trading firms, with the likes of Jump Crypto and DRW Cumberland, publish price discovery and create market efficiency across different venues. The completion of decentralized infrastructure in financial trading allowed sophisticated trader flows to enter crypto native markets. 

Looking past financial trading, there is a second type of institutional capital brewing in DeFi —  these are private credit funds that received traction after the centralized lenders imploded in May 2022. Before the liquidity crunch in May this year, centralized lending desks originated a phenomenal amount of crypto loans, for example, Celsius, Genesis, and BlockFi together issued 

. Main customers for these loans were institutional traders,  who were willing to pay 10%+ APY on daily liquidity. 

With the fast de-leveraging of these centralized entities, there was a void of liquidity in the market and profitable crypto-native institutions turned to DeFi solutions to fill in the space. The market saw the rise of Orthogonal Credit, M11 Credit, and Blocktower Credit, which are credit funds that provide direct lending on venues such as Maple finance to market makers, e.g. Wintermute, Auros and Flow Traders, allowing them to draw USDC at 8.5-10% and draw wETH at 5-6%.

Source: @scottincrypto, https://dune.com/scottincrypto/Maple-Deposits

Asset management products have also moved on-chain, democratizing investment strategies that historically were only available to large institutional clients. Leveraging smart contracts and unique crypto-native non-linear yields, strategies such as DeFi Option Vaults (DOVs) saw breakout volumes in 2021, with $1 Billion in Total Value Locked (TVL) at its peak. Vaults like Ribbon Finance, Friktion, and Antimatter, provide simple UI/UX to allow retail investors to tap into vanilla option premiums. From underwriting out of money covered calls and vanilla puts, retail investors saw these option premiums reeling in 20 to 40% of returns at the time, which looked very competitive and more sustainable compared to incentive based yield farms. On the back of these retail underwriting, institutional options market makers would buy the entire vault of options and sell on exchanges such as Deribit which saw 90% of total crypto option flow at some point. Currently option vaults face lower volumes due to several reason:

While DeFi volumes today depend on trading players whose health dictates how active DeFi is, a more balanced ecosystem would welcome players beyond traders, who can leverage the efficiency and transparency of this new paradigm. With the US Fed Funds target rate turning to 3.75 to 4.00%, the DeFi spread (the difference between DeFi borrowing rate and US treasury) has turned to -1.2%, which begs the question — Does it still make sense to invest DeFi capital in Compound’s cUSDC pools where yields are less than 2%? Where will DeFi capital go? 

With the above background and questions, this report will delve into the current development of DeFi’s real-world usage, difficulties that hinder such developments, and possibilities in DeFi’s integration with TradFi. 

The first phase of DeFi arguably revolved around TradFi capital flows into DeFi, as well as how new capital is deployed to bring TradFi functions to DeFi, including exchanges, trading, lending, derivatives, payments, etc. So far, DeFi applications have been mainly used by crypto-native users. Unfortunately, due to an extended bear market, DeFi usage declined in the face of muted speculative activities. As a result, DeFi protocols turned their focus from retail investors to institutional investors and from crypto trading to tokenized real assets. 

The next phase of DeFi seems to be for native DeFi protocols to add the support of real-world assets and enlist real-world players as DeFi users. In this section, we will dive deeper into how DeFi currently interacts with real-world assets.

In order to expand its usage outside the crypto-native community, DeFi ventured into the traditional world of finance. DeFi’s real-world lending caters to institutional needs, for simplicity  DeFi’s real-world lending in this article only refers to DeFi protocols’ lending to real-world institutions, excluding lending to retail investors. 

Top DeFi lending protocols, such as Aave and Compound, offer on-chain over-collateralized loans without the procedures of KYC and credit assessment. In contrast, real-world institutions that are sensitive to capital efficiency loathe over-collateralized loans due to lower leverage, leading to the emergence of DeFi protocols that lend solely to real-world players with under-collateralized or un-collateralized loans, such as Maple Finance. 

Despite low capital efficiency, over-collateralized loans in DeFi have a role to play in real-world lending due to lower borrowing rates, with MakerDAO being the pioneer and leader. However, over-collateralized loans often only attract large financial institutions, such as banks, with premium assets as collaterals but not smaller-sized private credit firms. For example, without credit assessment, MakerDAO only charges 30 bps above 5-year treasury loans for its lending to syndicated loans managed by 

 credit risk premium for high-quality bonds. 

A Brief Timeline of DeFi’s Real-World Lending

With the assistance of real-world asset pools on Centrifuge, MakerDAO ushered in real-world lending back in 2020 on the back of the approval of the 

 for the DAO to onboard off-chain real-world assets (RWA). On the other hand, uncollateralized institutional lending came to light with the launch of 

 in mid-2021. Stepping into 2022, as DeFi space reels from crypto winter, 

, among other protocols that target institutional borrowing, continue to enter the space. 

The most prominent protocol with over-collateralized real-world lending is  

. As of the time of writing, MakerDAO owns eight RWA pools with an outstanding supply of DAI to the tune of 

. Among them, four lending pools are based on RWA pools from Centrifuge, with collateral including loans to real estate investors, freight invoices, short-term trade receivables, and revenue-based financing assets. Another three lending pools are through a trust structure, with cooperation from 6s Capital, a fund that lends to real estate developers, Huntingdon Valley Bank (HVB), a bank located in the United States, and lastly, Societe Generale, a prominent French bank. The last RWA pool is made up of investments in a high-quality bond scheme with Monetalis to seek higher yields in TradFi. 

