DeFi Enters Baroque Era with Derivatives Push; Monero Defends Against Qubic’s 51% Siege; Vitalik on Ethereum’s Next Decade

DeFi protocols are evolving from the “Renaissance” phase into a complex “Baroque” era. Leading platforms like AAVE and Hyperliquid are enhancing capital efficiency through on-chain order-book integration and novel derivatives via HyperEVM and CoreWriter, paving the way for $1 trillion TVL. In the PoW sector, Layer1 project Qubic mounted an economic 51% attack on Monero (XMR) by offering dual mining rewards, forcing the community to shift hash power to trusted pools within 72 hours. Vitalik Buterin outlines Ethereum’s next decade, emphasizing the transition from a “world computer” to a “world ledger,” inclusive growth, privacy integration, L1–L2 balance, and zero-knowledge proofs. Circle’s Arc chain leverages USDC for gas with EIP-1559-style fees, Tendermint BFT consensus for sub-second finality, optional privacy modules, and regulatory-friendly selective disclosure. Pendle’s new Boros protocol tokenizes perpetual funding rates as Yield Units, enabling protocols like Ethena to hedge funding fee volatility. These developments highlight DeFi’s maturation into a highly composable ecosystem.