• Everclear launches on mainnet.

• Taiko collaborates with Fabric.

• Uniswap Unleashed goes live.

• Argent introduces easy bridging.

Interoperability protocol Everclear, previously known as Connext Network, launched its clearing layer on mainnet. Built as an Arbitrum Orbit rollup, Everclear leverages Hyperlane and Eigenlayer to streamline crosschain liquidity settlement. The protocol reduces rebalancing costs for solvers and intent-based bridges. Everclear enables chain abstraction, where a network of solvers competes to execute user intents on the target chain, removing the need for users to bridge. The process is automated through a Dutch auction system. Users can now transfer assets on Everclear across 20 supported chains. Everclear is also offering zero-fee rebalancing for WETH and USDC transfers across Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and OP Mainnet.

Taiko announced a partnership with Commit-Boost and Fabric to advance preconfirmation infrastructure on Ethereum. The collaboration aims to distribute Commit-Boost to validators, expand PBS integrations, and standardize based rollup infrastructure through Fabric — with the goal of enabling L1 preconfirmations by 2025. Based preconfirmations allow validators to offer early transaction confirmation guarantees, improving user experience on rollups. Taiko is a based ZK-rollup on Ethereum; Fabric is a modular toolkit for standardizing rollup infrastructure; and Commit-Boost is a validator sidecar tool that enables secure, open participation in preconfirmation protocols.

Uniswap Unleashed, a multi-month liquidity mining campaign designed to boost liquidity and adoption of Uniswap v4, is now live. The initiative features $5 million in $UNI token incentives distributed across 12 liquidity pools on Unichain. The program was approved by Uniswap governance on March 21, 2025. Users can provide liquidity to eligible pools via Merkl to start accruing rewards, which can be claimed at any time. Incentives will be updated every two weeks, with new pools and additional chains introduced over time. The program, overseen by Guantlet, has already boosted Unichain’s TVL to over $100 million.

Argent launched Easy Bridging, a new feature that lets users deposit crypto from any chain directly into their Argent mobile wallet.  With just a simple token transfer, users can send assets from one chain and receive them on another. The feature is powered by Layerswap, enabling seamless transfers from both wallets and major centralized exchanges—including Coinbase, Binance, OKEx, KuCoin, and more—into supported Layer 2 networks. Argent Mobile is a smart contract wallet with built-in 2FA and secure account recovery.

• ZKsync suffers 111m ZK compromise

• Towns Protocol introduces TOWNS

• EigenLayer deploys on Sepolia

• Vitalik: Why I support privacy

• Web3 projects impacted by AWS

• Spire introduces DA Builder

• Lido joins Strategic ETH reserve

• USDe market cap decrease

See disclosures

• Celestia launches the mamo-1 testnet.

• Tomasz finalizes his EF leadership role.

• Clouted introduces the ETH Strategy protocol.

• WalletConnect enables WCT transferability.

Celestia launched mamo-1, a high-throughput testnet producing 128MB blocks every 6 seconds with 21.33MB/s data throughput—a 16x increase over Celestia mainnet. The testnet features 21 validators across Europe, simulating real-world network conditions and supporting light node sampling and data availability sampling (DAS). mamo-1 also introduces Vacuum!, Celestia’s new data propagation protocol. Vacuum! uses lazy gossiping and Validator Availability Certificates (VACs) to minimize redundant traffic and improve efficiency.  It implements the Pull-Based Broadcast Tree (PBBT), enabling fast blob dissemination. The performance leap advances Celestia toward its long-term goal of supporting 1GB block sizes.

Ethereum Foundation Co-Executive Director Tomasz Stańczak announced the formal start of his role following the signing of his contract. Since his appointment in early March, he engaged extensively with Ethereum builders and stakeholders, gathering feedback to create a broad strategy document for the EF. Tomasz is now focused on holding 1:1 meetings with EF staff to align internally before transitioning to the execution phase. He says he will define clear, actionable goals to advance the Foundation’s strategic direction. Alongside Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang, Tomasz has already begun implementing internal operational improvements in coordination with team leads.