Centrifuge plays a critical role in MakerDAO’s RWA ambition by tokenizing collateral assets. Investors are separated into two tranches, junior and senior tranches. The junior tranche is open to professional investors looking for higher returns but comes with higher default risks. The RWA pools on Centrifuge cover industries such as real estate bridge loans and fintech debt financing, among others. 

While most end borrowers may be linked with real-world usage, the largest RWA pools are Monetalis and the HVB pool, representing 

 of the total RWA pools’ DAI supply as of the time of writing, suggesting that Centrifuge-connected pools are a minority among RWA pools. 

Moreover, large RWA pools on MakerDAO in connection with Centrifuge were launched in 2020 or early 2021. As uncollateralized lending protocols gained traction in late 2021, MakerDAO lost its luster due to lower leverage from over-collateralized loans, while small borrowers flocked to under-collateralized lending platforms.

It is important to note that the supply of DAI on RWA accounts for a small fraction of the total DAI supply, approximately 5.4% as of the time of writing. However, with continuous investments in treasury yields, the RWA proportion is likely to rise in the foreseeable future.

All in all, despite early-stage developments, MakerDAO’s RWA scheme has set a great example for the integration of TradFi and DeFi. Not only do real-world players borrow on the platform, but MakerDAO, sitting with more than 3 billion PSM reserves in USDC, has started to seek yields from traditional assets. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, TradFi capital used to flow into DeFi for higher yields. With treasury interest rates hiking and DeFi yields shrinking, it is natural that DeFi capital flows back to TradFi, ushering in a new era of TradFi-DeFi integration.

Source: rwa.xyz (data as of Nov 16, 2022)

Real-world assets collateralized by DeFi institutional lendings are mainly private credits. As of the time of writing, there are active loans amounting to $359 million with an average APY of 11.47% that offer on-chain loans to real-world borrowers. The top real-world borrowers are from fields such as fintech, real estate, and carbon projects, among others. 

Source: Dune Analytics@blakewest; Protocol Websites (data as of Nov 14, 2022)

Maple Finance is the leader that offers under-collateralized lending from DeFi to real-world borrowers, with the highest TVL at around $136.2 million. Uncollateralized lending on DeFi targets institutional investors, both crypto-native and real-world players. After rigorous KYC and credit assessment, institutional investors can create a pool on Maple Finance, TrueFi, and ClearPool for borrowing from DeFi users. 

However, these under-collateralized lending platforms may not directly serve real-world borrowers. Crypto market makers form a large portion of borrowing demand on TrueFi and ClearPool, which strictly do not qualify as real-world borrowers. On the other hand, Goldfinch, which promotes itself as a true lender to developing countries for real yields, integrates better with real-world players and may continue to drive value to the platforms.

Credix is a new institutional lending protocol launched this year on Solana, with a similar model to Goldfinch, connecting global capital to Latin American Fintech borrowers. Credix sets itself apart from the previously mentioned institutional lending protocol by underwriting over-collateralized loans themselves, lowering the default risks for liquidity pool investors while offering an attractive yield. 

Synthetic Assets (Tokenized Real-World Assets)

Moving the trading of real-world assets on-chain is another way to expand DeFi’s real-world usage. The possible real-world assets include equities, currencies (FX), commodities, and complex derivatives, among others. 

, a popular synthetic trading DeFi platform, offers derivative tokens, dubbed synths, to trade crypto and FX, mainly USD, EUR, and INR, while 

 includes trading pairs of crypto, FX, and equities. Tokenizing real-world assets lays the foundation for real-world users to trade traditional assets with no intermediaries.

At this juncture, tokenized equities might not attract users due to a series of issues, such as dividend distribution and asset custody. However, DeFi might play a role in facilitating cheaper trading of FX pairs for real-world users, as traditional banks charge high spread costs for retail users. Furthermore, FX volatilities amidst the U.S. monetary tightening cycle leave currencies from developed and emerging countries volatile. FX trading on DeFi enables users to hedge or trade their home currencies with minimal spreads to prevent wealth reduction from currency depreciation. As a highlight, USD/JPY and GBP/USD registered over 

 trading volume in the past 30 days on gTrade, representing around 

, respectively, suggesting a blooming FX trading on DeFi platforms.

While we have seen the adoption of trading and lending DeFi protocols with real-world players, DeFi's integration with TradFi is still in the early stages. DeFi categories other than trading and lending have not seen the same level of integration with TradFi. As such, we will look into what disconnects DeFi from TradFi in the following section.

Challenges of Integrating DeFi and TradFi

Drawing parallels to traditional financial services, institutional services can fall into the following four categories: trading, lending, investment products, and transaction banking. So far, trading and lending have found the most product market fit in decentralized finance; the appetite for integration seems to be slower in other corners of financial services, and it is worth looking into the roadblocks preventing further integration.

DeFi Meets TradFi — The Integration and Challenges Faced

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