• Judge pauses SEC vs Coinbase lawsuit.

• LaChain joins the Elastic Chain Network.

• Coinbase Wallet bank-to-USDC transfers.

• DEX volume hits 20% marketshare over CEXs.

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U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla granted Coinbase's request for certification of an interlocutory appeal in its lawsuit with the SEC. The decision allows Coinbase to appeal a critical legal ruling while temporarily pausing further proceedings in the case. Judge Failla acknowledged the conflicting rulings regarding the SEC's application of securities laws to crypto-assets. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals will now review whether the crypto-assets at the center of the case meet the definition of "investment contracts" under securities law. The SEC filed the lawsuit in June 2023, alleging that Coinbase operated as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

LaChain, a blockchain designed to meet the needs of Latin American users, has joined ZKsync’s Elastic Chain Network. The upgrade to ZK Stack was driven by the network’s speed, low transaction costs, and developer tools. LaChain is developed by Ripio, a crypto payments platform in LATAM with over 19 million users. By joining the Elastic Chain Network, LaChain becomes part of a growing ecosystem alongside 12 other chains, including Zero Network, Lens Network, and Abstract. The integration enables LaChain projects to seamlessly connect and interact with other blockchains within the Elastic Network, fostering interoperability.

Coinbase Wallet, Coinbase's non-custodial wallet, introduced support for receiving bank deposits directly into USDC on Base. In November 2024, Coinbase Wallet rolled out support for USDC rewards for USDC held on its non-custodial wallet across Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon, and Optimism. Coinbase Wallet also offers zero-fee USDC transfers on Base. USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market cap and the largest natively minted asset on Base.

For the first time, the total spot trading volume on decentralized exchanges has reached an all-time high in market share of 20% of spot trading volume compared to centralized exchanges. Uniswap leads the DEX market, capturing 12.2% of the total trading volume in the last 24hrs.

• Ethereum.org dapps page

• Balancer v3 Priority Fee Router 

• Starknet Developer Hub

• Illuvium partners with Virtuals

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• ZKsync Ignite liquidity incentives go live.

• Superstate launches USCC on Morpho.

• Optimism releases its 2024 recap.

• EigenLayer x Eliza AI Agent Hacker House.

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ZKsync Ignite, a 9-month initiative designed to boost DeFi liquidity and grow total value locked (TVL) on ZKsync Era, is now live. Season 1, running from January 6, 2025, to March 31, 2025, offers up to 100 million ZK tokens in incentives across 15 participating protocols, spanning categories like DEXs, lending, and perpetual. About 7 million ZK tokens will be distributed over the next two weeks. A DeFi Steering Committee (DSC) manages the program, adjusting token allocations biweekly to adapt to market demand and encourage participation in new liquidity pools. Users can monitor and claim their rewards through a dedicated rewards hub managed by Merkl.

Superstate, a tokenized fund specializing in Real World Assets (RWA), launched its USCC crypto carry fund on the Morpho lending protocol. The integration is supported through the Steakhouse USDC RWA Vault, enabling users to borrow USDC against RWA collateral, such as USCC. The USCC fund is a tokenized crypto cash-and-carry fund designed to capitalize on price disparities between spot and futures markets for Bitcoin and Ether while enhancing yield through staking spot Ethereum holdings. Currently, USCC holds over $87 million in AUM, while USTB, Superstate’s first treasury product, holds over $192 million in AUM.

Optimism released its 2024 year in review, celebrating major milestones, including the Superchain’s expansion to over 30 OP Chains, with new additions from Kraken, Sony, and Uniswap. DeFi TVL within the ecosystem grew from $1.4 billion to $4.8 billion over the year. The Optimism Collective distributed over 20 million OP tokens through user airdrops, allocated another 20 million OP to ecosystem projects via retro funding, and awarded 23 million OP to builders through the Grants Council. In 2024, the OP Stack activated permissionless fault proofs, paving the way for multiple OP Stack chains to achieve Stage 1 decentralization in 2025. Looking forward, Optimism Governance will focus on enhancing Superchain interoperability to unite the ecosystem and Ethereum.

EigenLayer, in partnership with Eliza Labs, has announced the AI Agent Hacker House, a 10-day AI hackathon taking place during ETH Denver 2025. The event offers participants opportunities for learning, mentorship, and a chance to win a share of a prize pool. Applications are now open for projects looking to participate.

• Mist II: Revenge of the Nerds 

• Future of Ethereum: Beam Chain

• Pectra: The blob increase 

• TX inclusion stats under FOCIL

• Paul Grewal: The FDIC lied

• Relay Protocol API tools

• d/acc: one year later

• Sophisticated Execution Proposers

• Swell Chain surpasses $330m TVL

• Sky achieves 1b USDS

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• Ethena releases its 2025 roadmap.

• Coinbase receives access to FDIC letters.

• Interest in bringing COIN stock to Base.

• Veil privacy pool protocol on Base.

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Guy Young, the founder of Ethena Labs, released the 2025 roadmap aiming to integrate USDe across decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized finance (CeFi), and traditional finance (TradFi) sectors. Ethena Labs plans to roll out iUSDe, a regulatory-compliant stablecoin designed for institutional adoption, alongside a savings and payments app integrated with Telegram. The roadmap also includes the development of the Ethena Network and applications like Ethereal perps and Derive options protocols. Since its launch in February 2024, USDe, Ethena’s first stablecoin, has become the third-largest stablecoin by market cap. USDe is an overcollateralized, yield-bearing stablecoin backed by stETH, BTC, and derivatives positions.

Coinbase has obtained a series of unredacted FDIC letters revealing a coordinated effort by the agency to restrict banks from engaging in crypto-related activities. Coinbase filed a lawsuit against the FDIC in June 2024 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking to obtain the letters and hold the regulator accountable. The letters show that banks must notify the FDIC before initiating or continuing any crypto-asset-related activities. Institutions had to submit detailed information about the activities for regulatory review. The letters stressed confidentiality under FDIC rules, effectively shielding the agency’s coordinated efforts from public awareness.

Jesse Pollak, Base builder #1, expressed interest in bringing Coinbase’s COIN stock onchain to Base. The idea was shared in response to a concern raised by Coinbase ambassador CBduck.eth about the inefficiencies of traditional financial systems such as long processing times for deposits to clear into a brokerage. Assets will often incur price fluctuations during the long waiting period, whereas transaction settlement on Base takes seconds. Pollak emphasized his vision that "every asset in the world will be on Base." However, he clarified that there are currently no concrete plans to tokenize $COIN on Base. The move would first depend on achieving regulatory clarity to ensure the process is safe and compliant.

Veil launched v0.1 of its privacy pool protocol on Base mainnet. The protocol uses ZK-SNARKs to provide privacy for verified users depositing ETH into fixed deposit pools. A 0.5% fee is applied to deposits in VEIL pools. Currently, access to the protocol is permissioned, and it remains in an experimental, unaudited phase.

• Across supports Ink L2

• Frax approves USTB & USCC

• Erigon mainnet validator first block

• Portrait goes live on Base

• Balancer V3 enhancements

• Pendle VIRTUAL/cbBTC market

• GMX releases development plan

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