Author: Jae, PANews
The crypto market did not pause during the National Day holiday either. While attention focused on Bitcoin's sharp decline, the DeFi sector was undergoing a quiet infrastructure iteration and product upgrade. Behind the nine developments is DeFi's ongoing migration from a "native crypto self-contained loop" toward "connecting with the real financial system."
On the surface, these are scattered product launches and partnership announcements. In reality, three main threads have already emerged: trading infrastructure moving from a single category to a full-category stack, open DeFi embracing compliance frameworks through programmable technology, and real-world assets and traditional financial functions accelerating their batch onboarding onto the chain.
Driven by a buyback proposal and the merger with lending protocol Loopscale, ORCA surged more than 70% against the trend over the past 7 days
On October 8, Solana ecosystem DEX Orca and credit infrastructure protocol Loopscale announced a merger, with the brand named Formation and Loopscale co-founder Luke Truitt serving as CEO. As one of the early liquidity infrastructures in the Solana ecosystem, Orca has accumulated more than $550 billion in trading volume since its launch in 2021. Since its launch in 2025, the P2P credit market Loopscale has facilitated more than $2 billion in cumulative on-chain lending and holds more than $150 million in deposits.
The combination directly targets on-chain capital market infrastructure encompassing "trading + credit + asset management," aiming to provide one-stop services from issuance and market making to financing for assets in emerging sectors such as energy, defense, robotics, and AI.
On September 29, Orca initiated a fee-sharing proposal, proposing the addition of a team-operated 10% buyback account. On October 8, the governance committee canceled the ongoing vote and rescheduled it for October 11 to 16.
Influenced by the buyback proposal and the acquisition of Loopscale, ORCA has risen more than 70% cumulatively over the past 7 days. However, whether the synergies can be realized, whether the new business can be converted into sustainable revenue, and whether the proposal can pass the vote remain to be verified over time.
Hyperliquid seeks to build native on-chain options and construct a unified order book full-category hedging system
Hyperliquid, the leader in on-chain derivatives, is also completing its core puzzle. On October 7, Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan confirmed at TOKEN2049 that options will be the platform's next key product focus. Unlike existing decentralized options protocols, which generally rely on request-for-quote (RFQ) or liquidity pool vaults (DOV) mechanisms, Hyperliquid will integrate options with spot and perpetual contracts onto the same on-chain central limit order book (CLOB).
The significance of a shared order book goes far beyond "multiple trading varieties." For professional traders and market makers, this means cross-product hedging and risk offsetting become possible, and liquidity will no longer be fragmented. This is also a key step in Hyperliquid's evolution from a "leading Perp DEX" to a "full-category derivatives exchange." Currently, Hyperliquid's market share of perpetual contract open interest has risen to 11.9%, continuing to set a record high. Of course, the product is still in the planning stage, and contract design, liquidity depth, and launch timing remain unknown.
Injective releases a new whitepaper, positioning itself as institutional-grade financial and RWA infrastructure
On October 7, Injective released a new whitepaper, announcing its evolution from an early Ethereum-based anti-front-running trading protocol into a Layer 1 focused on institutional-grade finance and RWA tokenization.
The whitepaper highlights four major mechanism innovations:
Native RWA tokenization suite: provides permission controls that meet institutional regulatory requirements;
iAssets synthetic asset mechanism: supports traders using stablecoins as margin and relying on oracle price feeds to track external macro assets and stock indices, eliminating the need for cross-chain wrapping or pre-funding procedures in the traditional tokenization process;
On-chain central limit order book (CLOB) and native execution module for perpetual derivatives: supports on-chain batch auctions with approximately 600 ms block times and front-running protection;
Settlement stack for AI Agents: supports AI Agents in completing end-to-end automated micropayments through Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, policy-constrained signatures, and the USDC-based x402 machine protocol.
The whitepaper also stipulates that all protocol revenue generated on the Injective chain will continue to flow into regular INJ community buyback auctions, allowing growth in network settlement activity to be reflected in the token's deflation and value capture mechanism.
For Injective, this means its narrative focus is extending further from "on-chain trading infrastructure" to broader financial infrastructure. However, upgrading the narrative is easy, while implementing the business is difficult. Whether the market ultimately accepts it will depend on RWA issuance scale, institutional usage, and on-chain financial activity.
