Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) information – a newsletter designed to bring you meaningful developments over the past week.

Uniswap, one of the leading decentralized exchange platforms, is integrating debit and credit card support for its users. It will allow Uniswap users to buy cryptocurrency directly with their cards.

A former employee caused the recent $5 million hack of the Ankr protocol. The DeFi protocol alerted the relevant authorities and seeks to prosecute the attacker while reinforcing his security practices.

A Web3 developer has claimed that many crypto ecosystem projects would rather be hacked than pay bounties. After reporting and helping fix a smart contract vulnerability, the developer claims that projects he helped started ignoring him. Yet despite a tumultuous year, DeFi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain gaming fueled decentralized application (DApp) usage across the industry, according to DappRadar’s 2022 report.

The top 100 DeFi tokens had a bearish week, with almost all tokens trading in the red on the weekly charts.

Uniswap will allow users to buy cryptocurrencies with debit and credit cards

Decentralized exchange Uniswap has partnered with fintech company Moonpay to allow users to buy cryptocurrency on its web app using debit cards, credit cards, and bank transfers. The bank transfer option is being rolled out for users within most states of the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the Single Euro Payments Area, also known as SEPA.

In the announcement made on December 20, Uniswap shared that its users will now be able to convert fiat into cryptocurrency on the mainnet of Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, and Artibrum in a matter of minutes.

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Projects would rather be hacked than pay bounties, Web3 developer claims

As hacks and exploits continue to proliferate within the crypto industry, finding vulnerabilities is paramount to avoid potential losses. However, a Web3 developer noted that doing so is not rewarding.

In a tweet, a Web3 developer claimed that he found a vulnerability in a Solana smart contract that would have affected several projects and around $30 million in funding. According to the developer, he reported and helped patch the vulnerabilities. However, when it came time to ask for a reward, the projects simply started ignoring it.

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Ankr Says Ex-Employee Caused $5M Exploit, Promises To Improve Security

A former member of the team caused a $5 million hack of the Ankr protocol on December 1, according to an announcement from the Ankr team on December 20.

The former employee carried out a “supply chain attack” by placing malicious code in a package of future updates to the team’s internal software. After this software was updated, the malicious code created a security vulnerability that allowed the attacker to steal the deployment key from the company’s server computer.

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DeFi, NFT, Blockchain Gaming: Key Takeaways From DappRadar’s 2022 Review

2022 will be a challenging year for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, but the adversity we face has been peppered with many positives in the DApp ecosystem.

DappRadar has published its annual report on the industry, focusing on the challenges it faces along with notable technological achievements and the increase in daily users.

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DeFi Market Overview

Analytical data reveals that the total market value of DeFi fell below $40 billion last week, trading at around $38.1 billion at the time of writing. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the top 100 DeFi tokens by market cap had a volatile and bearish week, with almost all tokens trading in the red.

Thanks for reading our roundup of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, ideas, and education in this dynamic forward space.