Weekly project updates: Arbitrum passes AIP-1.1 and 1.2, etc

1. ETH’s weekly summary

a. Ethereum Conference EDCON 2023 to be held in Podgorica, Montenegro in May link

Vitalik and other eight members of the EF confirmed to attend the Ethereum Conference EDCON 2023 held in Podgorica, Montenegro in May. This is the first time Vitalik Buterin has been seen in public since February 12 in Denver. Coincidentally, Terra founder Do Kwon has just been arrested in Podgorica, Montenegro and is currently being held in prison.

b. Flashbots rolls out MEV-Share to distribute profits with Ethereum users link

On April 20, Flashbots launched a beta version of the MEV-Share protocol to distribute MEV profits to Ethereum users. The protocol is incorporated into Flashbots Protect, an RPC tool integrated with user wallets aimed at defending against frontrunning transactions. MEV-Share achieves this by allowing users to control the transactions they execute on the Ethereum network.

c. Ethereum Foundation plans to bring Devconnect to Istanbul, Turkey link

On April 20, the Ethereum Foundation said it plans to hold the Devconnect conference in Istanbul, Turkey, for a week from November 13 to 19 this year. EF organized the first Ethereum Devconnect conference in Amsterdam in 2022. Devconnect is a week-long gathering that features independent Ethereum events, each with a unique focus.

2. Arbitrum’s weekly summary

a. Lido DAO initiates proposal to discuss ARB token allocation and usage link

On April 16, the Arbitrum Foundation announced that the Lido protocol is eligible to claim 772,621 ARB tokens. In response to this airdrop, the Lido DAO reWARDS committee has initiated a proposal covering operational and strategic themes related to claiming and effectively using the potential ARB tokens. Previously, a total of 113 million ARB tokens were allocated to 137 protocols and DAOs on the Arbitrum chain, including Treasure, GMX, and others, but only a few protocols like Stargate have discussed the allocation and use of these ARB tokens.

b. Uniswap Foundation to discuss allocation of 4.37 million ARB link

On April 18, the Uniswap Foundation announced that the 4.37 million ARB tokens previously distributed by Arbitrum will be sent to a UF-owned multi-sig on Arbitrum, and how to deploy these funds will be discussed in the community over the next few weeks.

c. Arbitrum DAO passes AIP-1.1 and 1.2 proposals with overwhelming support link

On April 18, AIP-1.1 and 1.2 proposed by Arbitrum DAO passed with 98% and 99% support respectively. The content of the proposal includes restrictions on the foundation’s expenditure, including smart contract mandatory locking timetable; clearly defined budget principles and categories, as well as mandatory transparency reporting; lowering the proposal threshold from 5,000,000 to 1,000,000 ARB, etc.

d. ZigZag has launched its new order book DEX on Arbitrum link

On April 21, ZigZag announced the launch of a new order book DEX on Arbitrum, and is soon to introduce Meta Trade functionality to deliver a Web 2.0-like experience. In addition, zkSync Era is still under development, and without the block.timestamp function, ZigZag can’t operate as an orderbook DEX. This limitation affects EIP-712 (off-chain) signatures. Rest assured, ZigZag will launch on Era as soon as possible.

3. Coinbase Layer 2 network Base plans to launch its mainnet in 2023 link

Jesse Pollak, Head of Base and Head of Protocol at Coinbase, said that the near-term plan is for Base to enter the mainnet and be decentralized. Many crypto businesses, platforms, markets, and infrastructure companies have committed to building on Base, including Blockdaemon, Chainlink, Etherscan, Quicknode, Aave, Animoca Brands, Dune, Nansen, Magic Eden, and more.

4. Sui’s weekly summary

a. Sui Foundation names Greg Siourounis as Managing Director link

On April 17, the Sui Foundation announced the appointment of Dr. Greg Siourounis as Managing Director. In this role, Dr. Siourounis will lead execution of the Foundation’s efforts to support the Sui community through the launch of the Sui Layer 1 blockchain and beyond. He previously taught at Brown University and University of Peloponnese. As an entrepreneur, Dr. Siourounis founded Capital Stream Management S.A.

b. Sui to launch the mainnet and unlock tokens on May 3 link

On April 20, Sui, another project in the MOVE language similar to Aptos, announced that it will launch the mainnet and unlock tokens on May 3. Previously, Sui tokens have been publicly sold through OKX, Bybit, and Kucoin exchanges. Binance, the main investor in Sui, was oddly absent from the IEO.

c. Sui Foundation announces 96,000 winners of recognition sale whitelist selection link

On April 20, the Sui team announced in Discord that after filtering out various unqualified accounts, the final total number of submissions for the Recognition Sale was 180,000, and the Sui Foundation randomly selected 96,000 winning accounts. The Sui Foundation will start contacting whitelist users by email on April 20, and activate the whitelist on the trading platform on April 21.

d. SUI announced its tokenomics link

On April 21, SUI announced its tokenomics. The Sui economy has three main sets of participants: users, SUI token holders, validators. These participants interact with each other in a variety of ways across the network and that interplay informs the three core components of Sui’s tokenomics: Sui’s Proof-of-Stake Mechanism, Sui’s Gas Mechanism, Sui’s Storage Fund.

