This Week in DeFi: f(X) Protocol V2, "Pendle" on Solana, and more

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This week the most interesting launch in my opinion was f(x) protocol V2. We were big fans of f(x) protocol's v1 and wrote an article about it last year. f(x) is a stablecoin+leverage protocol. ETH collateral mints fxUSD, a stablecoin, and xETH, a leverage token. The leverage token absorbs the volatility, allowing fxUSD to stay stably pegged.

This year, v2 fixes the issue with v1 which was that the leverage token would change leverage based on eth volatility, making it hard to leverage trade with. Now, users are presented with a familiar perp trading-like interface and can mint leverage tokens with fixed leverage.

On the other side, there is a stability pool for fxUSD which earns staking fees(fxUSD is backed by LSDs), trading fees, and FXN.

F(x) has an interesting mechanism, is one of the few actually decentralized leverage and stablecoin protocols out there, so we're happy to see it come live, and interested to see how it progresses. Note that our daily newsletter is sponsored by f(x), but this newsletter and podcast is not.

RateX Supports SOL LRTs

One of the more exciting Solana projects recently has been RateX. RateX can be said to be the Pendle of Solana, but the nature of Solana being non-EVM, you cant just directly port code over, you actually have to write stuff from scratch.

That means the Solana version of EVM stuff is often different. In this case, RateX is decidedly "Solana": it has a slicker, more degen yield trading interface that imitates perp exchanges.

It also has more degen yield market screen. Plus each page has a popup walk through the first time you visit it. It's more degen, its more user friendly, its more Solana.

Ethereum people often think Solana is just winning because of memes, but I disagree. This focus on the user, on educating them, making things easy, and fun, is why Solana has been winning a lot of users this cycle.

Upcoming

Tea Protocol has an upcoming TGE. I don't like projects that promote their token/TGE before they have a fully working product so I wouldn't recommend aping this, but I can't help be intrigued by the idea here. Decentralized GitHub is something that makes some sense, and in this case developers can earn points for their code, so whatever your risk tolerance or perception of this project, I think its worth taking a look at – especially if you have a GitHub.

I would warn you that my quick glance through wasn't super promising in terms of what's actually been built out so far. But the Idea is cool, and thats all that matters in crypto, right?... right?

For the nth time, Uniswap teases v4, as well as Unichain. Both aren't new news, but they're both exciting. V4 for developers, and Unichain potentially for users and LPs, who will lose less to MEV.

Drift teases its Fuel airdrop coming in May 2025. Drift has some cool vaults we talked about last week. May be worth checking out.

That's it for this week. There's a bit more detail & alpha in the podcast .

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-Danger