Introducing Ethereum Hoodi Testnet

Quick Take

Developers to launch Hoodi testnet.
Aave Labs proposes an RWA project.
ZKsync cancels its Ignite program.
Compound launches vaults on Morpho.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1juAkRm4n0jf2gHlh1bLhC

Developers Introduce Hoodi Testnet

Ethereum core developers introduced Hoodi, a new long-lived Ethereum testnet featuring a similar configuration and validator count as Ethereum mainnet. Designed to initially test validator exits, Hoodi will go live on Monday, March 17, 2025, with the Pectra fork scheduled for the testnet on March 26, 2025. Tim Beiko urged staking operators and infrastructure providers to deploy to Hoodi as it becomes the primary testnet for infrastructure. Applications should also consider migrating. Ethereum developers introduce a new testnet every two years, each with a maximum lifespan of five years. The Pectra upgrade is anticipated to go live on Ethereum mainnet in late April or early May.

Aave Labs Proposes RWA Project

Aave Labs proposed Project Horizon, a Real World Assets (RWA) platform for integrating institutional DeFi into the Aave ecosystem. Subject to Aave DAO approval, Horizon will launch as a licensed instance of the Aave Protocol, enabling institutions to borrow USDC and GHO against tokenized Money Market Funds (MMFs) as collateral. The proposal includes a token distribution strategy for a new Horizon token, which has faced opposition from the Aave community. It also proposes a profit-sharing mechanism that allocates 50% of revenue to the Aave DAO in Year 1, gradually decreasing to 10% by Year 4. The proposal is currently open for community discussion.

Compound Launches Vaults On Morpho

Compound Finance launched custom lending vaults built on Morpho’s liquidity infrastructure, initially deployed on Polygon PoS. The vaults enable users to borrow and lend assets while optimizing for risk-adjusted yield using Compound’s CORE framework, which strikes a balance between security and yield for a moderate risk profile. The vaults are owned by the Compound DAO, which takes a 10% performance fee. To incentivize participation, Polygon has allocated $1.5 million in POL token rewards for vault depositors, while Compound is also offering $1.5 million in COMP tokens. Over $11 million has been deposited across the three vaults so far.

ZKsync Cancels Ignite Program

The ZKsync DeFi Steering Committee (DSC) announced an early end to the Ignite program, which was designed to incentivize DeFi activity on ZKsync Era with up to 300 million ZK in rewards. Originally planned to run for three seasons over nine months, the program will now conclude on March 17, 2025, with rewards being turned off and final distributions completed by that date. The decision was driven by market conditions and a pivot toward growing the multichain Elastic Network.

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