⚡️DeFi Summer Vibes: New Chain, Yields, Fresh Tools
Boost your DeFi edge with advanced strategies, earn yield on a fresh chain, and tap into our favorite tools
Read Time: ~4 minutes
⚡Snapshot
Take your DeFi skills to the next level with part 3 of the (free) DeFi 101 Course
New DeFi chain goes live
How to earn boosted yields
📖 Recommended Reads
⚡Elon Musk Announces Creation of New America Party
Musk’s poll launches potential new political party
⚡Q2 Was the Strongest Fundraising Quarter in Years
Who’s betting big on the next crypto unicorns?
Learn advanced yield strategies and how to find DeFi opportunities
⚡Metaplanet announces largest company purchase of Bitcoin
Metaplanet is now the 5th largest publicly listed corporate BTC holder
⚡DePIN Research: Distributed Networks are growing
Includes coverage overview, Helium, Silencio & Livepeer
⚡Take Your DeFi Skills to the Next Level
This completely free course is designed to take someone who has never made an onchain transaction before and walk them through:
Creating a wallet & making their first transaction
Using DeFi & understanding why DeFi matters
Using advanced DeFi strategies
Here’s the full Course playlist
🔢Onchain Analysis
DeFi Chain Katana Sees TVL Jump in First Week
Katana is a DeFi-focused L2 incubated by Polygon and GSR. The network launched last week and already has over $180m in TVL. Katana aggregates app revenue, sequencer fees and T-bill yields into a unified ecosystem of yield sources for Katana users.
A flurry of projects large & small announced their dapps are launching on Katana including Morpho, SushiSwap, Yearn, Lombard, Stratifi and others. Lombard even announced a natively minted BTC purpose-built for Katana.
DEX volume is $5-7m each day, already putting Katana in the top 25 chains by DEX volume.
At the heart of this launch is an incentives program: 1b KAT tokens are going to be given to Katana users (albeit with some token lockups).
Katana’s core thesis is that users will prefer purpose-built chains to general-purpose chains. We’ve seen success from Hyperliquid and Ethena in this way, but it’s still early.
DeFi-focused L2’s in the past haven’t done exceptionally well in keeping users around after the incentives program is over, and several L2’s that can do everything (like Base) have done quite well.
Either way, it’s promising to see a DeFi-focused L2 with real yield sources.
🚜Farm of the Week
Earn Yield & KAT Tokens on Katana
Katana’s successful launch will likely compound on itself given Polygon & GSR’s connections in the space. More DeFi apps will come online and provide opportunities for yield and KAT.
How it Works
Head to Katana’s app and connect your wallet in the top right corner.
After connecting your wallet, you can select a vault in which to make a deposit. Selecting a vault will streamline the required bridging, so it can be done in one swoop.
Both stablecoin & asset vaults are available.
After depositing into a vault, you should see yield begin to flow to your assets, and you should begin accumulating KAT.
Risks
Protocol risk
Third Party risk
Risk level: Medium
⚡How to Earn Boosted Yield with RateX
⚡Instantly Buy & Sell Crypto, Get Rewarded
Ranked the best crypto platform in 2025, Kraken’s simplicity and top-tier service make it the best place to trade crypto & stocks.
Use this link to get $50 for signing up and depositing and trading $200
🛠️Tool Spotlight
DeFiLlama Token Unlocks Dashboard
DeFiLlama hosts an extensive dashboard for token unlocks.
The dashboard makes it easy to track upcoming unlocks, and features a Post Unlock Price Impact, which shows what happened to a token after previous unlocks.
The dashboard can be filtered for different types & sizes of unlocks, and you can create your own watchlist to keep an eye on your favorite protocols.
More helpful DeFi Tools: The Dynamo DeFi Crypto Tools List
📅Key Events This Week
Macro Events
📊 US 10Y Note Auction - July 9th
📊 FOMC meeting minutes - July 9th
📊 Initial Jobless Claims - July 10th
Token Unlocks: $150m Unlocking This Week
🔓GMT (2.94%) - July 8th
🔓ENZ (2.84%) - July 9th
🔓MOVE (0.51%) - July 9th
🔓FLR (2.83%) - July 10th
🔓GGP (1%) - July 10th
🔓AGI (5.49%) - July 10th
🔓MOCA (34.27%) - July 11th
🔓IO (1.28%) - July 11th
🔓IMX (1.31%) - July 11th
🔓APT (1.75%) - July 12th
🔓BB (98.4%) - July 12th
Launches & Updates
Note that these launches are mostly unvetted by the Dynamo DeFi team and this isn’t an endorsement of any of them.
🚀 FusionX launch - July 7th (Source)
🚀 Atia’s legacy playtest - July 7th (Source)
🚀 Megalink hunter arena revolution early access - July 8th (Source)
🚀 Starknet v0.13.6 mainnet - July 8th (Source)
⚡Favorite Resources
If you want to dive deeper, here are some of my favorite resources:
🛠️ The Dynamo DeFi Crypto Tools List: A comprehensive list of 100+ crypto tools to help with portfolio tracking, analytics, airdrops and more.
📈 Kraken: Ranked the best crypto platform in 2025, Kraken’s simplicity and top-tier service make it the best place to trade crypto & stocks. Get $50 for simply signing up and trading $200 with this link.
🛡️ Ledger: The smartest way to secure your crypto. Buy & sell crypto with full control over your assets.
For more frequent content, follow me on Twitter and YouTube.
Until next time,
Dynamo DeFi