MakerDAO Approves Huntingdon Valley Bank
The new vault will allow the bank to borrow DAI after depositing off-chain loans on its balance sheet as collateral.
Aave proposes a native $GHO stablecoin.
MakerDAO approves Huntingdon Valley Bank.
Reddit launches Avatar Collectable NFTs.
Aztec Connect is now live on mainnet.
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MakerDAO governance has approved Huntingdon Valley Bank as a new vault type on the protocol. The new vault will allow the bank to borrow DAI after depositing off-chain loans on its balance sheet as collateral. Initially, the bank will be able to borrow up to $100 million DAI. A new trust company called MakerDAO Bank Participation Trust was created to co-manage the bank's loan assets on behalf of MakerDAO. The proposal passed on July 4th with 87% approval from delegated votes.
Reddit announced the launch of its Polygon-based NFT avatar collection. Reddit Collectable Avatars are avatar collections featuring designs from more than 20 artists. They are being sold directly from the Reddit Avatar Builder which lets users create custom avatars. The price of Reddit Avatar Collectable NFTs ranges from $9.99 to $99.99 and can only be purchased with a credit or debit card. All proceeds go directly to the artist including a portion of royalties from secondary sales. The NFTs are stored in a user's Vault, which is Reddit’s native EVM-compatible wallet. Once an NFT is minted users can use it as their avatar and mix and max various accessories in the builder. Users who hold an NFT also have a glow-like effect next to their comments on the platform. The Avatar Collectable NFTs will become transferable at a later date.
Aztec Network revealed the launch of Aztec Connect, a decentralized ZK network with native smart contract privacy. Developers can now integrate with the network using either a bridge contract or through an SDK. Aztec Connect enables private DeFi transactions by managing user funds in an Ethereum smart contract. Users simply deposit funds into the network. Once funds are in the network, any transactions within the rollup will remain private because they are batched and executed by the smart contract. The zk.money privacy tool was also rebranded as a Private DeFi Aggregate and has native support for Element Finance and Lido Finance. Aave, Compound, and Liquity are among the next set of protocols to integrate with the rollup.
Aave has proposed the launch of a multi-collateral USD-pegged stablecoin coined $GHO. If approved, users will be able mint $GHO by using assets on Aave as collateral. When a user repays a position, the borrowed $GHO will be burned. The proposal seeks to send 100% of interest payments accrued by $GHO minters to the AaveDAO. AAVE stakers will also receive a discount on the $GHO borrow rate. All decisions relating to $GHO, including the launch of the product, will be voted on by Aave Governance.
ZigZag released a new UI upgrade this week. The upgrade includes light mode and an AMM-style UI for converting tokens. ZigZag also plans to implement multi-hop functionality at a later date. The exchange revealed that it plans to add support for Arbitrum, an Optimistic Rollup scaling solution. The integration will support traditional spot trading and will be an interim chain while ZigZag awaits further developments from zkSync and StarkWare.
Sepolia Testnet Merges Successfully
Sepolia is the second of three public testnets to undergo the merge
Sepolia testnet merges successfully.
Only 17% of Ethereum stakers are in profit.
Yuga Labs stress test for Otherside Metaverse.
Ondo Finance raises $10 million in a token sale.
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The Sepolia testnet merged successfully without any client-related issues. The merge experienced about 95% of validator participation on Sepolia. Although a small group of validators were offline due to incorrect configurations, there were no significant issues that would further delay the merge on mainnet. Sepolia is the second of three public testnets to undergo the merge. Ropsten successfully ran through the merge on June 8th. Goerli will be the final testnet to undergo the merge before the mainnet transition. Unlike Sepolia, Goerli will maintain an open validator set to allow for all stakers to test the transition.
stETH, the liquid staking token from Lido Finance, is recovering steadily after de-pegging as much as 6.5% during major liquidations. On June 19th, stETH reached a low of 0.935 ETH and has since risen back to 0.973 ETH on the market. Although it has not fully recovered, the peg is improving as the merge approaches. stETH initially faced an imbalance in the Curve liquidity pool after the collapse of Terra. This caused LPs to withdraw, including 3AC and Celsius, which withdrew a combined $780 million worth of liquidity. Large holders dependent on the peg also disposed of their positions in the following weeks. Lastly, 3AC liquidated their stETH position in mid-June to top up collateral for loans on Aave. stETH is fully backed 1:1 by ETH. However, redemptions remain locked until after Ethereum’s transition to PoS. This created a liquidity crunch on secondary markets with more holders looking to sell. After the merge, a certain amount of staked ETH will be unlockable, enabling stETH holders to redeem on a first-come basis.
