Blockchain Bulletin: Ethereum Upgrades, Layer-2 Innovations, and DeFi Developments

As we close the first month of the year, there’s a lot happening in the crypto space. Here are some of the latest developments that you should know about:

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade has officially launched on the Sepolia testnet and is scheduled to go live on the final testnet, Holesky, on February 7. The mainnet activation date for Dencun will be confirmed post the deployment on the last testnet.

In the liquid staking ecosystem, notable developments have occurred, with the TVL reaching $2 billion in January 2024. The Immutable zkEVM, a Polygon-powered Layer-2 blockchain optimized for Web3 gaming, has initiated its early access phase on the mainnet. This platform, featuring an EVM-equivalent blockchain client secured by Zero-Knowledge proofs, provides developers in the blockchain gaming space with essential building tools.

Starknet and Celestia have joined forces to implement Layer-3 chains within the Starknet ecosystem. Utilizing Celestia’s Blobstream technology, the collaboration aims to enhance data availability and scalability, with the ultimate goal of enabling off-chain scaling solutions on Starknet.

LayerZero Labs has unveiled LayerZero V2, introducing key features such as Universal Messaging, Unified Semantics, and modular security. Meanwhile, dYdX has introduced liquid staking, allowing DYDX token stakers to convert their holdings into liquid staking tokens for use in other DeFi applications, a collaborative effort with liquid staking providers like Stride, Persistence, and Quicksilver.

Synthetix has deployed V3 of its perpetual contracts protocol on the Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain Base. The update aims to simplify the creation and trading of new derivatives products for developers and traders on Synthetix-powered exchanges like Kwenta, Polynomial, and dHEDGE.

On a different note, the Stellar Development Foundation has postponed its blockchain upgrade to incorporate Ethereum-style smart contracts due to the discovery of a bug in the Stellar Core v20.1.0 software. The foundation plans to temporarily ‘disarm’ its validators to prevent them from voting to upgrade the network, with a fix for the bug expected within the next two weeks.

In a concerning development, DeFi platform Abracadabra has confirmed a security attack resulting in a loss of approximately $6.4 million. Blockchain security firm Blocksec revealed that the attack exploited a rounding issue, causing a ‘precision loss’ and briefly depegging the MIM stablecoin to $0.7. The stablecoin has since recovered to the $0.97 range.

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⚠️ DISCLAIMER ⚠️

The information contained in this video is for informational purposes only. Nothing herein shall be construed to be financial or legal advice. The content of this post reflects solely my own opinions. Purchasing cryptocurrencies poses considerable risk of losses.

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