Quick Take

• Obol launches a token incentives program.

• Coinbase introduces Verified Pools.

• Moonwell launches on OP Mainnet.

• Spark announces RWA winners.

Obol Launches Incentives Program

Obol launched the OBOL Incentives Program, allocating 12.5 million OBOL tokens in incentives to reward users who stake ETH on Obol Distributed Validators. For the first year, 240,000 OBOL tokens will be distributed each week to participating ETH stakers. OBOL serves as the protocol’s governance, staking, and utility token. To participate, users can stake ETH on Obol Distributed Validators (DVs) through a qualified partner like Chorus One, EtherFi, Swell, or Stakewise, or by running their own distributed validator via Squad Staking. Rewards are based on the total ETH supplied and will begin accruing on March 24, 2025.  

Coinbase Introduces Verified Pools

Coinbase introduced Verified Pools, a curated set of onchain liquidity pools accessible only to users with Coinbase Verifications credentials. Built on Uniswap v4, Verified Pools use hooks to integrate compliance via Coinbase Verifications while optimizing liquidity management. The pools are now live on Base. Users can connect to Verified Pools through Prime Onchain Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, or select third-party wallets. Coinbase Verifications, powered by the Ethereum Attestation Service (EAS), attests to the ownership of a verified Coinbase account and country of residence, enhancing security and sybil resistance.

Moonwell Launches On OP Mainnet

Moonwell, a lending protocol built on Morpho, launched its first lending vault on OP Mainnet. Users can now deposit into the Moonwell Flagship USDC vault on OP Mainnet, which is designed to provide optimized, risk-adjusted returns from blue-chip collateral markets. The vault is curated by BlockAnalitica and B Protocol, who strategically allocate funds across Morpho Markets. The vault offers liquidity for the ETH/USDC and wstETH/USDC Morpho Isolated Markets on OP Mainnet, generating interest for depositors. Moonwell also launched Virtual Accounts on OP Mainnet, enabling users to receive payments in a U.S. bank account that are converted to USDC. Moonwell is a top 10 DeFi protocol on Base, with over $100 million in TVL.

Spark RWA Competition Winners

Spark announced the winners of the Tokenization Grand Prix, a competition that directs $1 billion in reserves toward tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). The three selected winners are BlackRock's BUIDL fund, Superstate's USTB fund, and Centrifuge's JTRSY fund, with $500M allocated to BUIDL, $300M to USTB, and $200M to JTRSY. The final allocations are subject to approval by Sky governance in April 2025. The initiative aims to drive stablecoin adoption in DeFi by boosting liquidity and diversification within the Spark Liquidity Layer. The competition evaluated 39 applications, focusing on pricing, liquidity, and strategic alignment.

Other News

• EigenLayer launches on ZKsync

• Interopolis onsite in Athens

• U.S. Treasury defies court ruling

• Technical deep dive into ZKP2P

• ENS $27.8m revenue in 2024

• Harvard research on OSS

See disclosures

Quick Take

• Besu postmortem on Holesky chain split.

• Offchain Labs introduces Onchain Labs.

• Aave V3 goes live on Celo.

• ELI5 on Ethereum validator exits.

Listen on: Apple | Spotify | Castbox 

Besu Postmortem On Holesky Chain Split

The Besu team released a postmortem analyzing changes in Ethereum’s specifications and Besu’s codebase that led to the omission of the deposit contract address for the Holesky and Sepolia testnets, which led to a supermajority chain split on Holesky. The report found that EIP-6110 only specified the Mainnet deposit contract address, leaving testnet addresses unspecified. There was also no cross-client verification mechanism for contract configurations. By default, the Besu client uses the Mainnet address when no testnet address is provided. To prevent similar issues, Besu recommends that Ethereum clients standardize configurations, avoid relying on defaults, fail early when values are missing, and explicitly include testnet configurations in specifications.

Offchain Labs Introduces Onchain Labs

Offchain Labs, in collaboration with the Arbitrum DAO, introduced Onchain Labs—an initiative dedicated to supporting emerging apps on Arbitrum. Onchain Labs will provide early-stage teams with general product and go-to-market guidance, leveraging Arbitrum’s 100-250ms block times and broad compatibility through Stylus to foster industry-leading innovation. Committed to fair launches, Onchain Labs will focus on experimental projects. The first project will be unveiled soon.

Aave V3 Goes Live On Celo

Aave V3 is now live on Celo, an L2 built on the OP Stack, making it the 14th supported chain on Aave. Users can now supply or borrow CELO, USDC, USDT, cUSD, and cEUR on the network.  Aave is the largest DeFi lending protocol with over $17 billion in TVL. Celo will complete its migration to an L2 on March 26, 2025.

Other News

• ELI5: Ethereum Validator Exits

• OKX shuts down DEX aggregator

• Wolrdcoin introduces Razer ID verified

• Namespace releases Dev Portal

• Ekubo Protocol V2 goes live

• Ethena introduces Converge

• Robinhood launches prediction markets

• Khalani introduces HyperFlow

See disclosures

Quick Take

• Paradigm introduces Stateless Reth.

• Summer of Protocols returns.

• Ethereum Film unveils global release.

• EF academic grants close Sunday.

Listen on: Apple | Spotify | Castbox 

Ress Stateless Ethereum Node

Paradigm released Reth v1.3, the latest version of its Ethereum execution client written in Rust. The release addresses and fixes all known issues with Pectra. Reth v1.3 also introduces Stateless Reth, also known as Ress, a fully validating Ethereum Execution Layer that reduces node storage requirements to just 14GB. Stateless nodes help improve decentralization, scale the L1 gas limit, enhance L2s, and enable the implementation of Native Rollups. In a Stateless Ethereum model, nodes don’t need to store the entire chain state to process transactions. Instead, each block provides the necessary data through proofs, allowing nodes to validate blocks. 

Summer Of Protocols 2025

The Summer of Protocols (SoP) is accepting applications for its third cohort. The program focuses on research and development in the realm of protocols, and this year’s theme, "Accelerating Order," aims to showcase how protocolization can be dynamic and constructive. The program is divided into three tracks. Protocol Education, Scene-Making, and Technical Foundations. The Protocol Education track offers $500,000 in grants to faculty and educators for developing courses on protocols. The Scene-Making track supports the exploration and development of protocol fiction, featuring writing contests. The Technical Foundations track features workshops dedicated to the formalization of protocols. 

Ethereum Film Global Release

Vitalik: An Ethereum Story, a community-funded feature documentary exploring the creation of Ethereum, is set for a global release on April 15th. The documentary will be available for mainstream streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. Filmed over three years across 28 cities and 15 countries, the documentary dives into Vitalik Buterin’s journey and the worldwide community of Ethereum developers.

Other News

• EF Academic Grants close 16th March.

• Lighthouse v7.0.0-beta.3 release

• Pectra upgrade timeline

• Ethereum consensus roadmap

• Vitalik on next 6 months

• DeFi Education Fund leadership changes

See disclosures