⬆️Mode Adoption Surges After Airdrop Announcement

TLDR The total value locked in Mode has rocketed to more than $60M within four days of announcing a points-fueled airdrop campaign. The incentive program will reward early network adopters and web3 users from across the Ethereum, Optimism, and Layer 2 ecosystems.

SO WHAT Mode surging growth is latest example of a points-based airdrop campaign succeeding in driving up the adoption of a network or protocol. Unlike earlier airdrop campaigns that offered little eligibility confirmation to users, points formally outline how participants can qualify for future rewards.

READ MORE: Mode’s TVL Rockets Past $60M In Four Days After Announcing Airdrop Campaign

TLDR DYdX, the leading decentralized perpetuals exchange, unveiled its 2024 roadmap. The project aims to introduce permissionless markets, upgrade core trade execution, and improve user onboarding.

SO WHAT The new roadmap follows the launch of dYdX v4 as a Cosmos-based appchain in November. DYdX v4 has emerged as the leading decentralized exchange by 24-hour volume, beating out the spot-only Uniswap v3 by around 25%.

READ MORE: DYdX Unveils 2024 Roadmap Including Permissionless Market Deployment

TLDR Ethereum Name Service announced a partnership with GoDaddy, enabling the leading domain registrar's users to associate their DNS with an ENS wallet. Both firms describe the deal as a pivotal moment for integrating mainstream internet and web3 technologies.

SO WHAT The deal comes despite Ethereum Name Service filing and winning a lawsuit against GoDaddy in late 2022. The lawsuit concerns GoDaddy reselling an ENS domain held by an individual serving a five-year prison sentence for delivering a speech discussing the use of crypto to evade sanctions in North Korea.

READ MORE: Ethereum Name Service Announces Partnership With Top DNS Provider GoDaddy

TLDR Counterparty, a decade-old protocol facilitating the creation of tokens on top of Bitcoin, is aiming to dethrone the recent rise of inscription tokens with its new SRC-20 token standard. Also dubbed "Bitcoin Stamps", the new tokens enable users to encode images on-chain that are resilient to tampering.

SO WHAT While inscriptions gave rise to a booming ecosystem of tokens on Bitcoin that quickly proliferated across other chains, inscriptions have also become a divisive issue within the Bitcoin community. While Stamps appear to have fewer opponents within the Bitcoin community, they also incur roughly four times the transaction fees for users.

READ MORE: Bitcoin Stamps Seek To Improve On Ordinals

TLDR Pike Finance is live in beta, providing cross-chain DeFi services leveraging Wormhole. The protocol currently supports Ethereum and leading Layer 2 networks Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base.

SO WHAT Pike claims to overcome security risks associated with traditional cross-chain bridges by using technology including Wormhole, Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, and Pyth's oracle services.

READ MORE: Universal Liquidity Protocol Pike Finance Goes Live

TLDR Jupiter is attracting controversy for conducting a nine-figure token launch via its LFG Launchpad platform. Jupiter plans to withdraw liquidity from LFG and move the assets to a team treasury wallet, and has paid LFG a fee of 100M JUP.

SO WHAT The controversy follows Jupiter airdropping tokens to early adopters last week, distributing more than $600M worth of tokens in one of the ten largest airdrops of all time.

READ MORE: Jupiter’s Launchpad Mechanism Riles Up Crypto Community

• NFT collector Gmoney accesses $1M USDC loan against Ape Punk
• Genesis files to offload $1.4B worth of GBTC
• Bitcoin ETF inflows tag $1.5B after 15 days

• Terraform Labs former CFO extradited to South Korea (The Block)
• El Salvador's Bitcoin-Friendly President Nayib Bukele Wins Re-Election (CoinDesk)
• Spanish Treasury to seize crypto to pay tax debts (Cointelegraph)