EthHub Weekly #157
Gitcoin season, Beeple NFT sells for $69.4 million, Overlay introduced, Fei Protocol raises $19 million and more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đ¤Â Gitcoin Season
Gitcoin Grants Matching Round 9 is now live and itâs time for you to go donate to all of your favorite open source projects. Of course, given that itâs a matching round, your donations will be matched quadratically which means your dollar goes much further than usual! As always, you can donate to support EthHub here - we appreciate all donations - no matter how big or small!
I also recorded a video with my good friend Greg over at Dapp University covering all things layer 2, NFTs and more which you can watch here.
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
âď¸Â Binance Under CFTC Investigation
Crypto exchange Binance is reportedly being investigated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over concerns surrounding whether it allowed U.S. investors on the platform.
According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, which cited anonymous sources, the CFTC is seeking to determine whether Binance has allowed residents in the U.S to buy and sell crypto derivatives products while not being registered under the government agency's oversight. The report noted that the exchange "hasn't been accused of wrongdoing."
BNB, the exchange's native token, dropped by 6% shortly after the news broke.Â
Binance has not responded The Block's request for comment. But Binance co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao shrugged off the news on Twitter by saying it's all FUD (Fear, uncertainty, and doubt).
đ¤ŻÂ Beeple NFT Sells at Auction for $69.4 Million
Popular digital artist Beeple's 5,000-day collection has sold for a hammer price of $60.25 million dollars, making it one of the highest art auction sales ever.
Christie's website shows that the auction concluded with a $9 million premium, which is a percentage of the final (or "hammer") price, bringing the total to more than $69 million.
The sale, hosted by British auction house Christie's, received a total of 353 bids.Â
The collection of 5,000 pieces titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days, has been called "one of the most unique bodies of work to emerge in the history of digital art."
To create the collection, Beeple produced a new work of art every single day for 14 years, starting in May 2007.Â
The auction, the result of a partnership between Christie's and NFT marketplace MakersPlace, marks the first time non-fungible token (NFT) art has been sold at an auction house.
Project Updates
Whatâs New in Eth2 - 13 March 2021
Your latest round of eth2 news including an editorial from Ben with his thoughts on the merger, updates on the Beacon Chain, links to new resources and more.
Gitcoin Grants Round 9 is Live
Thereâs $500,000 in matching up for grabs for open source projects in the crypto space so donât forget to donate to your favorite ones!
Finalized no. 23
Previously known as âwhatâs new in eth2â, this rebranded blog from Danny Ryan goes through why the name was changed and a reminder about upgrading your nodes for Berlin.
Optimism Dapp Starter Pack Released
This starter pack will get you up to speed as a developer on how to work with Optimismâs optimistic rollup technology.
Introducing Overlay
Overlay is a protocol that allows users to trade nearly any streaming data without the need for traditional counterparties. This data can be nearly anything: DeFi tokens, sentiment analytics, Seattleâs crime rate, NFT indexes, political and natural markets, the list goes on.
Hermez Update
The team says they have everything ready to launch the Hermez Network mainnet in the coming days. Their developer team is upgrading the code with a last-minute fix in the Poseidon hashing algorithm used in Hermez, and after this theyâll restart the Trusted Setup ceremony.
Fei Protocol Raises $19 Million
The raise was led by a16z, Framework Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Naval Ravikant with participation from others.
Rocket Pool 3.0 â Beta Finale
The next Rocket Pool beta will take place beginning on the 18th of March and you can earn RPL tokens for participating.
Argent Scaling Update
In this post Argent details their scaling roadmap on both layer 1 and layer 2 including how they plan to approach each layer for the foreseeable future.
Illuvium Raises $5 Million Seed
The round was led by Framework Ventures with participation from Delphi Digital, Bitcoin.com and others.
Introducing Defender Sentinels
Defender Sentinels is a smart contract monitoring with automated emergency response that allows app developers to mitigate attacks in seconds, automatically respond to abnormal activities and more.
Superfluid is live on Matic & xDAI
Superfluid Protocol has been successfully deployed by community members on both Matic & xDAI which means users can now send streams of tokens on both of these networks.
Arbitrum Launches Fast Transfers
These fast cross-chain ETH transfers allow ETH to be sent from L2 to L1 without waiting for the dispute period (7 days) - all powered by Connext.
Optimism Dai Bridge Announced
The Optimism Dai Bridge aims to solve the 1 week withdrawal problem for optimistic rollups.
uSTONKS is Live
uSTONKS is now live on Degenerative Finance and you can earn rewards for participating.
Saffron Finance Announces Fundraise
The round had participation from Dragonfly Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Tally Capital and others.
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Videos
Podcasts
NFTs: Blockchain-Powered Art, Trading Cards, Music, and More with Aftab Hossain - Modern Finance
Can dYdX Become a Decentralized BitMEX? How It Is Scaling With StarkWare - Unchained
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Developer Advocate - UMA
Sr Front-End Engineer Web3 Expert - Potion Labs
Crypto Research Analyst: DeFi Specialist - Bitwise
+1000âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!