Founders Fund spends $5 million to buy ANVL, betting on decentralized commercial credit guarantees
Traditional VCs are beginning to bet real money on on-chain credit infrastructure. On October 6, Founders Fund led a $5 million purchase of ANVL, the governance token of DeFi collateral protocol Anvil, with participation from Pantera Capital, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Bullish, and Protoscale Capital. The transaction terms and valuation were not disclosed, and the purchased tokens came from the protocol treasury rather than a new issuance. Driven by this news, ANVL rose more than 80% that day, with a market capitalization of about $110 million.
Anvil is based on Ethereum and aims to use digital assets as collateral for financial commitments such as payments and credit. Unlike traditional overcollateralized lending markets such as Aave that rely on lending spreads, Anvil's goal is to serve as an on-chain credential for commercial credit, using crypto assets as trusted collateral guarantees to provide performance assurance for business-to-business fulfillment, buy now pay later (BNPL), and cross-border settlement, without actually triggering interest-bearing lending activity.
To accelerate real-world business integration, Anvil Research Labs simultaneously launched an enterprise-oriented SDK to lower the technical threshold for enterprises integrating its collateral infrastructure. Consensus, Bitcoin.com, Flexa, and others have already become partners. Founders Fund partner Joey Krug commented that traditional business operations are highly dependent on the certainty of payment and fulfillment, and using publicly verifiable digital asset collateral can greatly reduce the cost of credit default between institutions.
It is worth noting that VCs bought governance tokens rather than traditional equity, which means their interest has extended from "investing in protocol entities" to "holding governance rights over on-chain financial infrastructure." Currently, Anvil's TVL is only about $13 million, down nearly 90% from its peak. Whether institutional bets can translate into scale growth is the more important indicator to watch.
ether.fi partners with Ethena to launch ether.fi USD, capturing minting yield through idle assets
ether.fi, which is spinning off its LRT business, has used stablecoins to fill in the underlying capability for its transition to a Neobank. On October 6, it announced that it would adopt Ethena's white-label infrastructure to launch its own stablecoin ether.fi USD, with Ethena responsible for reserves, minting and redemption, and compliance. According to ether.fi's disclosure, the scale of stablecoins accumulated within its ecosystem has exceeded $300 million, the cumulative settlement amount of its issued Cash consumer debit card is close to $1 billion, and it has more than 100,000 cardholders. The protocol will rely on its existing user fund base to further embed stablecoins into its product system, activating idle funds to form a new source of revenue.
This means that stablecoins are gradually becoming an important vehicle for DeFi protocols to retain users, manage funds, and expand revenue, rather than merely a payment or trading medium. However, the future scale of ether.fi USD still depends on whether users are willing to convert stablecoins into this asset and whether its liquidity and use cases can be established.
OKX and SMBC Nikko Securities leverage Uniswap v4 Hook to explore programmable compliant liquidity pools
Once, DeFi and compliance seemed naturally opposed. But Uniswap v4's Hook mechanism is carving out a middle path: using a programmable technology layer to carry compliance requirements, allowing open liquidity infrastructure to also serve regulated assets.The most iconic development came from the U.S. market. On October 5, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams revealed that the tokenized securities trading venue (TSV) jointly developed by ICE Markets and OKX will be launched based on the Uniswap v4 Hook architecture deployed on OKX Layer 2 network X Layer, embedding tokenized stock trading into AMM liquidity pools while using Hooks to implement compliance functions such as identity verification and trading permission controls. The initial plan covers more than 60 U.S. stocks.
In other words, the compliance requirements of traditional securities have not negated the AMM model; instead, they are attempting to use programmable Hooks to enable open DeFi infrastructure to carry regulated assets.
A similar logic is being replicated in Japan. On October 2, SMBC Nikko Securities, together with Nethermind, Uniswap Labs, Base, and Nyx Foundation, signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop a compliant DeFi gateway for the Japanese market. The project is also based on Uniswap V4 Hooks, building liquidity pools that comply with AML/CFT anti-money laundering requirements and investor protection rules, and exploring on-chain trading of stablecoins and RWAs, with an expected launch in mid-2027.