CloutedMind introduced ETH Strategy, a crypto-native protocol inspired by TradFi’s structured products, specifically following the MicroStrategy playbook, but for ETH. ETH Strategy introduces STRAT, a new asset that offers long-term, leveraged ETH exposure without liquidations or volatility decay. STRAT is created through the issuance of long-dated convertible bonds. The protocol sells convertible debt to USD lenders known as Bonders, who earn yield and can convert to STRAT if ETH appreciates. The structure reinforces ETH’s monetary premium as a foundational asset for collateral. The protocol is still in development.

WCT, the native governance and staking token of the WalletConnect Network, is now transferable. WCT was initially distributed as non-transferable tokens via an airdrop in November 2024. The token now trades at around $0.30 with a market cap of $56 million. WalletConnect, a protocol that enables wallet-to-app connections, has facilitated over 150 million connections since its launch in 2018.

Other News

• Kraken adds stock trading

• Onchain treasury growth

• Ethereum university tour

• Toni: Execution dependencies in blocks

• Simplified Ethereum roadmap

• OBOL unlocks on May 15

• Optimism announces S7 grants

See disclosures

• Vitalik on Ethereum Privacy Roadmap.

• Four EIPs are CFI'd for Fusaka.

• RISC Zero introduces R0VM 2.0.

• EF concludes 5th Protocol Fellowship.

Vitalik Buterin outlined a privacy roadmap that focuses on improving user privacy with minimal changes to Ethereum’s base layer. The roadmap proposes integrating privacy tools such as Railgun and Privacy Pools directly into wallets, enabling shielded balances and making private transactions the default user experience. To prevent linking user activity across applications, the ecosystem should adopt a “one address per application” model. The roadmap also recommends adding TEE-based RPC privacy to wallets as a short-term solution. To further reduce metadata leakage, wallets should connect to multiple RPC nodes. Privacy transactions should also be combined into a single onchain proof to lower gas costs. 

Ethereum core developers have moved four EIPs to the Considered for Inclusion (CFI) list for the upcoming Fusaka upgrade. The proposals include EIP-7823, which sets upper bounds for the MODEXP operation; EIP-7825, which introduces a cap on transaction gas limits; and EIP-7907, which meters contract code size. Developers also agreed to consider either EIP-7762 or EIP-7918—two competing proposals to modify the blob base fee mechanism. All other proposed EIPs were declined for inclusion. Currently, only PeerDAS and EOF are scheduled for inclusion in the Fusaka upgrade, which is expected to activate toward the end of the year.

RISC Zero launched R0VM 2.0, the latest version of its general-purpose zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM). The upgrade delivers faster performance, with block proving times reduced to just 44 seconds, and transaction costs as low as $0.0012 for large batches. It also introduces expanded capacity with 3GB of user memory. R0VM 2.0 adds support for BN254 and BLS12-381 precompiles for full Ethereum compatibility and incorporates formal verification to ensure circuit-level security. The system also leverages Boundless, RISC Zero’s decentralized proving protocol, to enable trustless and verifiable computation at scale.

The Ethereum Foundation released a recap of the fifth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF), which involved 30 participants guided by core developers. The cohort contributed to 30 projects, including a proof-of-concept for ePBS in Prysm, a Verkle tree implementation in Reth, enhanced DHT prototyping, SSZ benchmarking and optimization, and PeerDAS integrations across clients such and Nimbus. The EPF is an annual mentorship initiative aimed at helping developers dive into core protocol development. Applications for the sixth cohort are set to open later this month. The EPF Study Group, a ten-week program designed to prepare participants for the main fellowship, also concluded this month.

• Uniswap incentives program

• RISE launches L2 on testnet

• SEC guidance on crypto securities

• Coinbase lists 150 perps

• OP Sepolia testing 

• Morpho App frontend issue

• Lens developer program

• Aerodrome integrates chainlink

See disclosures