• The price of ETH plummets 20%.

• Aave generates $6 million in revenue.

• Vitalik on cross-L2 interoperability.

• Devcon VII general ticket wave 3.

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Over the weekend, the price of ETH plummeted by 20%, dropping from just over $3,000 to a low of $2,200 this morning. The sharp decline led to a surge in gas fees on Ethereum mainnet, pushing ETH to be deflationary. The last time ETH was deflationary was just before the Dencun upgrade, although ETH has remained net deflationary since the Merge in 2022. The price drop is part of a broader market sell-off affecting both stocks and crypto assets. Bitcoin also dipped below $50,000. Japan’s Nikkei index had a significant decline of 12.4%, the largest drop on the exchange since Black Monday in October 1987. The market turmoil followed the Bank of Japan’s recent move to raise interest rates on the Yen to 25 basis points.

According to Aave founder Stani Kulechov, the lending protocol generated $6 million in revenue over the weekend amid the market turmoil. The revenue came from liquidation events, which occur when a borrower’s health factor falls below the liquidation threshold. Aave remained operational without outages amid liquidations of $1 billion across the crypto markets. The Aave V3 Ethereum market alone liquidated over 1,000 positions and more than $220 million in debt. The largest single liquidation involved $7.4 million worth of WETH to cover a $10 million USDC loan, which generated $800k for the protocol. Aave is the third largest protocol on Ethereum, with over $10 billion TVL.

During the Base Camp summit, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin emphasized that the next challenge for the Ethereum community to solve is cross-L2 interoperability. Base lead Jesse Pollak inquired about what the community should focus on given EIP-4844 is live and the advancements made in account abstraction. Buterin highlighted that cross-L2 interoperability would address account abstraction issues and the fragmented experience across Ethereum's extended chains. He suggested that contributors focus on the cross-chain address standard ERC-3770, cross-chain intents standard ERC-7683, and CCIP Read standard ERC-3668. He added that people will be surprised by how quickly we get a smooth user experience across Ethereum.

General ticket sales for Devcon VII will go live on Tuesday, August 13th at 16:00 UTC. General Admission tickets are priced at $599 with discounts available for past attendees, public goods projects, open-source contributors, and local SEA builders. Devcon VII is the largest Ethereum developer conference, set to take place in Bangkok, Thailand, from November 12-15.

• Infiniex releases its whitepaper

• Noble introduces cross-chain USDC transfers

• 1inch hits $2.2b 24hr volume

• Elastic Chain v24.2 upgrade

• Base style guide is open-source

• Zerion supports Redstone

• Warren opposes prediction markets

• Building a unified Superchain

• EIP-7702 incrementing nonce challenges

• Cartridge raises $7.5m

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• Synthetix launches the USDx stablecoin.

• BGD Labs evaluates zkSync Era readiness for Aave V3.

• Pinata Cloud releases a Content Attestation Plugin.

• 3DNS receives ICANN accreditation.

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Derivatives liquidity protocol Synthetix launched USDx, its protocol stablecoin native to Arbitrum. Users can deposit ARB, USDC, USDe, or ETH as collateral to mint and borrow USDx at 0% interest. The zero-interest rates, subject to change in the future, allow depositors to access additional liquidity while continuing to accrue yield on collateral. USDx will also serve as collateral for trading Synthetix Perps once the derivatives market goes live. Users can also provide USDx liquidity in other markets like Curve to earn additional fees. Arbitrum has risen as the top chain by TVL on Synthetix V3 with nearly $30 million in deposits. The launch of Synthetix Perps on Arbitrum is expected in the coming months.

BGD Labs, a contributor to the Aave protocol, released a technical evaluation for supporting zkSync Era on Aave V3. The evaluation covers network security, bridging, oracle, wallet, and RPC infrastructure. The report highlights that zkSync Era is equipped with Chainlink price feeds and is compatible with Ethereum’s JSON-RPC standard. zkSync Era is also supported by multiple block explorers, numerous RPC providers, and major EVM wallets, including smart accounts with Safe. Areas for improvement include constant tooling development updates and technical maintenance overhead. BGD Labs concluded that zkSync Era is suitable for an Aave V3 deployment.

Pinata Cloud, an IPFS storage platform, released the Content Attestation Plugin, an IPFS Gateway tool for attesting to the authenticity and provenance of content. The plugin provides an interface for users to sign and verify IPFS files using their Ethereum wallet, simplifying the process of verifying the origin of files. It ensures that anyone can trust the content as long as the signature is valid. The Content Attestation Plugin is available on the Plugin Marketplace for Pinata users. IPFS is a distributed file system for storing permanent data labeled by a unique content identifier.

• Inclusion list timing constraints

• 3DNS receives ICANN Accreditation

• zkSync introduces ZK Fest

• ACDE #193 writeup

• EIP-7732 breakout notes #6

• Euro bond issuance on Polygon

• $879b wiped out from stock market

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• EURC goes live on Base.

• Developers prepare for Pectra Devnet 3.

• Coinbase releases its Q2 earnings report.

• Morpho Labs raises a $50m funding round.

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Circle launched EURC, its Euro-pegged stablecoin, on Base mainnet. The stablecoin is compliant with Europe's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation and is issued by Circle France. Qualified financial institutions can now mint and burn EURC directly on Circle Mint, which also supports deposits and withdrawals across multiple chains, eliminating the need for third-party bridges. Retail users can access EURC on Coinbase for on and off-ramping. EURC currently has a market cap of $38 million, compared to USDC's $33 billion. An initial liquidity pool for EURC/USDC is now available on Aerodrome, the largest decentralized exchange on Base.

Ethereum core developers are preparing to deploy the third devnet for Pectra. Client teams are currently addressing bugs in devnet 2, which includes a specification for EIP-7702. Core developers are still evaluating whether to include RIP-7212, a standard for secure and cost-effective signature verifications using the secp256r1 elliptic curve. The standard reduces the costs associated with smart wallets. Tim Beiko, coordinator of the ACD calls, emphasized that Pectra is already a packed upgrade. The decision to include RIP-7212 will be made once there is a clearer understanding of the readiness of the other EIPs. The Pectra upgrade currently includes 19 EIPs and is anticipated to launch in the first quarter of 2025.

Coinbase published its Q2 2024 earnings report, showing $1.4 billion in revenue for the quarter. Over 40% of the revenue originated from subscriptions and services. Coinbase attributed the increase to higher USDC balances on the exchange and a growing USDC market cap. The exchange reported $36 million in net income. The report also underscored Coinbase's role as the custodian for 8 out of the 9 Spot Ethereum ETFs, the public launch of the Coinbase Smart Wallet, leading L2 transaction activity, and the reduction of transaction fees on Base.

Morpho, a base infrastructure layer for building lending applications, raised a $50 million funding round led by Ribbit Capital. Morpho Blue, the protocol’s native lending platform, supports isolates lending markets, allowing for higher collateralization factors and improved interest rates. Morpho Blue is currently live on Ethereum and Base with over $1 billion in deposits. Morpho plans to use the fresh capital to enhance the network’s decentralization, further develop Morpho Blue and Morpho Vaults, and support its ecosystem builders with grants.

• Convergence suffers an exploit

• Base introduces Base.eth subnames

• Base Buildathon finalists

• Besu 24.7.1 release

• Hyperledger on Parallel Transactions