• Aave proposes Umbrella Safety Module.

• Velodrome introduces GovNFTs.

• Umbra Research introduces srAMM.

• Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act.

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Aave published a proposal for implementing the Umbrella Safety Module, an upgrade to the Aave Safety Module that introduces revenue redistribution. The Aave Safety Module provides stakers with rewards in exchange for providing bad debt coverage protection. Umbrella will replace the current safety module, aiming to segregate bad debt coverage, eliminate reliance on secondary market liquidity, and activate slippage-free debt burn coverage. Instead of using stkGHO and stkAAVE tokens, Umbrella will utilize Aave v3 aTokens for staking and slashing. Rewards will also be in their respective aTokens, financed by the local reserve factor collection. The proposal also seeks to launch a program to buy AAVE on secondary markets and distribute it to the ecosystem reserve. Following community feedback, the proposal will proceed to a temp check snapshot vote.

Velodrome introduced GovNFTs, ERC-721 tokens designed to manage the vesting of ERC-20 tokens and enhance governance participation by enabling holders to delegate voting rights even while tokens are locked. GovNFTs aim to help streamline the distribution of Optimism Grants, allowing recipients to vote without having to wait for tokens to vest. The GovNFT portal allows users to connect their wallets to set up delegation preferences. Users can also lock ERC-20 tokens to create a GovNFT. The recipient can then claim tokens as they become available. Velodrome has already distributed OP tokens as GovNFTs to incentivize active governance participation.

Blockchain research company Umbra Research developed a concept for a sandwich-resistant AMM (sr-AMM) as an application-layer solution to combat MEV attacks. In a typical sandwich attack, an attacker front-runs a user's order by purchasing the asset first, allows the victim's trade to execute at the inflated price, and then profits by back-running the transaction with a sale. The sr-AMM design ensures that no swaps execute at a price better than the starting price at the beginning of a trading slot. At the start of each slot window, it resets both prices and liquidity conditions. The sr-AMM keeps the bid price unchanged after a buy order, which disrupts the economic feasibility of sandwich attacks. However, the model does result in a wider trading spread.

CoinCenter director Jerry Brito annunced that the Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act has been reintroduced in the Senate with bipartisan support, aimed at simplifying the tax implications of small cryptocurrency transactions. The bill proposes to exemption low-value transactions from capital gains tax. It would allow for the exclusion of up to $200 in gains per transaction from taxable income, provided the transaction doesn't involve cash equivalents, business, or investment property.

• Farcaster Frames supports Polygon

• Coinbase USDT to USDC  auto conversion

• Zora introduces Sparks unit

• Starknet Payment Hub

• Bitwise posts ETH banner in NY

• Base introduces Onchain Network

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• Dakota introduces a crypto-native bank.

• Shadow launches a Univ3 dashboard.

• Caldera raises a $15 million Series A round.

• Polygon CDK integrates the bridged USDC standard.

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Dakota launched its crypto-native banking platform for businesses, offering support for ACH, wire, and crypto transactions. The platform also features competitive yield treasury management, customizable asset allocation, staking management, and insurance products for stablecoins. Dakota was founded by Ryan Bozarth, who previously managed Coinbase Custody. Coinbase Custody is the custodian for 8 of the 9 Spot ETH ETFs. Dakota is now live and available for early customers, including fintech firms, crypto startups, and foundations.

Shadow, a smart contract indexing platform, launched univ3.xyz, a dashboard designed to analyze Uniswap pool activity and liquidity dynamics. The dashboard leverages Uniswap v3 shadow events, which are offchain event logs that provide extensive data and insights beyond what is available in the original onchain contract. Shadow events can be retroactively added to any deployed smart contract without altering its functionality. The process uses a real-time database sync, eliminating the need for RPC calls or external APIs. Shadow aims to simplify data pipelines and provide hosted node infrastructure for anyone looking to build an onchain data indexer.

