0x API Slippage Protection
The feature enables MEV-aware smart order routing for DEX trades.
0x Protocol introduced slippage protection.
Celsius will have its First Day Hearing.
ETH.LIMO releases a V2 upgrade.
DeversiFi rebrands as Rhino.Fi.
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0x Protocol has introduced slippage protection for its 0x API. The feature enables MEV-aware smart order routing for DEX trades. The slippage protection works by incorporating slippage forecasts into the 0x API to provide users with the optimal trade route, inclusive of slippage and gas fees. Since 2020, MEV bots have extracted more than $650M from DEX traders. 0x also released a report that revealed larger trades experience significantly greater slippage. AMM trades larger than $100k incur an average slippage greater than 20 basis points. The 0x API is a DEX aggregation API for Web3 developers.
Insolvent crypto lending platform Celsius Network has shared that the company will attend its First Day Hearing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday, July 18th. The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York will hear Celsius’s motion and considerations for the next steps in the bankruptcy process. A recent court document filed by Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky revealed the company owes $1.2 billion in liabilities. The filing also claimed the company holds $600 million worth of its native CEL token, however, the token’s market cap is currently less than $350 million. Celsius stated they will provide the public with updates following the court hearing.
ETH.LIMO, a content delivery network solution for ENS and IPFS content, has released V2 of its infrastructure stack. The upgrade includes faster load times and support for CCIP-Read on L2 and off-chain lookups. CCIP Read (EIP 3668) is a protocol and framework that allows contracts to request external data as part of a call or transaction. ETH.LIMO also added support for fallback record checking on Nimi, a personal web3 profile page. Even without a defined content hash record, ENS users can view their web3 profile by adding .limo to their domain name (for example ethdaily.eth.limo). Nimi pulls ENS avatars, text records, and displays POAPs for a given wallet.
DEX DeversiFi has rebranded to Rhino, focusing on becoming an L2 gateway for multi-chain DeFi. Rhino is an L2 network built using StarkEx, a volition developed by StarkWare. The platform gives users access to Rhino’s native DEX, lending on Aave and Compound, and cross-chain bridging. Similar to dydx, users must deposit funds to Rhino to access low-cost transactions on the network.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new law banning the use of digital assets for payments in his country. The move comes after mixed regulatory signals from the Russian government, with the central bank calling for an outright crypto ban back in January 2022. The new law allows patrons to invest in digital assets but disallows its use as a means of payment. The law prohibits the transfer or acceptance of digital financial assets as consideration for transferred goods performed works, or rendered services. Since the war in Ukraine, crypto exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase have restricted Russians from using exchanges in compliance with U.S. and E.U. sanctions. Putin has previously expressed enthusiasm for Bitcoin mining, stating his country has a surplus of electricity for mining the asset.
Ethereum Merge Scheduled For September
The Merge is a two-phase process, with the first phase, referred to as Bellatrix, occurring when the Beacon Chain reaches a certain epoch height
The Merge on Ethereum is scheduled for September.
OpenSea lays off 20% of its employees.
ZKX raises a $4.6 million seed round.
Circle releases a transparency report.
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The Merge, Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake, is now scheduled for late September. The details were released in this week’s consensus layer call. The Merge is a two-phase process, with the first phase, referred to as Bellatrix, occurring when the Beacon Chain reaches a certain epoch height. The second phase occurs when the PoW chain hits a TTD value (aka difficulty bomb) on the execution layer. The Bellatrix upgrade for Ethereum Mainnet is set to happen in early September. The chain is expected to hit the TTD value approximately two weeks later, executing The Merge on Ethereum. The Ropsten and Sepolia testnets have already completed the merge. Mainnet Shadow Fork 9 (MSF9) also successfully happened earlier this week. Goerli will be the third and final testnet to undergo the merge process. The Prater Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for August 8th. The Merge on Goerli is scheduled for August 11th.
OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer revealed on Twitter that the NFT marketplace is laying off roughly 20% of its workforce. The layoffs come as OpenSea’s monthly volume fell by 76% for the month of June, marking its worst month since July 2021. The marketplace held an average of $2.5 billion in consistent volume each month since August. Finzer cited a prolonged downturn amid a crypto winter and broad macroeconomic instability as the reason for the lay-offs. According to Finzer, the changes will give OpenSea up to 5 years of runway at their current volume. Terminated employees will receive 12 weeks of severance pay and six months of healthcare coverage, according to Decrypt.
ZKX Protocol, a permissionless derivatives trading exchange built on StarkNet, has raised $4.6 million in a seed round. The round included participation from StarkWare, Crypto.com, Alameda Research, and Houbi Global among others. ZKX will use the funds to further the development of the protocol, fund its DAO, and continue the growth of the ZKX ecosystem. ZKX will release new features on testnet later this quarter with a mainnet release for Q4 2022. The company hopes to decentralize its node network in 2023. StarKNet is an L2 network that uses ZK-rollups and ZK-snarks, developed by StarkWare.
PolygonDAO has added Animoca Brands as its eighth hiring partner for its WAGMI JobDrops program. Other partners include Uniswap, Chainlink, Horizon, Router, and Paxo. Animoca Brands is looking to hire blockchain developers for multiple roles across its metaverse and NFT projects. PolygonDAO will host its first virtual job fair series for blockchain developers on July 23rd. WAGMI JobDrops is Polygon’s job board with over 500 verified web3 positions.
Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, released a transparency report for its USDC stablecoin. According to the report, Circle has $42.1 billion in US Treasury securities, $13.5 billion in cash, and $55.7 billion in $USDC reserves. Allaire stated the company is working towards daily public reporting on reserve assets and is seeking permission from its banking partners to disclose how much cash is held at each institution.
Safe Raises $100 Million Funding Round
GnosisSafe has spun out from GnosisDAO and is now rebranded as Safe.
Safe raises $100 million funding round.
Celsius files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Disney selects Polygon for its program.
MetaMask Mobile integrates popular RPCs.
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Safe has spun out from GnosisDAO after raising $100 million in a funding round led by 1kx. The round included participation from A&T Capital, Blockchain Capital, Digital Currency Group, ParaFi, and Lightspeed Ventures among others. Now rebranded as Safe, the multisig wallet solution has secured more than $40 billion in assets for users, including 13% of all Cryptopunks currently stored using Safe.
Disney has selected Polygon as a participant in Disney’s 2022 Accelerator program, a business and development program looking to develop new technologies within AR, NFTs, and AI. During the course of the program, each participating company will receive guidance from Disney’s senior leadership team, as well as a dedicated executive mentor. Polygon was the only Web3 company selected for the accelerator program. The other participants include Flickplay, Inworld, Obsess, Red6, and Lockerverse. The selected participants mark a potential play into the metaverse landscape for Disney.
MetaMask Mobile released v5.3 of its application with support for adding popular networks with a few clicks. Users can now click on “add network” and select from a pre-filled list of networks to add. The update includes integrated support for Avalanche, Arbitrum, Binance Chain, Fantom, Harmony, Optimism, Polygon, and Palm. The feature will be added to MetaMask’s Chrome extension in the next update.
ETH leaderboard developer Greg Skrill released ENS Fairy, a dapp for gifting ENS domains. The tool removes three transactions from the typical process of buying and gifting a domain. The dapp also has an ENS Fairy Vault, a multisig wallet managed by validator.eth and nick.eth to keep the names of brands and public figures safe until they're ready to be gifted.
Crypto lending platform Celsius has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy nearly a month after freezing customer accounts on June 12th. Under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, a company remains in possession of assets and has the authority to operate a business while undergoing a restructuring process. In its filing, Celsius requested continued payment of employee salaries and benefits without disruption. The company did not request authority to allow customer withdrawals. Celsius holds $167 million in cash which will in part be used to support operations. A new court filing revealed the company has a $1.3 billion hole in its balance sheet.