To the DeFi community,

This week, NEAR protocol raised $150 million in a round led by Three Arrows Capital. Funds will go towards developing NEAR’s regional hubs in increasing brand awareness, as well as funding various ecosystem projects.

?? @NEARProtocol raises $150M to boost ecosystem growth! ??#NEAR has announced the close of a $150 million funding round led by @zhusu's Three Arrow Capital.

Participants included @MechanismCap, @a16z, @dragonfly_cap, #Alameda and many more.

Learn ??https://t.co/DjilZpkYPH

— NEAR Blockchain (@NEAR_Blockchain) January 13, 2022

Polygon Zero introduced Plonky 2, a major milestone in the ZK scaling race that seeks to provide scaling increases to Ethereum and L2s without compromising security. The Plonky 2 implementation delivers a 100x increase in speed of processing batch ZK transactions and works natively with Ethereum; while transactions are expensive, the optimization marks a major step forward in continuing to scale the Ethereum ecosystem.

1/5 Proud to present #Plonky2 – the world's fastest ZK scaling technology, built by @0xPolygonZero! ??

Plonky2 is a recursive SNARK that is 100x faster than existing alternatives and natively compatible with #Ethereum.

A ?? on why this is exciting… pic.twitter.com/bGOdtyqwM4

— Polygon | $MATIC ?? (@0xPolygon) January 10, 2022

The 0x API is live on Optimism with launch partners including Matcha, Set Protocol, and others, making 0x one of the most accessible asset swapping protocols in the DeFi ecosystem today. Optimism joins Polygon, Avalanche, BSC, Fantom, and Celo in platforms that offer the 0x API.

Big if true (hint: it's true).

0x API is a critical middleware protocol that enables value to flow freely in the token economy.

We couldn't be more pleased to have this important DEX infrastructure on Optimism and we can't wait to see what gets built with it. https://t.co/m0jwWM9IUZ

— Optimism (@optimismPBC) January 11, 2022

And the DeFi Alliance accelerator rebranded to Alliance DAO after raising $50 million from more than 300 Web3 aficionados across DeFi, gaming, and more. Alliance DAO will initially continue to offer monetary and mentorship support for Web3 startups, with the aim to add governance, liquidity, recruiting and marketing support over time. Alliance DAO has supported seven cohorts of DeFi startups, with applications now open for cohort eight.

It's been incredible to be part of the Alliance cohort. Can't wait to see what @alliancedao can do for founders! ?? https://t.co/TP9XWOoN5k

— P?rt Finance (@port_finance) January 13, 2022

Another week, another major ecosystem player going DAO. It’s likely to be an increasingly common trend as the tenants of decentralization and shared ownership continue to cross the chasm from ideas online to organizing principles in the real world. 

Alliance DAO has already had a massive impact on the rapid development of DeFi protocols, providing financial and administrative support, as well as critical guidance for navigating an emerging industry on the periphery of some of the most regulated activities humanity engages in today. This impact, and the growth of the network associated with Alliance make the transition to a DAO structure even more exciting, as it dramatically ramps the resources and expertise that will be devoted to working out the thorny issues of making DAOs work as well offline as they do on Discord. Issues like compensation, dispute resolution, hiring and firing (if necessary at all), legal representation, taxation, and many more will now have the force of one of the most experienced Web3 pioneer organizations actively working to provide modern, decentralized solutions.

After really getting started in 2020 (with a few earlier examples), the transition to DAOs has been remarkably swift, even by crypto standards. There should be little doubt that 2022 will be the year DAOs make their break into mainstream consciousness. There’s bound to be opposition and push back, but the bottom up nature of such frameworks have already shown an incredible ability to attract high-skill talent and masses of supporters. DAOs are set to keep on surprising in 2022 and beyond. Stay tuned!

Top Stories

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Stat Box

Total Value Locked: $96B (up 2.07% since last week)

DeFi Market Cap: $145.92B (up 3.58%)

DEX Weekly Volume: $20.59B (down -3.7%)

DAI Supply: 9.13B (up 2.13%)

Total DeFi Users: 4,347,000 (up 0.68%)

Bonus Reads

[Samuel Haig – The Defiant] – DeFi Dynamo Paradigm Spreads its Bets with Investment in Citadel Securities

[Jack Melnick – The TIE] – Do you believe in $MAGIC?

[Anthony Sassano – The Daily Gwei] – Unlimited Demand – The Daily Gwei #416

[Liquidity Wizard – Bankless] – Liquidity is bandwidth

[Alex Gallagher – Crypto Briefing] – A Guy Put $10 in an Ethereum DeFi App, Then Filed a Lawsuit

Alexander Behrens

Alex is a Content Writer at Circle, with previous experience at tech startups, Fortune 500 corporations, and as a freelance writer and analyst. Interests include cutting-edge technologies in blockchain, energy, supply chains, transportation, urban living, and more and he has been in the crypto community since 2014.