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Spark has officially launched Ignition, starting a two-phase airdrop campaign distributing its new SPK governance token to 50,000 early DeFi users. With a 10-year emission schedule and integrations across protocols like Aave, Morpho and Pendle, SPK is designed to anchor Spark’s interoperable capital network for the long haul.

— Macauley 

Permissionless IV is hitting Brooklyn on June 24-26. Tix are $499 — but refer 5 friends to the 0xResearch newsletter and score a free Permissionless ticket. Scroll down to grab your code.

Kamino is cooking:

Solana’s top money market, Kamino, launched v2 on mainnet three weeks ago. V2 introduces Euler-style permissionless vault deployments and liquidity aggregation across markets.

Since v2’s launch, TVL has grown 66% to all-time highs of $3.71b. Kamino Lend v2 markets have racked up $200m+ in deposits and $80m+ in borrows.

Two markets in particular are driving usage. The first is the Marinade market — about $103m in mSOL and SOL deposits, with $43m borrow demand. The second is the Maple market, with $48m in SyrupUSDC, USDC, USDG and USDS deposits against $18.7m in borrows.

Thanks to Kamino’s leveraged staking feature “Multiply,” Solana yield farmers can easily amplify single-digit yields to upward of 20-30% with a click of a button.

According to DefiLlama, Kamino has made $3.3m in revenue from May 1 to today. That is about 44% of Aave’s total revenue ($7.5m) within the same time period. Yet, KMNO’s FDV ($623m) is merely 13.2% of AAVE’s FDV (4.7b). On a FDV-to-revenue basis, KMNO appears to be cheap, though a myriad of risks remain, such as its low float of 20% and lack of an insurance fund. 

For a comprehensive valuation of KMNO, see Blockworks Research’s report on Kamino.

— Donovan Choy

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Every day, users lose money to MEV. As AI comes onchain, the MEV issue will grow exponentially.

FAIR is the first Layer 1 blockchain where MEV can’t exist. Transactions are encrypted before they hit the network and only decrypted after consensus, making manipulation impossible.

Built for the future of DeFi and AI execution, FAIR ensures every transaction is private, secure, and truly fair.

Spark airdrop lights the fuse on decentralized governance

Spark, the DeFi protocol behind SparkLend and Spark Savings, has launched Ignition. This long-awaited airdrop campaign is designed to reward early ecosystem contributors and kick off decentralized governance via the SPK token.

The campaign will reach approximately 50,000 participants, spanning users of Aave, Pendle, Centrifuge, Morpho, Unichain, Lido and OP Mainnet, according to the Spark team. Eligibility is determined based on prior engagement with SparkLend or by holding select stablecoins, including USDS, sUSDS, DAI, sDAI and xDAI (the gas token of Gnosis Chain). Token recipients can check eligibility and claim their SPK at token launch via Ignition’s official portal.

The token itself is not yet live, and no launch date has been announced — so watch out for phishing attempts!

The scope of eligibility is strikingly broad: Users who held stablecoins or interacted with platforms like Aave, Morpho, Pendle or Fluid as far back as 2023 — when Spark launched — may qualify. Users qualify from holding tokens and DeFi positions on Ethereum mainnet, L2s like Base, Arbitrum and Optimism, and even Gnosis and Polygon.

SPK tokens, however, will be claimable only on Ethereum Mainnet, regardless of the network where eligibility was earned. The claim window is expected to run for six weeks following token launch, after which unclaimed SPK will be redirected to the “Overdrive” phase.

Overdrive is the second planned campaign phase following Ignition, and establishes a staking-based rewards program allowing recipients to stake their SPK for additional yield. Participants from Spark Savings may receive boosted allocations during Overdrive, depending on their prior activity. That’s one way in which Spark aims to reward long-term alignment and meaningful participation across its financial stack.

“This airdrop campaign marks a key milestone in Spark’s roadmap and is a foundational step toward a more interoperable and composable decentralized financial system,” said Sam MacPherson, CEO and co-founder of Spark’s core development team, Phoenix Labs.

Spark has expanded its role in the DeFi landscape through vertical integration, as Alea Research noted in a recent report.

“Spark offers high‑yield savings (SSR), low‑cost USDS borrowing (SparkLend), and deep cross‑chain liquidity (SLL) in a single stack.” This combination enables Spark to deliver capital efficiency at scale — without fragmentation. Together, SparkLend and SLL manage over $5.5 billion in liquidity, making Spark one of DeFi’s most heavily capitalized systems.

The SPK token will serve as the governance core of this ecosystem, shaping protocol upgrades, integration priorities and capital allocation via onchain voting. It's part of a massive 10-year emission roadmap outlined in the Spark Artifact from the Sky (formerly MakerDAO) Atlas.

Of the 10 billion total SPK tokens, 6.5 billion will be distributed via Genesis farming by Sky, and 3.5 billion will be allocated to the Spark Foundation. Emissions begin at 1.625 billion per year and taper down gradually to a long-term rate of 203 million SPK annually by year seven.

This measured schedule is designed to balance utility with decentralization. As Alea puts it, “Spark’s value proposition creates a feedback loop that strengthens other protocols while cementing its liquidity moat.” SPK’s long-term design invites holders to become stewards of DeFi infrastructure, not just passive recipients.

Spark’s Ignition arrives amid growth in other DeFi primitives. Morpho today announced v2, with a focus on fixed-rate, fixed-term loans via an intent-based lending platform. Its onchain lending infrastructure already powers third-party services such as Coinbase BTC‑backed loans.

SPK governance could influence capital allocation — not just in savings and stable borrowing, but across multi‑chain lending markets. Its ambition: to align governance, liquidity and yield under one roof.

— Macauley Peterson

Will Plasma steal Tron’s USDT market share?

Boccaccio: Plasma’s main argument was that Tron is expensive and centralized. Tron’s very popular in emerging markets with low trust in their banking systems. That’s the exact market that Plasma is going for. But Tron has probably the biggest moat in crypto. It’s a very tough market to enter into and I don't know if you can beat it out easily. If I’m a payments provider, I’ll offer both Tron and Plasma. So Plasma has to entice the user somehow, and we’ll see if low fees are gonna do it.

Carlos: I would imagine Binance is one of the big distribution channels for USDT on Tron. I think people use Binance ID to receive and send payments. If so, a Plasma integration with Binance and these kinds of frontends would be a huge first step to get adoption.

From token design and modular infra to ZK systems and economic coordination — this is where the best builders on the planet will gather. 

Names like Peter Todd, Casey Caruso, and Jeremy Rubin are already on the agenda. If you’re tracking where the space is actually going, this is the room.

📅 June 24-26 | Brooklyn