Welcome to DeFi Frontier.

Every week, I highlight the DeFi opportunities, protocols, and market themes I think are worth paying attention to.

Sometimes that means sustainable yield opportunities. Sometimes it means new protocols, best practices, risk frameworks, or broader trends shaping where capital is moving onchain.

The goal is simple: help you find what’s interesting in DeFi, understand the tradeoffs, and avoid blindly chasing the biggest APY on the screen.

Let’s get into this week’s report.

7 day benchmark stablecoin rates from Portals: 2.74%:

Here’s the top yielding stablecoin vaults (real yields) for the past 30 days:

Checking in on Stablewatch to see the 7-day TVL changes.

This week the top movers were: Inverse (sDOLA) +45%, mStable (mPT-sUSDe) +23.6%, Yuzu (yzPP) +21.9%:

7 day benchmark ETH staking rates from Portals: 2.21%

Here’s the top yielding ETH vaults (real yields) for the past 30 days:

Here’s a snapshot of the front page of looping this week from yieldz.io (30d APY):

Judging on what I see in the above chart, if you believe in STRC at these levels, Apyx could be very solid looping opportunity 👀

Nomatic’s EtherFi referral: https://www.ether.fi/@nomatic

EtherFi recently kicked off their EtherFi Summer campaign and introduced the most comprehensive updates to their product line since the first introduction of their Cash product.

You may notice I write about EtherFi a lot. It’s not because of bag bias for the ETHFI token. I do hold some ETHFI, but I still don’t own as much as I probably should. My enthusiasm comes from the fact that the product is one of the most interesting and useful products in all of crypto.

And with this latest update, some pretty wild things are now possible:

If you’re still newer to EtherFi and want a brief explainer on why I think this model is so powerful, here’s a really simple way to think about it.

You hold assets you actually want to keep (ETH, tokenized stocks, gold/silver). You don’t want to sell them.

With EtherFi you can borrow against those assets at low DeFi rates and spend the borrowed money in the real world using the Cash card.

So your portfolio stays intact and keeps earning, while you still get to buy dinner, groceries, flights, whatever, without selling anything.

This was always a dream of mine, essentially how to live off your crypto without having to sell it. With the latest update we’re one step closer to that dream being fully realized.

Basically something like this:

A few resources that might be interesting:

The new ether.fi Summer release basically turns the app into a full non custodial crypto neobank. You can earn, trade, borrow, and spend all in one place, with self custody, actual DeFi rates, and tokenized markets that regular banks just cannot offer.

Trading
You can now buy tokenized stocks (through xStocks) and metals right next to crypto. Everything lives in non custodial ether.fi vaults with social recovery, and you can buy across chains. Just note that this part is not available in the US or a few other markets.

Borrowing
There’s a new integrated Aave market on Optimism. You can borrow against your entire portfolio at roughly 4% right now. Use the money on the Cash card or to send/buy other assets.

Fiat rails
On and off ramps got a big upgrade. They now support 30+ new currencies and payment methods including Cash App, Apple Pay, Interac, LemonPay, and more. Named accounts for deposits are in too.

App redesign
The whole app feels cleaner and less crypto native. It is clearly built for people who have never held a token before, not just the usual DeFi crowd.

All of this is live right now for every new and existing user on web, iOS, and Android.

A community member named Daniel put together a great list of all the new updates for membership tiers.

Here’s his complete breakdown of the new Core, Luxe, Pinnacle, and VIP system (how you unlock each one, cashback limits, card options, protection ceilings, lounge access, subscription discounts, everything):

Another interesting thing is the introduction of balance protection. I personally need to do more digging as to what this entails and what is and isn’t covered:

This is the part is very interesting as it pertains to the ETHFI token. Every revenue line (card interchange, swaps, staking, and soon borrow and perps) is now going to feed automated, non discretionary ETHFI buybacks once the short DAO vote passes.

Cash already makes up about 65% of protocol revenue. July card spend hit $100M. Even under pretty conservative growth assumptions, the buyback program alone looks like it could deliver roughly $21 to $23M over the next 12 months. That works out to a mid single digit yield at current market caps, and it scales with real consumer spending instead of pure crypto volumes.

If you want the full 7 minute deep dive on the revenue mix, the growth case, and why these buybacks finally connect the business to the token, watch Carlos’s analyst call thesis here:

You now have tokenized equities, portfolio wide borrowing, a spending card, global fiat rails, and account balance protection (up to $500K on the top tier) all sitting in one self custodial loop. Once someone is inside that loop it becomes pretty annoying to leave. Crypto natives can move into stocks without off ramping or creating a taxable event. Regular people can come in with fiat and stay fully self custodial. And every product in the loop now has a direct pipe back to ETHFI through the buybacks.

I think that’s pretty much everything that shipped in the Summer update although it was such a massive release, I’d bet I missed something.

Nomatic’s EtherFi referral: https://www.ether.fi/@nomatic

Taking a look at the front page of Stablecoin yields and RWA yields this week on Pendle:

Stablecoins

RWA

Thanks for reading!

DISCLAIMER: Nothing written in The Edge Newsletter or said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed in our content are solely the opinion of that writer, host, or guest. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this content.