🎢Weekly Recap: Markets Bounce Back, EigenLayer TVL Surges, Dencun Scheduled

Cami Russo was joined by Chris Amani, the CEO of Terraform Labs.

The conversation with Chris unfolded in two parts. Initially recorded on January 17th, we begin by catching up on the latest developments and the new strategic direction of the Terra ecosystem following its collapse in May 2022.

Intriguingly, just days after the initial discussion, Terraform Labs announced its filing for bankruptcy. In the latter part of the conversation, Amani delved into the intricacies of the decision and explores the potential implications and expected outcomes that could result from the bankruptcy filing.

IntoTheBlock, a crypto-focused analytics firm, explores the vulnerabilities that allowed hackers to steal nearly $59B from DeFi users between 2020 through 2023. The article discusses technical and economic risks prevalent among dApps, and shares what types of DeFi protocols have been most susceptible to exploits so that you can stay safe when exploring web3.

With an increasing number of teams working on blockchain scalability increasingly allocating resources towards building out Layer 3 solutions to mitigate fees and bolster throughput, we dive into everything you need to know about the nascent L3 sector.

Raullen Chai, the co-founder and CEO, of IoTeX, a platform seeking to drive convergence between blockchain and the Internet-of-Things, offers his thesis for why projects operating within the Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) sector are set to take off in 2024.

"DePIN has become a major area of focus for VCs curious about exploring the potential of this rising new sector. Already, DePIN projects have reached a $29B market cap... Combine the ubiquity of devices with the advantages of community ownership, public verifiability, and incentivized sharing implicit in Web3, and it's clear the opportunity for DePIN is almost incalculably broad."

DeGate is looking for early adopters to use key features of their Layer 2 order book DEX and experience the benefits of their platform firsthand. DeGate offers a CEX-like experience + makers get to trade for FREE!

Moreover, DeGate holds the esteemed "Stage 2" label on L2Beat, solidifying its position as one of the most trusted Layer 2 projects in the Layer 2 ecosystem.

Space is limited, and spots are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Learn more and enroll today!

• Crypto Markets Rally After Bitcoin ETFs See $400M Of Daily Inflows Market momentum is picking up, with BTC closing in on a $1T market cap and Ether pushing past $2,500. Both assets are up more than 9% in seven days.
• Citrea Brings ZK Rollups To Bitcoin Citrea is the latest project to jump on the Bitcoin Layer 2 bandwagon with the launch of its zero-knowledge rollup.
• Dencun Scheduled For March 13 As Ethereum Aims To Onboard More Core Contributors Ethereum’s core developers have scheduled the long-awaited Dencun upgrade's mainnet deployment for March 13. The Ethereum Foundation is also looking to onboard new core contributors.
• EigenLayer Amasses More Than 10% Of Circulating LSTs EigenLayer has amassed more than 10% of circulating ETH liquid staking tokens just a few days after temporarily removing the caps on its LST pools.

• Spot Bitcoin ETF Flows Slow To Record Low Capital flows for the newly launched cohort of spot Bitcoin ETFs dipped to unprecedented lows this week.
• Ondo To Bring RWA-Backed Stablecoins Onto Sui Ondo Finance will deploy its yield-bearing stablecoins onto Sui Network after Sui's TVL tripled in two months.
• Morpheus AI Launch Attracts $50M Within Hours Investors have plowed over $50M into the fair launch of Morpheus, a peer-to-peer of AI agents that can interact with smart contracts on behalf of users.
• Mountain Protocol's USDM Quietly Becomes Largest Treasury-Backed Stablecoin Mountain Protocol's MUSD token is now the largest U.S. Treasuries-backed stablecoin after amassing $153M within four months of launching.
• Frax Launches Modular Layer 2 Blockchain Frax has launched an incentive campaign to promote the adoption of its new OP Stack-based Layer 2 network.

• Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade Completes Testnet Trials, Mainnet Comes Next The final dress rehearsal for Ethereum’s highly-anticipated Dencun upgrade was successful, with Dencun going live on the Holesky testnet on Feb. 7.
• Pyth Network Kicks Off Second Phase Of Airdrop Pyth Network announced the second phase of its retroactive airdrop, which will distribute PYTH tokens to more than 160 DeFi applications utilizing its data.
• SEC Expands Definition For ‘Securities Dealer’ To Include DeFi Market Makers The SEC ramped up its attack on DeFi by broadening its definition for financial “dealers” to encompass large DeFi liquidity providers.
• Hedera Teams Up With Saudi Investment Ministry On $250M Venture Studio The Hedera Hashgraph Association announced a five-year partnership with the Saudi Ministry of Investment Association to support local tech startups with a $250M venture studio.
• Aave’s GHO Stablecoin Finally Achieves Parity With USD The Aave community is celebrating its GHO stablecoin trading at $1 for the first time six months after launching.
• Ether Hits 2-Week High After Ark Amends ETF Filing Ether rallied after Ark Invest amended its spot Ether ETF filing to support cash redemptions on Feb. 7.
• Experimental ERC-404 Token Rockets To $170M Market Cap The ERC-404-based PANDORA token rallied to a $166M market cap after gaining 5,000% within one week of launching.
• Wormhole Unveils Tokenomics and Upcoming Airdrop The popular cross-chain interoperability protocol Wormhole announced plans to distribute a token to team members, users, and ecosystem projects.

• Solana Blockchain is Live After 5-Hour Outage The Solana blockchain network was forced to restart after suffering five hours of downtime early Tuesday morning.
• Neon EVM Partners With DeBridge To Support New Chains Neon EVM has integrated with deBridge to introduce support for new networks supporting Ethereum smart contracts.
• Farcaster Frenzy Sparks Base Memecoin Mania Surging activity on Farcaster has spawned a new wave of memecoins on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 network built by Coinbase, with DEGEN gaining 1,000% in one week.
• Dymension Launches Mainnet With $300M Airdrop Dymension is live on mainnet after completing its DYM airdrop. The Cosmos-based project facilitates the development of "RollAps."
• MetaMask Adds Robinhood Integration Metamask teamed up with Robinhood to allow the popular trading app's users to seamlessly onboard to MetaMask.
• EigenLayer’s TVL Grows $1.5B In One Day After Raising LST Pool Limits LST holders piled $1.5B worth of assets into EigenLayer within one day of the protocol temporarily removing the limits on its liquid staking pools.

• NFT Collector GMoney Collateralized CryptoPunk 8219 For $1M Loan The renowned NFT collector, GMoney, borrowed $1M USDC against the sole Ape CryptoPunk at a 14% annual interest rate over 180 days.
• EigenLayer Removes All Limits On LST Pools Until Feb. 9 EigenLayer removed the caps on its LST pools until Feb. 9. The project said it aims to permanently ditch the pool limits in the future.
• Gitcoin Doubles Down On Grants Program Gitcoin is restructuring and pivoting its focus toward grants funding supporting Ethereum development. The project will also shutter its Public Good Network.
• Two Bitcoin ETFs Land In Top 10 January ETF Inflows The spot Bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity hosted $5B worth of inflows during January.
• Ethereum Name Service Announces Partnership With Top DNS Provider GoDaddy GoDaddy users can now link their domain names to their ENS address without charge. The partnership comes despite Ethereum Name Service suing GoDaddy in 2022.
• DYdX Unveils 2024 Roadmap Including Permissionless Market Deployment The leading decentralized perpetuals exchange will focus on improving core trade execution, onboarding, and UI in 2024.
• Mode’s TVL Rockets Past $60M In Four Days After Announcing Airdrop Campaign Mode will progressively distribute tokens to early adopters in addition to Optimism and Ethereum ecosystem participants.