EthHub Weekly #165
VanEck files for ETH ETF, Bankless DAO announced, Uniswap v3 now on mainnet, Dopex announced and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đ Winning
If I was asked to summarize the last year for Ethereum I would simply say that it was âwinningâ. Think about it - not only is the price up from $200 to over $4,000 in just 12 months, but the Ethereum network is experiencing explosive growth across every single vertical. On top of that, the ETH/BTC ratio has improved greatly over the last couple of months which signals that the market is finally valuing ETH much more fairly against BTC (though it wonât be totally fair until the flippening)! The best bit about all of this? Ethereum is only just getting started!
I jumped onto Nuggetâs News this week to discuss all things Ethereum - feel free to check that out here.
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
đ€ŻÂ VanEck Files for an Ethereum Exchange-Traded Fund
Exchange-traded fund (ETF) startup VanEck has filed for an ether-based ETF, public records show.
The company, which currently has a proposed bitcoin ETF under review by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed an ether ETF on Friday that would allow retail and institutional traders to gain exposure to the worldâs second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap without requiring them to directly invest in it.
VanEck intends to work with Cboe BZX Exchange on the offering. The same exchange is providing support for VanEckâs proposed bitcoin ETF. The SEC has postponed any decision on VanEckâs bitcoin ETF proposal to next month. In the past, the SEC has taken as much time as it legally can, about 240 days, to evaluate ETF proposals.
đ€Â PayPal Has Held Exploratory Talks About Launching a Stablecoin
PayPal is exploring the launch of a stablecoin.
Four sources with knowledge of the situation told The Block that PayPal has made the rounds among some of the industryâs stablecoin protocol developers â suggesting the payments giant may be leaning towards working with a third-party company.Â
A PayPal spokesperson told The Block that âPayPal continues to explore the potential of digital currencies, digital financial services infrastructure and how we can help enhance digital commerce as a trusted partner in the space.â
âAs a global company working with regulators and industry partners throughout the world to shape the next generation of financial systems, the company is in frequent conversation about technologies that enable these goals. However, rumors and speculation are not predictive of the companyâs future plans,â the spokesperson said.
Project Updates
Whatâs New in Eth2 - 8 May 2021
Updates on the Beacon Chain, staking, Rayonism, Altair, the merge and more from Ben in this weeks whatâs new in eth2.
Ethereum Cat Herders Update #43
Rayonism update, Eth2 mainnet incident retrospective, latest on London & Altair upgrade; Steklo, Aleut & Baikal testnet. ACD, Eth2, Merge, EIPIP meeting update. JSON RPC documentation update, PEEPanEIP on refund removal proposal, upcoming community event and more.
EF Fellowship Program Announced
The Ethereum Foundation Fellowship Program is a pilot project that has been launched by Next Billion, a team at EF that focuses on seeking opportunities in emerging economies.
OKEx to Support Arbitrum
OKEx is collaborating with Arbitrum, a market-leading Optimistic Rollup scaling solution to bring Ethereum Layer 2 scaling directly to their users. OKEx will enable the functionality for its users to deposit directly onto the Arbitrum mainnet without having to interact with the base layer of Ethereum.
Announcing Bankless DAO
Bankless DAO is a decentralized community to coordinate and propagate bankless media, culture, and education. Itâs goal is to drive adoption and awareness of truely bankless money systems like Ethereum, DeFi, and Bitcoin.
Uniswap v3 Now On Mainnet
Uniswap v3 is the most powerful version of the protocol yet, with Concentrated Liquidity offering unprecedented capital efficiency for liquidity providers, better execution for traders, and superior infrastructure at the heart of decentralized finance.
Balancer Labs Launches Incentive Program for IDOâs
In order to help incentivize the continued growth of LBPs as a leading token distribution platform in DeFi, Balancer Labs is announcing an incentive program for referring projects that execute an LBP sale.
Announcing the GEL Token
The GEL token will serve as the central focal point that ensures dapp developers, executor bot operators and the core protocol developers all work together to further grow and make the Gelato Network more robust in the future.
The Maker Foundation Returns Dev Fund Holdings to the DAO
The Maker Foundation returned 84,000 MKR from the Development Fund to MakerDAO. In particular, these MKR tokens were transferred to the DSPause Proxy smart contract in the Governance Module, and are now under the control of Maker Governance.
Element Testnet Now Live
The Element Protocol testnet is live at testnet.element.fi. The main goals of this release are to allow anyone to test the platform, find bugs in the UI or smart contracts and get feedback from the community.
GridPlus Lattice1 Firmware v0.10.6 Now Live
Non-standard HD paths are supported in this release: easily upgrade from a Ledger to frictionlessly use your secure accounts every day.
Lido Raises $73 Million
The funding was led by crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, which bought $51 million worth of LDO tokens from LidoDAO's treasury by paying the amount in 15,120 ether (ETH).
MetaPortal Newsletter Announced
MetaPortal is a doorway into the metaverse. The newsletter will cover the individual projects in the Metaverse Index and also share thoughts on macro and high-level developments relating to the metaverse.
Notional Finance Raises $10 Million
Notional Finance closed a $10 million Series A round from Pantera, ParaFi Capital, 1Confirmation, Spartan Group, Nascent, and other big names following a seed round from Coinbase Ventures.
Loopring Smart Wallet Now on iOS
The smart wallet comes with social recovery, daily limits + whitelist addresses and access to the whole Loopring ecosystem.
Coinbase Commerce x Sothebyâs
Sothebyâs announced they will accept bitcoin and ethereum for Banksyâs Love is in the Air image at their Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Coinbase Commerce was selected as the integration partner.
Magnet Beta Launched
Magnet is a workflow tool that makes it easy for a Gnosis Safe Multisig to create and review compensation packages.
Dopex Announced
Dopex is a decentralized options exchange that aims to address all of the issues with the existing options protocols within DeFi.
Splits Introduced
Splits are a way to route ETH continuously to an unlimited number of Ethereum addresses, according to a set of percentage allocations.
Webaverse x Polygon
Webaverse announced Polygon support this week. Creators on the platform can mint NFTs for free, and trade them on OpenSea with sub-cent transfer fees.
Showtime Raises $7.6 Million
The round was led by Paradigm with participation from various other funds and angels.
Sudoswap v2 Now Live
New features include an upgraded swap mechanism with unlimited combination trading, order expiration dates and more.
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Podcasts
The Road to $150,000 Ethereum with Nikhil Shamapant - Villa Straylight
The Crypto Renaissance | Josh Rosenthal - Bankless
Legitimacy | Vitalik Buterin - Bankless
EIP-1559 â Tackling the Gas Fee Problem on Ethereum - Epicenter
Videos
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Solidity Engineer - EPNS
Solidity Engineer - Maple Finance
Korean Community Manager - Aave
Social Media Manager - StakeHound
+1000âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!