#919 - Polymarket USD Stablecoin
Polymarket will replace bridged USDC.e with a new native collateral token, Polymarket USD.
Polymarket USD stablecoin.
Ethena diversifies USDe backing.
Chaos Labs leaves Aave DAO.
Ethereum Tx Delay tracker.
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Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. Polymarket announces its native USD stablecoin. Ethena diversifies the backing for USDe. Chaos Labs leaves the Aave DAO. And Toni Wahrstätter releases an Ethereum Tx Delay tracker. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/919 Sponsor: Lido Earn lets you deploy ETH or stablecoins into curated DeFi strategies for optimised yield.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BfcHJx3lNMr4RO3UG6Hif)
EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn
Polymarket announced a major infrastructure upgrade rolling out over the next few weeks that will replace bridged USDC.e with a new native collateral token, Polymarket USD, backed 1:1 by USDC. The shift transitions Polymarket to have direct control over its settlement layer, reducing reliance on third-party bridges. The upgrade also includes a rebuilt trading engine and new smart contracts designed to improve execution speed, lower gas fees, and streamline the overall system. According to 0xngmi, more than $1.25 billion is currently held in Polymarket user wallets. During the transition, all open orders will be canceled during a short, pre-announced maintenance window. Developers and advanced users will need to make updates.
Ethena is expanding the collateral backing of its USDe stablecoin to include overcollateralized institutional lending, liquid real-world assets (RWAs) beyond t-bills, commodity basis trades, and prime lending. Previously, USDe's yield was primarily driven by crypto perpetual futures funding rates. USDe is an overcollateralized, yield-bearing stablecoin, backed by crypto assets and delta-neutral strategies managed by Ethena. The shift aims to create a more resilient, diversified reserve portfolio that can perform across different market conditions, reducing reliance on funding rates alone. Ethena states that the core architecture and redemption mechanism remain unchanged, and all new strategies are conservatively sized and overcollateralized.
Chaos Labs, a risk service provider to the Aave DAO, announced it is stepping down from its role managing risk for the Aave protocol. The departure follows the recent exits of other major contributors, including the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) and BGD Labs. Chaos Labs said the decision was driven primarily by a disagreement over how risk should be managed, particularly as Aave V4 expands. In response, Stani Kulechov stated that Aave Labs was open to increasing Chaos Labs' compensation to $5 million, but did not support other aspects of their proposal, which he says included making Chaos Labs the sole risk manager, replacing Chainlink as the default oracle provider, and adopting Chaos Labs' vaults as the default. Kulechov confirmed that risk management responsibilities will continue without disruption.
Ethereum researcher Toni Wahrstätter launched txdelay.xyz, a tool that tracks average Ethereum transaction inclusion times. He estimates that the current delay is around 6 seconds, but expects it to increase by ~2 seconds under ePBS (EIP-7732), a feature planned for the upcoming Glamsterdam hardfork. He noted ePBS has a similar effect to increasing slot times to 16 seconds, meaning Ethereum would need ~8-second slots to return to today's inclusion delay. The tracker uses data from ethPandaOps' Xatu nodes, comparing when transactions are first seen in the mempool versus when they are included onchain.
Resolv postmortem
Polygon stablecoin sandwich
Aave v4 hits $10m deposits
Staked ETH hits ATH
Opsec SEAL Frameworks
Drift Protocol incident update
Sreeram on AI x crypto
BitMine adds $71k ETH
Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.
#918 - LI.FI One-Click wstETH Staking
Users can swap any asset on any supported chain into wstETH in a single transaction.
One-click wstETH staking via LIFI.
Bank of Canada DeFi lending report.
EF stakes 23,000 more ETH.
Revoke Cash extension update.
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Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. LI.FI, Chainlink, and Lido launch one-click wstETH staking. The Bank of Canada publishes a DeFi lending report. And the Ethereum Foundation stakes 23,000 ETH from its treasury. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/918 Sponsor: Lido Earn lets you deploy ETH or stablecoins into curated DeFi strategies for optimised yield.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ID5KLTjyYjU8MO3KZztHA)
EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn
LIFI, Chainlink, and Lido have teamed up to introduce one-click, cross-chain staking into wstETH, enabling users to swap any asset on any supported chain into wstETH in a single transaction. LI.FI handles transaction routing and pricing through its API, while Chainlink powers the cross-chain infrastructure via Chainlink CCIP and maintains liquidity balance using Chainlink automation. Lido, the largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum, stakes the ETH on Ethereum's beacon chain and issues wstETH. Together, the integration delivers a seamless, unified user experience for cross-chain staking. Lido recently hit 100,000 ETH in TVL on its EarnETH DeFi vault, which was launched just 3 weeks ago on March 12. Disclosure: Lido is an ETH Daily sponsor.