This series of practices shows that traditional capital and large trading platforms are abandoning the past "weak compliance" solutions that remained only at the front end, and are instead achieving "code-level compliance" through the underlying logic of programmable Hooks. Uniswap v4 is becoming an infrastructure solution connecting open DeFi with compliant assets, but its commercial value still depends on regulatory approval, participation by asset issuers, and real trading volume.
Aave Labs proposes establishing the Aave Foundation to transfer protocol intellectual property ownership to the DAO
As business becomes increasingly close to real finance, the organizational form of DeFi is also iterating in tandem.
On October 2, Aave Labs submitted an ARFC governance proposal on the governance forum for "Phase One of the Aave Foundation," recommending the establishment of an independent nonprofit entity, the "Aave Foundation," in the Cayman Islands to hold the Aave trademark, domain names, and protocol code intellectual property on behalf of the Aave DAO.
According to the proposal design, the Aave Foundation will adopt a "Memberless" legal entity structure. In the first phase, it will only be responsible for completing entity registration and appointing independent directors, supervisors, and a secretary. To achieve separation of interests, both Aave Labs and DAO service providers are prohibited from serving as foundation directors or supervisors. All protocol sovereignty, including routine technical parameter adjustments, market access, and treasury expenditures, will still belong to the AAVE DAO, and future transfers of trademark and code assets will also be subject to on-chain governance votes item by item.
This move not only fills the legal gap of the DAO but also avoids the potential risk of protocol intellectual property being controlled over the long term by a centralized development entity.
For a long time, DAOs, as decentralized organizations, have lacked traditional legal subject status and cannot directly hold intellectual property or sign commercial contracts, which has become a major obstacle to connecting with traditional finance. The establishment of the foundation will, while preserving decentralized governance, give the protocol a "legal shell" that conforms to real-world business rules. This does not mean that Aave's business model has changed, but it is an important path for DeFi to move toward maturity and compliance.
Lido restructures the EarnUSD fee model: lowering fixed management fees and implementing a performance-oriented mechanism
Even the fee model of yield products is aligning with traditional asset management. On October 2, Lido announced a restructuring of the EarnUSD fee model, changing from "1% fixed management fee + 10% performance fee" to "up to 0.5% management fee + up to 20% performance fee," with an initial launch implementation of "0.2% management fee + 15% performance fee." Lower management fees and higher performance sharing essentially shift the fee model from "guaranteed returns regardless of performance" to "tied to performance," increasingly resembling the fee logic of traditional mutual funds. Against the backdrop of declining industry yields, this is both a concession to lower the user threshold and a sign of the protocol's transition toward refined operations.
Monerium, Frax, and Capa launch the EURe/frxUSD on-chain foreign exchange pool on Polygon
The cross-border payments and foreign exchange track has welcomed new players. On October 1, electronic money institution Monerium, algorithmic and collateralized hybrid stablecoin protocol Frax, and liquidity orchestration service provider Capa launched the EURe/frxUSD liquidity pool on Uniswap V3 on Polygon, bringing EUR/USD foreign exchange trading on-chain. Among them, EURe is an electronic money token compliant with the EU's MiCA regulations and backed 1:1 by euro reserves, while frxUSD is backed by cash assets and tokenized U.S. Treasuries. For European enterprises and cross-border users, if liquidity can be deepened, on-chain foreign exchange is expected to become an alternative to traditional cross-border settlement. At present, this foreign exchange liquidity pool is still in its early stages, and trading depth, slippage, and user scale still need time to develop.
Conclusion
A review of the nine DeFi protocol developments during the National Day holiday shows that the industry trend is accelerating its shift.
Today, DeFi product innovation is mainly concentrated in three directions: first, trading infrastructure continues to expand, extending from perpetual contracts to a more complete derivatives system such as options; second, stablecoins, RWAs, and on-chain foreign exchange are beginning to further connect with real financial scenarios; third, protocols are beginning to supplement the legal subject, intellectual property, and compliance mechanisms of the traditional financial system.
Of course, most of the current progress is still at the planning, partnership, or pilot stage. For investors, what is more worth watching remains trading scale, liquidity, protocol revenue, and regulatory implementation, rather than judging project value solely based on the lineup of partners or changes in narrative.