According to analytics platform Glassnode, only 17% of staked ETH is currently in profit compared to the fiat value at the time of deposit. This comes as the price of ETH has plummeted more than 75% from an all time high of $4,891 in November 2021. At its peak, the total dollar value of staked ETH reached $39.7 billion. At current prices, the fiat value of all staked ETH is less than $17 billion, even though the deposit contract now holds more than 13 million ETH. On average, beacon chain stakers are holding at a fiat loss of about 55%.
Yuga Labs successfully ran a stress test of its metaverse game Otherside Meta. Otherdeed NFT holders were able to turn their NFTs into playable 3D characters and test the game for approximately 25 minutes. Holders were required to sign a gas-less signature to verify ownership before playing the game. The test was region-specific to users in North America and Europe with more than 2,500 users joining the testing session concurrently. Otherside Metaverse is being built by the software company Improbable. The company’s Morpheus technology can support over 10,000 users inside a virtual space without lag. Otherside plans to deliver a first experience tech demo on July 16th.
DeFi platform Ondo Finance raised $10 million from selling around 2% of its token supply through a public token sale operated on CoinList. More than 18,000 purchasers participated in the sale. The Ondo DAO must still vote to make the tokens transferable. $ONDO has a total supply of 10 billion.
ethOS Releases Phone Operating System
ethOS 1.0 supports a local Ethereum Light Node and Over The Air (OTA) updates.
ethOS phone operating system.
Voyager files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
2.5m ETH burned since EIP-1559.
Immutable expands L2 fiat off-ramp.
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Ethereum OS, an open-source ethereum operating system project, announced the beta release of its mobile operating system. Users with an OEM unlocked Google Pixel 3, 3XL, or 5a can use the ethOS web installer to install a crypto native operating system. ethOS 1.0 supports a local Ethereum Light Node and Over The Air (OTA) updates. Users can install native dApps, make crypto payments, and have ENS integration. ethOS is planning to integrate XMTP for decentralized messaging as well as an application for minting NFTs directly from the device’s camera roll.
Crypto lending platform Voyager has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich posted a Twitter thread announcing that customers will be refunded in a combination of assets. This includes part of the crypto in their account, proceeds from the 3AC recovery, common shares in the company, and Voyager tokens. In late 2021, Voyager had $1.3 billion worth of assets under management. In March, the company provided 3AC with a $1 billion loan consisting of 15,250 BTC and $350 million USDC. In June, the company revealed that 3AC had defaulted on its loan and owes Voyager $654 million worth of assets. 3AC later filed for Chapter 15 Bankruptcy, protecting its U.S. assets. Citing the unpaid loan, Voyager suspended trading, deposits, withdrawals, and loyalty rewards for all accounts on July 1st.
Since the implementation of EIP-1559, Ethereum has burned more than 2.5 million ETH, currently worth about $3.1 billion. EIP-1559 provided a new transaction pricing mechanism with fixed-per-block network fees, known as the base gas fee, which is burned. The EIP was implemented during the Ethereum London hard fork, which occurred 11 months ago on August 5, 2021. To date, roughly 20% of Ethereum transactions still use the legacy gas fee option, which sends 100% of the gas fee to the miner. Some hardware wallets such as Trezor and Ledger applications still use the legacy option.
Immutable released its crypto-to-fiat off-ramp integration with Moonpay as an SDK available to developers building on ImmutableX. The product allows users to sell ETH held on their L2 Immutable wallet directly for fiat. The funds are then deposited directly into a user’s bank account via Moonpay. Users must still pay a 1% Moonpay transaction fee for each trade. The crypto-to-fiat functionality is available in the Immutable SDK v1.21.3. ImmutableX is an L2 scaling solution being built on StarkEx. MoonPay is a fiat gateway for buying and selling crypto and NFTs.
Gitcoin facilitated $9.4 million in value transfer for Q2 2022. Gitcoin Grants Round 14 in June marked the platform’s largest round to date with over $1 million contributed. Gitcoin has facilitated a total of $63.5 million for open-source software projects. To date, Gitcoin has helped more than 10,000 unique earners.