It's so over

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Hey all, this is Carlos. Crypto markets have had a tough week. Thankfully, I’ve prepared a list of excellent reads that can (hopefully) distract you from the price action.

Topics include Fluid’s token buyback design, Solana’s Alpenglow, how stablecoins will go mainstream and new modalities for asset issuance and trading. Have a happy weekend!

Pendle and Boros: Shaping the future of yield trading | TN, Pendle

Takeaways from Monday’s 0xResearch episode:

• Boros’ first week, while in a gradual rollout, was largely successful. While leverage was capped at 1.4x, about ~$15-20 million in notional volume was being traded daily on ~$33 million in open interest. TN mentioned that Boros has yet to see any liquidation volume. 

• TN highlighted the importance of robust risk management in implementing the margin trading system as Pendle transitions from spot trading yield to a more dynamic trading environment. Cap increases on OI and leverage will be gradual based on liquidity depth, market-maker participation and robust stress-testing of the liquidations system, with an eventual target of 20-50x leverage once the risk engine proves resilient across volatile regimes.

• The levers for Boros to pursue growth are clear. Adding more Binance markets (e.g., SOL) should happen before adding other venues with different funding mechanics. Funding interval affects feedback frequency (Binance eight-hour vs. Hyperliquid one-hour) but not capital efficiency. Long term, Boros can support any oracle-published rate, including non-crypto benchmarks (e.g., Libor/fed funds) and onchain rates such as Aave variable borrow/supply.

• There has been a strong synergistic relationship between Ethena, Pendle v2 and Aave, where the offerings of each business grow the top lines of every party in this exchange. The PT-sUSDe Aave core listing hit ~$1 billion TVL in about a week and helped push total PT collateral on Aave above $3 billion.

• TN mentioned that, if he had the option of launching the PENDLE token all over again, he would probably not go for the current ve-model which introduces unnecessary complexities. That said, he mentioned that the near-term focus is shipping new updates for Boros and making sure to achieve product-market fit. The team will revisit tokenomics only after reaching this goal.

Listen to the full podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and X.

This summary was generated with assistance from AI tooling.

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1. The Multicoin Capital investment team wrote a think piece on new modalities for issuance and trading. It argues crypto trivializes asset creation, fueling user-generated assets and launchpads like Pump and Zora. The post surveys emerging trading UX, including single- and multi-player Telegram bots, doomscroll feeds, trading terminals, livestream tokens and Tinder-inspired swipe UIs. It highlights how speed and social signals drive memecoin markets, predicting that wallets will embed LLM bots. The authors see doomscroll feeds, paired with retail order flow, as the largest consumer opportunity. Read more

2. Daniel Barabander, general counsel and investment partner at Variant, published an article arguing stablecoins can go mainstream in US consumer payments by following the credit card two-step playbook. First, win niche users by leaning into intrinsic advantages (better UX, programmable rewards, white-labeled coins). Then, connect fragmented usage into an open, interoperable network. Barabander notes that stablecoins must reach convenience parity with credit cards for mainstream adoption, highlighting merchant-branded models and “buy now, pay never” as growth catalysts. Read more

3. DMH from Fluid published a proposal on the governance forum outlining Fluid’s growth vision and opening up a community debate on token buybacks. Fluid ranks as Ethereum’s fourth-largest protocol by outstanding loans and second-largest DEX in volume and fees. The growth vision targets $10 billion in deposits and $30 million in annualized revenue run rate within six months. Key catalysts include distribution expansion via the partnership with Jupiter and upcoming launches like DEX Lite. The proposal includes a data-driven discussion on the most effective approach for FLUID token buybacks (e.g., dynamic based on FDV, 30-day TWAP, etc). Read more

4. DeFi Dev Corp. published a deep dive on Alpenglow, a new consensus mechanism for Solana developed by Anza. With the Alpenglow proposal (SIMD-326) on the cusp of a formal vote and poised to represent a major step function in network performance, the piece explains what it is, why it matters, weighs its pros and cons and discusses why DeFi Dev Corp. will be voting in favor. Some changes under Alpenglow include a target finality time of 100-150ms, reduced latency, simpler consensus and fairer validator economics. The post also outlines the formal discussion (Aug. 13-25) and voting (Aug. 27-Sep. 2) windows. Read more

— Carlos

It’s the summer of DATs and the party is going strong. 

But when October rolls around, everyone will be looking to DAS: London to hear from these meta-defining voices on where things stand and where they’re headed.

Get your ticket today with promo code: 0X100 for £100 off