Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

The rise of total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols above $100 million was aided by the Ethereum liquid restaking in the first quarter of 2024. Protocols such as Lido and EigenLayer are behind the DeFi TVL resurgence.

Solana developers released a patch for the prolonged network congestion on the blockchain on April 15. They promised more patches in the near future to ensure the network returns to normalcy.

Ethereum liquid restaking drove DeFi TVL to $100 billion in first quarter

Decentralized finance TVL almost doubled in the first three months of this year compared to the previous quarter, partially driven by Ethereum liquid restaking initiatives, according to recent research.

DeFi TVL surged from a Q4 2023 low of $36 billion to peak at almost $97 billion in the first quarter of 2024, according to DefiLlama. Since the beginning of the year, it has increased by 81%, reaching a two-year high of $98 billion last week.

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Avalanche home loan tokenization protocol raises $10 million in Series A funding

Homium, a home equity line of credit (HELOC) tokenization protocol built on Avalanche, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Sorenson Impact Group and Blizzard.

“Through shared appreciation home equity loans, Homium introduces a way for homeowners to borrow against their home equity without increasing their monthly debt burden,” wrote Avalanche in an April 15 announcement.

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Solana’s mainnet beta update v1.17.31 aims to resolve congestion issues

Solana developers have released a mainnet beta update, v1.17.31, to deal with the ongoing network congestion on the Solana blockchain. The update was released on April 12, and now, after three days of testing, it is being recommended for general use by mainnet beta validators.

This patch contains enhancements that will help with some of the ongoing network congestion and will be followed by further enhancements in v1.18. The current version will help improve network congestion and issues with the open interest jump.

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Crypto sleuth warns of scammers behind DeFi protocol

Pseudonymous blockchain investigator ZachXBT warned about a group of scammers attempting to entrap more victims in a new fraud using millions of stolen funds.

In a thread on X, ZachXBT disclosed the findings of an investigation over Leaper Finance, a lending protocol based on Blast. According to the analysis, the group is behind several rug pulls, including those that hit users of Magnate ($6.5 million), Kokomo ($4 million), Solfire ($4.8 million) and Lendora.

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DeFi market overview

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bearish week, with most trading in the red on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols fell below $90 billion.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.