Caldera, a rollup-as-a-service infrastructure provider, raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by Founders Fund, bringing its total funding to $25 million. The fresh capital will be used to develop the Metalayer, a unifying layer for L2 and L3 chains. The Metalayer enables execution across rollups with a single transaction. Caldera launched a pilot NFT mint on the Metalayer, allowing users to mint NFTs across 18 Caldera rollups on testnet. Caldera supports custom rollup deployments on ZK Stack, OP Stack, Polygon CDK, and Arbitrum Orbit frameworks. Chains deployed on Caldera, such as ApeChain, RARI Chain, and Manta Network, collectively secure over $800 million in TVL.

Polygon CDK has integrated Circle's Bridged USDC Standard, allowing chains deployed on the stack to implement an upgradeable version of bridged USDC. The standard enables smooth future upgrades to native USDC without needing code changes. The integration minimizes liquidity fragmentation by eliminating the need for users to migrate their bridged USDC to native USDC.

• Day 1 ETH ETFs recap

• Day 2 ETH ETFs hit $1b volume

• Base increases gas target

• ArbOS 31 activated on Arbitrum Sepolia

• Lido DVT cluster update

• Crypto Index ETF filed

• Beaconcha.in V2 beta update

• Polymarket surpasses $1b volume

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• Spot ETH ETFs surpass $1b volume.

• Erigon releases Erigon 3.

• Ethereum Film releases its trailer.

• EtherFi achieves 2m restaked ETH.

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Today, spot Ethereum ETFs from eight issuers—Franklin Templeton, VanEck, Bitwise, 21Shares, Fidelity, BlackRock, Grayscale, and Invesco—launched with successful interest, surpassing $1 billion in combined volume on their first day. Leading the pack was Grayscale’s ETHE ETF, which achieved $462 million in volume. BlackRock’s ETHA followed with $250 million in volume. The total volume accounts for approximately 23% of Bitcoin’s first-day ETF volume of $4.6 billion. In the first 90 minutes of trading, ETH ETFs amassed $336 million in volume. The price of ETH remained relatively stable over the last 24 hours, fluctuating between $3,400 and $3,500.

Erigon released Erigon 3, the latest version of its client, which functions as an all-in-one EVM-node, supporting both the execution layer and consensus layer. Erigon 3 is optimized for use as an archive node, full node, and pruned node. Key features include ultra-fast RPC calls and the ability to exceed 1Ggas/sec in block production. The Consensus module, Caplin, uses advanced storage and data compression techniques, enabling it to serve as a Full Archive Consensus node for Beacon Chain history and blobs. Erigon 3 uses an internally developed database named QSM db. Erigon 3 is currently in an alpha phase with a beta release planned before the Pectra hard fork.

Ethereum Film released the trailer for "Vitalik: An Ethereum Story," a community-funded feature documentary focusing on the creation of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin's journey, and the global community of builders. The movie has been three years in the making, filmed across 28 cities and 15 countries. Users can mint the trailer as an NFT on Zora, with proceeds going towards production costs and supporting the Protocol Guild. The top 20 minters of the trailer NFT will gain access to the film’s in-person world premiere. The documentary will premiere on September 18th.

EtherFi, the largest liquid restaking protocol, reached a milestone of 2 million ETH in deposits, boosting its TVL to nearly $7 billion. EtherFi currently ranks as the fifth largest protocol on Ethereum by TVL. Earlier this month, EtherFi introduced staking for its native ETHFI token. EtherFi Cash, a credit card product that allows users to spend their EtherFi assets without needing to off-ramp, is set to launch in September.

• Avail goes live on mainnet

• Bitwise uses ENS subdomains

• Coinbase requests SEC documents

• Fault proofs go live on Base Sepolia

• Vitalik on exploring Circle STARKs

• ETH ETF Day POAP

• Harris to speak at Bitcoin conference

• Ethena reward-bearing asset proposals

• Privy supports Anomaly

• Introducing Abstract Chain

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