OpenSea Receives Wells Notice From SEC
The SEC alleges that NFT assets on the marketplace are securities. In response, OpenSea committed $5 million to a fund that covers legal fees for NFT artists who also receive a letter.
OpenSea receives a Wells notice from the SEC.
Starknet introduces support for parallel execution.
Centrifuge launches an RWA lending market.
Fluidkey releases its private transactions tool.
OpenSea announced that it has received a Wells notice from the SEC, alleging that NFT asset listings on the platform are securities. A Wells notice signals the SEC's intent to initiate enforcement action against the company. OpenSea co-founder Devin Finzer says the action stifles innovation and affects thousands of artists and creators. The action represents one of the first instances of the SEC targeting an NFT marketplace. NFTs are typically regarded as collectibles, digital art, and game items. In response to the letter, OpenSea has committed $5 million to a fund aimed at covering legal fees for NFT artists and developers who also receive a Wells notice.
Starknet v0.13.2 is now live on mainnet, introducing parallel execution and block packing to the network. Parallel execution allows multiple independent transactions to be processed simultaneously, enhancing throughput and reducing transaction confirmation times. Block packing decouples L2 block frequency from L1 costs by merging multiple L2 blocks into a single recursive proof. The feature enables 2-second transaction confirmations and sub-minute block times while optimizing gas usage, cutting L1 gas costs by up to 66%. Starknet is currently the fourth-largest ZK rollup by total value locked (TVL).
Centrifuge, an onchain credit protocol, launched an institutional RWA lending market on Base, powered by the Morpho Protocol. The market enables investors to deposit treasury tokens into permissioned Morpho Vaults, managed by Steakhouse Financial and Re7 Labs, and subsequently take out loans against their collateral. The supported assets include Anemoy’s Liquid Treasury Fund (LTF), Midas’s Short Term US Treasuries (mTBILL), and Hashnote’s US Yield Coin (USYC). The market also features an integration with Coinbase Verifications, allowing Coinbase users to easily self-attest their KYC status with a single click.
Fluidkey, a transaction privacy tooling provider, is now available to all users. Fluidkey provides a privacy-focused smart account that automatically generates a new address and reroutes funds for each payment made to the primary address. All generated addresses remain under the user's exclusive control without being publicly linked. Fluidkey supports transactions across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, Base, and OP Mainnet.
Abstract Chain global wallet
RISC Zero is open-source
Vitalik: Airdrops use case for ZK
Ethresearch: Encryption for Ethereum Rollups
MakerDAO Rebrands To Sky
The rebrand introduces an optional migration from DAI to a new stablecoin, USDS, and from MKR to a new governance token, SKY
MakerDAO rebrands to Sky.
Ethereum Foundation spend breakdown.
Node Operator Risk Standard (NORS).
Balancer expands to the Superchain.
MakerDAO, the largest CDP-based stablecoin protocol, has rebranded to Sky, focusing on user accessibility. The rebrand introduces an optional migration from DAI to a new stablecoin, USDS, and from MKR to a new governance token, SKY. Sky.money will serve as the user interface for token migrations, staking, and CDP creation. The rebrand also introduces native token rewards in SKY tokens for users who stake USDS. The upgrade is set to go live on September 18th. MakerDAO's SubDAOs, like Spark Protocol, were also rebranded to Stars. Each Star will also have its own governance token. Certain protocol features are restricted in regions such as the US.
Ethereum Foundation member Josh Stark provided an overview of the foundation's internal and external spending. Internal spending includes various EF teams like Geth, Privacy & Scaling Explorations (PSE), and Solidity, while external spending primarily covers grants, such as those issued by the Ecosystem Support Program. Stark noted that internal spending represents about 38% of the budget, with external spending accounting for 62%. L1 R&D remains a key focus of the financial spend. The largest-growing spending category is "New Institutions," which are organizations designed to support the Ethereum ecosystem over the long term. Vitalik highlighted that new institutions include organizations like L2Beat and the Decentralization Research Center. The Ethereum Foundation expects to publish a full spending report before Devcon SEA.
The Liquid Collective introduced the Node Operator Risk Standard (NORS), a formal certification focused on attesting to risk management for Ethereum staking infrastructure providers. The certification covers critical areas such as slashing prevention, validator diversity, and secure key management. NORS follows the AICPA audit standards and meets the requirements of traditional institutional certifications, simplifying the process of evaluation of staking infrastructure. NORS aims to offer a clear and measurable framework for Ethereum node operators. The Liquid Collective is an enterprise consortium aimed at driving staking adoption among institutions.
Balancer is expanding its DEX to the Superchain, starting with deployments on Mode and Fraxtal. The launch includes Balancer’s 80/20 liquidity pools and interest-bearing stableswap pools, which optimize liquidity, reduce impermanent loss, and enhance incentives. Aura Finance, a protocol built on Balancer, is also now live on Base. Balancer is now part of Optimism’s Superfest incentives campaign.
Ethereum Client Diversity Improves
Geth no longer holds over 2/3 market share as the supermajority client, improving client diversity on Ethereum.
Ethereum EL client diversity improves.
OP Stack supports Circle’s bridged USDC standard.
Superchain generates 14,000 ETH in revenue.
Basenames surpass 200k registrations.
Vitalik Buterin highlighted that no execution client holds more than two-thirds of the market share, marking a significant improvement in client diversity for the network. Geth had previously dominated as the supermajority execution layer client with over 70% market share earlier this year. Its market share has dropped to less than 60%. The improvement follows a series of client transitions by major staking providers, including Coinbase Cloud and Allnodes. A critical bug in a client with over two-thirds market share could potentially lead to a network split. Ethereum's multi-client architecture serves to mitigate the risks associated with relying on a single client.
The OP Stack now supports Circle's Bridged USDC Standard, enabling OP Stack chains to implement an upgradeable version of bridged USDC using the canonical OP Stack bridge. The standard allows for a seamless transition to native USDC in the future, without requiring any code changes, if Circle chooses to deploy it. The Bridged USDC Standard tackles the issue of fragmented USDC versions across different chains. Typically, new chains establish stablecoin liquidity before a native version is introduced. The integration reduces liquidity fragmentation by eliminating the need for users to migrate their bridged USDC to native USDC once it goes live.
The Optimism Collective has generated over 14,000 ETH in revenue from OP Stack chains of the Superchain as part of its sequencer revenue-sharing model. Each chain in the Superchain is required to contribute the greater of either 15% of gross profits or 2.5% of total sequencer revenue to the Optimism Collective. In exchange, members of the Superchain gain access to shared upgrades, collective governance, and retractive funding grants for their ecosystems. Superchain members will also benefit from Optimism's upcoming native interoperability architecture. There are currently 17 OP Stack chains that are part of the Superchain.