Metis has announced the launch of the "Thrive Metis STAR Tathon" funding program, which will provide over $200,000 in funding to support promising projects in the cross-chain DeFi, RWA tokenization, and social platform fields. Applications will be accepted until October 21.

Solana announced the launch of a free developer training camp Bootcamp, which covers knowledge of Solana smart contracts, deploying DeFi applications, and security. Developers can learn Solana development in a 20-hour course on YouTube.

Parfin, a financial company focusing on cryptocurrency and blockchain, announced the creation of a new platform called Rayls, aimed at enhancing the privacy of Brazil's central bank digital currency (CBDC) drex. The solution can operate in a licensed manner, where each account that interacts with the system needs to go through the KYC process.

DeFi trading platform Reposwap announced the completion of its seed round financing, with QCP Capital leading the investment and ZK Prime Capital, XLink Ventures and other investment institutions participating. The specific amount of financing and valuation have not been disclosed yet. Reposwap supports multi-chain compatibility, mainly providing token issuance, liquidity support and cross-chain trading, as well as VC-Module Launchpad. The project's private placement registration was opened this week, and the public offering round is expected to start at the end of June.

The cross-chain interoperability protocol deBridge announced the launch of the DeFi off-chain trading platform deBridge P2P, which supports fully non-custodial cross-chain off-chain trading and allows anyone to choose the counterparty for cross-chain transfers.

According to a report by DappRadar, the TVL of DeFi applications increased by 17% month-on-month in May, reaching $192 billion, a monthly high since February 2022. The growth was mainly driven by the rise of ETH and increased trading activity. Despite the increase in TVL, the number of active wallets (UAW) in DeFi decreased by 21% to 1.75 million. Ethereum accounts for 68% of the overall TVL in DeFi, reaching $130 billion, while Solana's TVL ranks second at $10.9 billion, accounting for 5.7%, a 14% increase month-on-month. The report states that the increase in TVL is mainly due to short-term speculation surrounding the popularity of Ethereum ETFs. (Cointelegraph)

DeFi strategy protocol Blueberry Protocol has revealed its future plans on the X platform:

According to defillama data, as of May 18, 2024, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi has once again surpassed $95 billion. It is currently reported at $95.069 billion, an increase of nearly $12 billion from the low point of $83.04 billion 35 days ago. Among the top five protocols in terms of TVL, Eigenlayer has the highest 30-day increase, with TVL rising by 19.67% to a total of $15.455 billion.

The Web3 ecosystem has recently seen a dramatic rise in activity through total value locked in decentralized finance (“DeFi”), volumes on decentralized exchanges (“DEXs”), and stablecoin activity (see the Appendix). Looking at the first quarter of the year, we examine prominent events in the space, including:

Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, stated on social media that if there is a way to short BTC by holding some DeFi-wrapped BTC, the market size will be smaller than its TVL. This is only effective in bull markets where CeFi stablecoins are operated by hedge funds.