• ZKsync Ignite liquidity incentives go live.

• Superstate launches USCC on Morpho.

• Optimism releases its 2024 recap.

• EigenLayer x Eliza AI Agent Hacker House.

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ZKsync Ignite, a 9-month initiative designed to boost DeFi liquidity and grow total value locked (TVL) on ZKsync Era, is now live. Season 1, running from January 6, 2025, to March 31, 2025, offers up to 100 million ZK tokens in incentives across 15 participating protocols, spanning categories like DEXs, lending, and perpetual. About 7 million ZK tokens will be distributed over the next two weeks. A DeFi Steering Committee (DSC) manages the program, adjusting token allocations biweekly to adapt to market demand and encourage participation in new liquidity pools. Users can monitor and claim their rewards through a dedicated rewards hub managed by Merkl.

Superstate, a tokenized fund specializing in Real World Assets (RWA), launched its USCC crypto carry fund on the Morpho lending protocol. The integration is supported through the Steakhouse USDC RWA Vault, enabling users to borrow USDC against RWA collateral, such as USCC. The USCC fund is a tokenized crypto cash-and-carry fund designed to capitalize on price disparities between spot and futures markets for Bitcoin and Ether while enhancing yield through staking spot Ethereum holdings. Currently, USCC holds over $87 million in AUM, while USTB, Superstate’s first treasury product, holds over $192 million in AUM.

Optimism released its 2024 year in review, celebrating major milestones, including the Superchain’s expansion to over 30 OP Chains, with new additions from Kraken, Sony, and Uniswap. DeFi TVL within the ecosystem grew from $1.4 billion to $4.8 billion over the year. The Optimism Collective distributed over 20 million OP tokens through user airdrops, allocated another 20 million OP to ecosystem projects via retro funding, and awarded 23 million OP to builders through the Grants Council. In 2024, the OP Stack activated permissionless fault proofs, paving the way for multiple OP Stack chains to achieve Stage 1 decentralization in 2025. Looking forward, Optimism Governance will focus on enhancing Superchain interoperability to unite the ecosystem and Ethereum.

EigenLayer, in partnership with Eliza Labs, has announced the AI Agent Hacker House, a 10-day AI hackathon taking place during ETH Denver 2025. The event offers participants opportunities for learning, mentorship, and a chance to win a share of a prize pool. Applications are now open for projects looking to participate.

• Mist II: Revenge of the Nerds 

• Future of Ethereum: Beam Chain

• Pectra: The blob increase 

• TX inclusion stats under FOCIL

• Paul Grewal: The FDIC lied

• Relay Protocol API tools

• d/acc: one year later

• Sophisticated Execution Proposers

• Swell Chain

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