• Circle launches CCTP V2 on Ethereum.

• Fidelity plans to enable staking for FETH ETF.

• Lido Finance releases its CSM V2 vision.

• Optimism’s Futarchy contest goes live.

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Circle, the issuer of USDC, launched Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol V2, an upgrade that reduces transfer times from minutes to seconds by allowing message attestation before source chain finalization. It also features Hooks, enabling developers to automate post-transfer actions via smart contracts. A 1:1 burn-and-mint mechanism eliminates the need for liquidity pools, improving capital efficiency while supporting finality-based settlement. CCTP V2 is live on Ethereum, Base, and Avalanche, with planned support for Linea and Arbitrum. Since April 2023, CCTP V1 has processed over 2 million transfers, exceeding $37 billion in volume. 

Fidelity Investments is seeking approval to enable staking in its Ethereum Fund (FETH) ETF. On Tuesday, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) submitted Form 19b-4 to the SEC, requesting staking permission for the Spot Ethereum ETF. Once approved, the SEC must still greenlight Form S-1 filings before trading can begin. It marks the second ETF seeking ETH staking approval, following 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF, which filed a similar request in February. Fidelity’s Ethereum Fund ETF currently holds nearly $1 billion in AUM. After the news, ETH rebounded slightly to $1,950.

Lido Finance unveiled its vision for CSM v2, the next iteration of its permissionless staking solution that enables any node operator to run validators through the Lido protocol. The vision for 2025 focuses on expanding CSM's share of the protocol, increasing independent Community Staker participation, and enhancing the reward structure. CSM v2 introduces EIP-7002 withdrawal support and the addition of Entry Gates, which offer tailored staker incentives like priority deposit queues, customized rewards, and differentiated security requirements. CSM v2 also transitions the fee structure to a variable Node Operator reward share based on validator count. 

Optimism's Futarchy governance contest is now live. Futarchy uses prediction markets to guide decision-making. Users can apply to receive OP Play Tokens to predict which protocols will see the largest TVL increase from a 100,000 OP token grant. Users who accurately forecast the closest predicted TVL to the actual TVL achieved by a protocol will also win OP token rewards. The contest ends on March 20th.

• Lens Chain joins the Elastic Network

• U.S. gov withholds evidence in Storm case

• Starknet settles on Bitcoin and Ethereum

• GG23 community rounds announced

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• Finality is restored on the Holesky testnet.

• Edge case attack on the Sepolia testnet.

• Coinbase plans perpetual futures in the U.S.

• BackedFi launches tokenized COIN stock.

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Ethereum developers, alongside the ethPandaOps team, successfully restored finality on the Holesky testnet at Epoch 119090, which occurred around 18:56 UTC on March 10th. The achievement comes after nearly two weeks of non-finalization caused by a configuration bug during the Pectra hard fork on Holesky. More than two-thirds of the validator stake on the testnet has attested to the correct state. Finality is typically reached every two epochs, approximately every 12.8 minutes. Affected nodes on Holesky should clear their datadir and sync from the last finalized state. A state backup is available at holesky-rescue.ethpandaops.io.

Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Wijden outlined an edge case attack on Sepolia’s deposit contract following the recent Pectra upgrade on the testnet. An issue with Sepolia’s deposit contract led to empty blocks. Developers temporarily replaced problematic transactions with higher-paying ones while preparing to ship a coordinated fix. However, they discovered that the issue causing the empty blocks persisted due to an attacker exploiting an edge case, allowing the attacker to send 0-token transfers to the deposit contract, which triggered the issue. To address the attacker, developers privately deployed a fix to a few nodes to avoid alerting the attacker before the official coordinated update was rolled out.

Coinbase announced plans to launch perpetual-style futures for U.S. users, offering 24/7 markets for Bitcoin and Ether perps trading. The platform will likely support USDC as collateral. Perpetual futures are contracts without an expiration date, allowing traders to hold positions indefinitely as long as they maintain margin. The perpetual futures platform is still under development and is being designed to comply with U.S. regulatory standards with guidance from the CFTC. Coinbase aims to provide a competitive alternative to existing offshore futures platforms.

BackedFi, a tokenized real-world asset issuer, introduced wbCOIN, a tokenized representation of Coinbase’s COIN stock, now available on Base. Fully backed 1:1 by COIN stock, wbCOIN provides a legal claim to the value of COIN stock while remaining freely transferable. Users can access it on CoW Swap, with liquidity provided via Aerodrome. The token is not issued nor affiliated with Coinbase. BackedFi currently holds over $20 million in TVL in tokenized RWAs.

• Doubling blobs with Gossipsub v2.0

• SafeWallet restores services

• SEC drops ATS rulemaking

• Phi integrates EFP

• T2 migrating to Lens Chain

• wstETH goes live on Lisk

• Introducing Ether Guild

• Devcon is hiring

• Updated stablecoin bill

• FDIC resists transparency

• Movement mainnet beta

• Complexity isn't always obvious

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• MegaETH goes live on developer testnet.

• Worldcoin introduces World Chat.

• Safe releases a ByBit hack update.

• The Mekong testnet is deprecation.

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MegaETH, an EVM-compatible L2, is now live on testnet for developers. The current release phase focuses on onboarding infrastructure and apps, with a public rollout expected next week. The launch includes experimental support for EIP-7702, which enables smart account functionality for EOAs. MegaETH also features 10ms mini-blocks and 1s EVM blocks. Mini-blocks are lightweight, high-frequency blocks produced alongside traditional EVM blocks, offering the same security guarantees with rollback protection. Unlike Base’s Flashblocks, they do not rely on TEEs. MegaETH also features elastic block production, meaning blocks are only created when transactions exist. MegaETH aims to achieve 100,000 TPS throughput performance.

Worldcoin, a digital identity protocol, launched World Chat, a mini app that enables users on the World Network to send end-to-end encrypted messages. By linking their World App wallet, users can also send and receive crypto seamlessly within chats. World Chat leverages World ID’s Proof of Personhood to verify human authenticity. Developers can integrate World Chat into their Mini Apps to enhance user engagement and interactions. Built on the OP Stack, World Chain is a Layer 2 network designed for identity-centric applications on World Network.

Safe, the smart contract wallet provider breached in the recent ByBit hack, released an update on its investigation. Findings reveal that the attackers compromised a Safe developer's laptop and exploited AWS session tokens to bypass MFA controls, gaining unauthorized access to Safe{Wallet} infrastructure. The attack was carried out over 19 days. Safe’s Smart Contracts remain unaffected. In response, the Safe team has performed an infrastructure reset, restricted external access, enhanced monitoring, and improved malicious transaction detection. The Safe team urges the community to adopt stronger security measures and advocates for improved transaction verification tools.

The Mekong testnet, a short-lived testnet designed for wallet developers and stakers to test UX changes introduced in the Pectra upgrade, will be deprecated on March 7, 2025. With Pectra now activated on the Sepolia and Holesky testnets, developers are encouraged to use Sepolia for application and smart contract testing due to its stable validator set. Stakers and infrastructure providers should wait for Holesky to finalize or check the Ethereum R&D Discord for updates.

• Conduit integrates Reown

• Holesky testnet updates

• Scroll introduces Open Campus

• Coinbase acquires Iron Fish team

• Obol staking proposal vote

• Crypto The Game S3 goes live

• Trump signs Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

See disclosures