The Bank of Canada published a report on DeFi lending, focusing on returns, leverage, and liquidation risk, using Aave V3 as a case study. The report found that earnings are concentrated, with a small number of tokens generating most of the profits, while overall returns remain low but stable due to low operating costs and conservative, overcollateralized lending. The report also highlights that about 20% of borrowing activity comes from recursive leverage strategies. Overall, it characterizes DeFi lending as transparent, automated, and cost-efficient, with risk managed through strict collateral requirements and liquidation mechanisms. The report concludes that lending without traditional intermediaries is technically and operationally viable.
The Ethereum Foundation executed an additional staking deposit of 23,000 ETH from its treasury to the Ethereum Beacon chain as part of its broader goal of staking 70,000 ETH. The addition brings the foundation's current total staked ETH to 47,050 ETH. The staking rewards flow back to the foundation treasury to support Ethereum ecosystem initiatives. The foundation is using minority clients, multiple Beacon and Execution client pairings, and a mix of hosted and self-managed infrastructure across jurisdictions.
Ethereal news weekly #18
Revoke Cash extension update
ZachXBT USDC files
Lido EarnETH hits 100k ETH
ENS referral program
EIP-7702 goes live on Linea
Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.
#917 - Safenet Beta Launch
A transaction security network designed to protect Safe account activity by enforcing security checks.
Safe launches Safenet Beta.
x402 Foundation under Linux.
OpenCover Covered Vaults.
Circle announces cirBTC.
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Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. Safe launches Safenet Beta. x402 Foundation moves under the Linux Foundation. OpenCover introduces Covered Vaults. And Circle announces cirBTC. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/917 Sponsor: Lido Earn lets you deploy ETH or stablecoins into curated DeFi strategies for optimised yield.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0NsATNluNcdn6U7OrLtshd)
EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn
Safe launched Safenet Beta, a decentralized transaction security network designed to protect Safe account activity by enforcing security checks before transactions are executed. Safenet works through a network of validators that evaluate proposed transactions against predefined security rules. If a transaction passes, validators issue onchain attestations, which are verified before execution. Transactions that fail the checks are blocked unless users explicitly override them. The system replaces centralized warning tools with protocol-level security enforcement. The beta launch includes six initial validators, such as Gnosis, Safe Labs, and Blockchain Capital, along with features like basic attack protection, a staking interface, and a public attestation explorer. The launch also evolves the SAFE token into a network security asset, allowing validators and delegators to stake SAFE and earn rewards.
Coinbase announced that the x402 Foundation, an initiative to establish the x402 protocol as a universal standard for AI-driven payments, is moving under the Linux Foundation. The shift is intended to ensure vendor-neutral, community-governed oversight of the protocol, with backing from major tech companies including Cloudflare and Stripe. The foundation, established in September 2025, supports x402, an open protocol launched in May 2025 that builds on the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code to enable a native payment layer for the web. It facilitates instant, primarily stablecoin-based transactions, along with deferred settlement capabilities.
OpenCover introduced Covered Vaults, a new product for vault-native risk transfer, enabling insurance for vault deposits. It allows users to protect their positions against technical or economic risks by paying a flexible, usage-based premium, without committing to fixed terms. The solution is built on the underwriting infrastructure of Nexus Mutual. Covered Vaults integrates with DeFi protocols like Morpho and Kiln. Users who deposit into existing ERC-4626 vaults can stake their vault shares into Covered Vaults to activate protection. Coverage can be disabled at any time. Initial vaults will be available on Base and OP Mainnet.
Circle unveiled cirBTC, its own version of wrapped Bitcoin backed 1:1 by BTC. The token will initially launch on Ethereum and Circle's Layer-1 blockchain Arc, with plans for multichain support in the future. Circle says cirBTC will be integrated with USDC and Circle Payments. The launch rivals with Coinbase, which introduced its wrapped Bitcoin, cbBTC, in 2024. Skepticism remains around centralized wrapped tokens due to potential censorship risks, as highlighted by USDC, which can be frozen at any time.
Other News
Paragraph launches publish.new
Obol Q1 ecosystem report
Vyper to be formally verified
Geth Keeper performance
Shape takes protocol guild pledge
IMF journal on tokenization
Vitalik on self-sovereign LLM setup
Coinbase conditional OCC charter approval
OpenCover covered vaults
Venice supports x402
OpenAI acquires TBPN
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Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.