The HBAR Foundation Launches DeFi Growth Initiatives As TVL Soars 87% In Q1

The campaign aims to scale all facets of Hedera’s DeFi Ecosystem  

‍The HBAR Foundation is excited to announce the launch of new initiatives designed to further activate, cultivate, and scale the Hedera network’s maturing DeFi ecosystem.

Since late 2021, the Foundation has supported over 200 projects, development teams, startups, and businesses building on Hedera.

In turn, these projects spur significant, compounding ecosystem growth. Here’s a look at a few topline first quarter network metrics in 2024: 

• Average Daily TPS: 1,052 
• Average Daily Active Users: 16,800 
• Average Daily New Users: 8,400

Among the work we're most proud of is the creation and development of the Hedera DeFi ecosystem, showcasing how the network's speed, scalability, and fee structure allow for a better user experience.

And now that many critical infrastructure elements are up and running, the ecosystem is ready to take the next steps on its way to Hedera DeFi 2.0.

We’ve put together the following framework and enlisted the help of a few friends to help optimize the DeFi experience for everyone, from beginning to end, regardless of their current level of expertise.

Please note that this is a very high-level outline. We’ll continuously update everyone as we iron out the details and bring new partners into the fold. Let’s dive in.

In total, up to 100 million HBAR will be circulated throughout the DeFi economy.

‍Amplify Awareness 

• Educate new crypto users about Hedera through CoinGecko ‘Learn to Earn’
• Celebrate Hedera network interoperability through the Axelar Galxe quest

Accelerate Access

• Support new DeFi participants through Saucerswap’s HBAR Discord Faucet
• Fee-free purchase of Hedera ecosystem assets through C14 
• Support bridged asset ecosystem through Saucerswap liquidity mining incentives for bridged assets

Catalyze Commerce

• Enable more robust Hedera token economy through Saucerswap liquidity mining incentives for key HTS assets
• Amplify Hedera network TVL through Saucerswap volume-based rebates, Stader liquid staking, and third party liquidity injection across the DeFi ecosystem

We’re hyped to kick everything off and are confident these initiatives will bring efficiency, excitement, and even more HBARbarian’s to Hedera’s DeFi experiences.

And while it’s fun to think about where we’re headed, it’s just as important to look back, contextualize what it took to get here, and note a few infrastructure components that are still in progress. 

So far, we’ve worked hard to support the development of the following infrastructure components of the DeFi ecosystem, as reflected in the initial Crypto Economy stack.

Please note that the following list represents a subset of the tools and projects that make up the DeFi building blocks that The Foundation has focused on and not the entire breadth of the ecosystem. 

Wallets/Front Ends:

• Self-custodial wallets: Hashpack, Blade, Kabila, Arculus, Tangem, D’Cent
• Staking: Account 800, Stader Liquid Staking
• DAO Tooling: HashioDAO, Calaxy DAO tooling‍

Aggregators:

• Liquidity Management: ICHI‍

Markets:

• DEXs and AMMs: Saucerswap, Heliswap, Pangolin‍

Tooling:

• Oracles: Pyth, Supra
• Node infrastructure: Validation Cloud, Arkhia, Hashio
• Data visibility: DappRadar, DefiLlama, The Graph indexing‍

‍Onramps:

• Custodians: Bitgo, HexTrust, ZeroHash, DFNS
• Bridges: Hashport, Axelar
• Payment Service Providers: C14, Moonpay, Banxa, Transak, Simplex, Zero Hash

Units of Value:

• Stablecoins: hUSDC, Stablecoin Studio

And although we’ve made quite a bit of progress, there are still a few components of this stack that remain priorities:

• Wrapped HBAR: WHBAR is a key component of the Hedera DeFi ecosystem. To date, there are multiple iterations of this asset, but we’re coordinating with the various DEXes and Swirlds Labs to focus on streamlining liquidity of this asset to support capital efficiency within our ecosystem.
• Credit Markets: Lending and borrowing is a current gap and we’re aware of the various community teams currently building out projects. We’re in conversation with all of them and looking forward to collaborating on bringing this functionality to the ecosystem in the near future.
• Derivatives: We believe that enhanced liquidity will nurture a healthier ecosystem that can support a derivatives and perpetuals market and are looking forward to collaborating with partners to make this possible.
• Interoperability Solutions: Increasing interoperability of the ecosystem is top of mind, from both a basic bridging functionality to an evolving strategy towards liquidity layers. 
• hUSDC: native USDC on Hedera is a critical component of the Hedera ecosystem, with utility beyond just DeFi. The combination of credit markets, increased capital, and additional interoperability solutions will help grow the adoption of the asset, which are important milestones in making it easier to onramp into hUSDC.

It’s been said that if you want to go fast, go alone. But If you want to go far, go together. 

Idealistic? Maybe. Cliche? Perhaps. But in our experience, it’s also true.

The HBAR Foundation, the Hedera network, and the DeFi ecosystem couldn’t have gotten to where they are or where they’re going without passionate communities and kickass project teams…and we hope this campaign reflects our continued commitment towards both.