$1B of US Treasurys tokenized, Base TVL doubles in a month: Finance Redefined

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

Over $1 billion of United States Treasurys have been tokenized on Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and other blockchains amid a growing trend of real-world asset tokenization.

A U.S. judge has ruled that Coinbase’s self-custody crypto wallet doesn’t make it a broker, which lawyers say is a “significant setback” for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a boon for DeFi.

Coinbase’s layer-2 platform Base has recently benefitted from the memecoin frenzy, with its total value locked (TVL) on-chain doubling in a month.

Over $1 billion in U.S. Treasurys have now been tokenized on-chain

More than $1 billion worth of United States Treasurys now exist across Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and other blockchains, helped in part by the recent launch of the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund.

BlackRock’s product, tickered “BUIDL,” was launched on Ethereum on March 20 and now boasts a market cap of $244.8 million.

According to Etherscan, four transactions to the fund totaling $95 million over the week boosted the fund, making it the second-largest tokenized government securities fund.

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Coinbase Wallet’s triumph over SEC allegations is a “giant win” for DeFi

Crypto lawyers are hailing a recent decision by a U.S. judge to dismiss allegations against Coinbase Wallet as a win for self-custody wallets and DeFi apps.

On March 27, U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla denied Coinbase’s bid to dismiss an SEC lawsuit, finding the SEC “sufficiently pleaded” Coinbase was unlicensed and its crypto staking offering was unregistered securities.

The judge also determined that the SEC failed to allege that Coinbase conducted brokerage activity through Coinbase Wallet, which is a self-custody crypto wallet app that gives users full control of their assets.

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Solana’s Jupiter DEX kickstarts native DAO with $137 million in initial capital

The Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Jupiter is allocating 10 million USD Coin (USDC) and 100 million of its native JUP token, worth a combined $137 million at publication, to kick-start its Jupiter DAO.

In a March 27 announcement, Jupiter said the budget “provides the DAO the capability to fund the ideas with USDC and have the JUP allocation for long-term incentive alignment with J.U.P Contributors.” The exchange added, “To ensure that the DAO will be able to execute on these crucial things over the long term, we will aim to top up the same budget yearly.”

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Base TVL doubles in a month as pundits tip memecoins to drive adoption

Ethereum layer-2 network Base’s TVL has doubled in less than a month, reaching $2.13 billion, while commentators say it could become the next epicenter for memecoins.

Base notched $1 billion in TVL on Feb. 27, 226 days after its launch in August 2023. However, the network managed to breach the $2 billion level just 25 days later, on March 23, according to data from L2Beat.

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DeFi market overview

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bearish week, with most trading in the red on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols rose back above $100 billion.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.