Cardano DeFi is heating up this winter with a flurry of activity across lending, perpetuals, stablecoins, and community engagement.

Strike Finance has now opened liquidity provisioning for users, allowing ADA holders to deposit funds that fuel leverage trading on the platform. This significantly boosts available liquidity and increases max position sizes. Liquidity providers and $STRIKE stakers benefit from trading fees, with usage metrics already trending upward.

Flow, a new perpetual lending platform on Cardano, is currently holding a token sale. With 5 million ADA raised in just one day, community demand is clear. The platform promises loans without maturity dates and will enable users to use the $FLOW token for staking, governance, and pool creation. The token sale is pro-rata and fully decentralised, with a 68% public allocation.

A major proposal is also making waves—allocating $100 million USD worth of ADA from the Cardano Treasury into stablecoins, Bitcoin, and other assets to create a sovereign wealth fund. Advocates see this as a critical move to inject liquidity and kickstart Cardano DeFi. Concerns remain around sell pressure and execution, but overall sentiment seems to favour the plan as a needed catalyst.

USDM's Jillian provided valuable insight into how yield works in fiat-backed stablecoins, explaining how platforms like Coinbase offer interest through profit-sharing agreements, while issuers like Moneta Digital (behind USDM) are legally prohibited from doing the same directly. USDM needs to reach 150–200 million AUM to begin yielding returns via DeFi partners like Minswap or Liquid.

On the lighter side, SNEK.FUN continues to innovate with new community tools including live wallet-linked chat during token sales. They’re also launching 1,111 unique figurines, each signed by the artists who brought them to life—blending digital culture with physical collectables.

Finally, Peter announces a limited-edition CardanoPress Wapuu pin giveaway for anyone with a live CardanoPress-powered site. Only 25 will be made, a nod to both the WordPress and Cardano communities.