EthHub Weekly #174
Arbitrum One update, Synthetix x Optimism update, EIP-1559 gets a mainnet date, Index Coop raises $7.7 million and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
🔥 It’s Finally Time
London, Ethereum’s next network upgrade that includes the long-awaited EIP-1559, finally got a mainnet date this week - August 4th! I’m sure that I’m not alone in how excited I am to finally be just weeks away from EIP-1559 going live on mainnet after 2+ years of waiting. Ethereum’s symbiotic relationship is now only a few weeks away - the suspension is killing me!
My good friend Trent Van Epps has been working on the ‘Beacon Book’ for a while now and last week the entire book was published on Mirror along with a bunch of unique NFTs that you can purchase - check that all out here.
Have a great week everyone!
- Anthony
News of the Week
💰 Circle to go Public via a SPAC Merger
Circle, the crypto firm that operates leading stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), has agreed to go public through a merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) named Concord Acquisition Corp.
The deal values Circle at $4.5 billion and comes after Circle raised $440 million from investors including Fidelity, Valor Capital Group and the London-based hedge fund Marshall Wace in May.
It will see a new Irish holding company acquire both Concord and Circle to become a publicly traded entity that is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL.
🏦 Barclays Customers in the U.K. Can no Longer Transfer Funds to Binance
Barclays U.K. customers can no longer transfer funds to Binance, after the bank banned any payments made by credit or debit card to the exchange until further notice.
“It’s our responsibility to help protect your money,” the London-based bank’s support page tweeted on Monday, adding, "With this in mind we’ve taken the decision to stop payments made by credit/debit card to Binance until further notice, to help keep your money safe."
The announcement comes nearly two weeks after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said Binance Markets Limited was not authorized to carry out crypto operations in the U.K.
Project Updates
Prysmatic Labs June Ethereum Development Update
Updates from the Prysmatic Labs team covering the upcoming Altair hard fork, a recent Prysm slashing event, what’s next for q3 and more.
zkSync Update Planned for July 14th
The update will add support for swaps, NFTs, a new event system and permissionless token listing to the zkSync layer 2 rollup.
Synthetix Optimism Launch Announcement
The Synthetix exchange will be enabled on Optimism during the week of July 26th with a final deployment date pending Spartan Council approval. There was also an update provided regarding the gas situation on Optimism and the Synthetix June monthly update was also published.
Arbitrum One Development Update
Arbitrum provides an update on exactly where they are on the road to the public mainnet of their layer 2 chain including current deployments, a look under the hood and more.
Index Coop Raises $7.7 Million
The raise was done via a treasury diversification and was led by 1kx and Galaxy Digital. Joining 1kx and Galaxy are 1confirmation, Defiance Capital, Assembly Capital, LD Capital, Wintermute, Laconia Ventures, and former wealth management executive Phil DiIorio.
Token Terminal Introduces Price to Earnings Ratio
There is now a price to earnings (P/E) ratio included on Token Terminal, alongside the price to sales (P/S) ratio. The 'E' in the P/E ratio will initially be based on protocol revenue, i.e. money that is generated from the protocol’s business and subsequently allocated to its treasury or distributed to its token holders.
Alpha Homora and EPNS Team Up
Alpha Homora V2 integration with Ethereum Push Notifications Service (EPNS) is now live and users can receive notifications on their mobile devices when their positions are at liquidation risk.
Alpha also announced the first Alpha Launchpad incubated project - Beta Finance - learn more here.
Notional V2 Introduced
Notional v2 introduces three core features: longer-dated maturities for lenders and borrowers, flexible dates for lenders and borrowers, and a high-yield, fully-passive liquidity provider experience.
Introducing SMART Exposure
SMART Exposure will allow users to automate position management between any two ERC-20 assets on BarnBridge.
KyberDMM Liquidity Mining Now Live
Kyber Dynamic Market Maker (DMM) is a next-gen AMM protocol that maximises the use of capital for liquidity providers with its amplified pools that provide high capital efficiency and dynamic fees that optimise returns. With the Rainmaker liquidity mining program, KyberDMM will help boost liquidity even further, provide important benefits to liquidity providers, as well as bring more DeFi participants and value into the Kyber and Polygon ecosystems.
UMA Raises $2.6 Million
Risk Labs (the foundation supporting UMA) has minted the first ever Range Token backed by UMA collateral. $2.6mm worth of this token has been sold to a small group of DeFi enthusiasts, including Amber Group, BitDAO, Blockchain Capital, Robert Leshner and Wintermute Trading.
Zerion Raises $8.2 Million
The round was led by Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Placeholder, Digital Currency Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Blockchain.com Ventures, and several others.
Zapper Adds Support for Aave
You can now deposit assets and earn interest on Zapper through their new Aave integration.
SushiSwap NFT Platform Sneak Peek
LevX has proposed the idea of an NFT platform for the SushiSwap ecosystem that would include features such as a social token, bidding strategies, royalties distribution and more.
Balancer Launches Stable Pools
Stable pools make Balancer Protocol the first Automated Market Maker with at least three different types of pools: weighted, Element, and now stable pools.
Introducing FWB Season Three
Season Three will center around stronger cooperation to achieve real world value – made possible through the interdependent incentives that DAOs provide.
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Fundamentals Do Matter - The Daily Gwei
Endgame - The Daily Gwei
ETH: The World's Most Capital Efficient Asset - David Hoffman via Bankless
4 Metrics Showcasing ENS Adoption - Harith Kamarul via Etherscan
Ethereum’s Political Philosophy Explained - Dr. Paul J. Ennis via Coindesk
A Defense on the Value of NFT Art - Odette via eGirl Capital
Making Sense of Rollups, Part 2: Dispute Resolution on Arbitrum and Optimism - Benjamin Simon via Deribit
Podcasts
Building a $500M DeFi Fund | Arthur0x - Bankless
CowSwap: Tackling the Shortcomings of AMMs - Epicenter
How Axie Infinity Boosted Revenue 400%+ in 30 Days - Unconfirmed
Videos
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Protocol Engineer (Remote) - Status
Blockchain Security Engineer - Aave
Integrations Lead - Ethereum Name Service
Business Development Manager - mStable
+1000’s more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!