5. Pancakeswap’s proposed token economic model fails to pass in community vote link

Pancakeswap voted on a new token economic model, including setting CAKE’s annual inflation rate at 3–5%; transitioning to a CAKE staking model, where stakers can allocate 5% of transaction fees from Pancakeswap V3 transaction volume. The final voting result was 41.63% in support and 56.42% in opposition, and the result was not passed.

6. SushiSwap announces integration with Transak link

On April 19, Sushiswap announced its integration with the well-known fiat gateway provider Transak, allowing users to directly purchase supported cryptocurrencies (about 130) with credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, supporting payments in 21 fiat currencies.

7. Solana’s weekly summary

a. Solana official releases 02–25–23 Solana Mainnet Beta Outage Report link

On April 19, Solana official releases 02–25–23 Solana Mainnet Beta Outage Report. On February 25th 2023 at approximately 05:46:16 UTC, the Solana Mainnet Beta cluster began to experience long block finalization times. Core developers investigating the event identified the cause of degradation to be congestion within the primary block-propagation protocol, known as “Turbine.” Abnormal network traffic saturated the capacity of Turbine and forced a majority of block data to be transmitted over the much slower fallback Block Repair protocol.

b. Helium has successfully migrated to Solana link

On April 20, distributed wireless network Helium announced that it has successfully migrated to Solana. The upgrade will implement several technical changes such as Smart Contract Platform, Lower Costs, Access to DeFi, SPL Compatibility and Open Source Development. Helium was previously delisted by Binance.

c. Solana DeFi project Serum with 200,000 followers has been renamed Luka link

On April 21, the official tweet of the Solana DeFi project Serum with 200,000 followers has been renamed Luka, and its PFP avatar has been replaced with Milady NFT and shitcoins have been promoted. Previously, exchanges such as Upbit have successively delisted Serum, and judged that the project has ended.

8. Aptos announced the launch of its Delegated Staking feature link

On April 21, Aptos announced the launch of its Delegated Staking feature. Users can now delegate their staking power to a trusted network validator and earn rewards as an individual. Delegated staking empowers individuals to earn staking rewards without having to become a validator themselves. Now, multiple wallets can stake APT on a single trusted validator node. Users can delegate their staking power and participate in staking with as little as 11APT.

9. Privacy network Iron Fish mainnet has launched link

On April 21, the Iron Fish mainnet, a privacy network that received $27.7m investment led by a16z, has launched. It claimed to be one of the largest ZKP processors; among the initially released 42 million Tokens, testnet airdrops accounted for 2.25%.

10. NFT’s weekly summary

a. Nike’s Web3 platform .Swoosh to sell NFT series OF1 on May 10 link

On April 18, sports brand Nike’s Web3 platform .Swoosh announced that it will publicly sell its first virtual sneaker NFT series “Our Force 1 (OF1)” on May 10, with a single price of $19.82. The company has previously earned about $200 million in revenue from NFT sales.

b. Moonbirds announced the launch of a reward token called TALONS link

On April 18, Moonbirds announced the launch of a reward token called TALONS in a Twitter space, which will be accumulated daily by NFT holders. The use cases for TALONS include whitelist access to upcoming exclusive drops, exclusive merchandise, IRL events, and collaborative experiences.

c. Donald Trump announced the launch of the second set of NFT collection cards link

On April 19, Former US President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social the launch of the second set of NFT collection cards, each priced at $99, issued on Polygon, with a total of 47,000 pieces.

d. Starbucks’ First Store Collection NFTs on Polygon: 4,579 Sold Out of 5,000 link

On April 19, Starbucks launched the First Store Collection NFT series on Polygon, with a total of 5,000 pieces available for purchase at $100 each. Purchasing the NFT also gave users 1,500 points for rewards in the Starbucks Odyssey app. Starbucks Odessey is launched in December 2022, and 6 NFTs have been issued so far. On April 21, the NFT series has ended its sales, with a total of 4,579 sold. This was the first NFT series released by Starbucks that did not sell out completely, which may be related to homogenization of rights and user fatigue with aesthetic designs.

e. Yuga Labs has scored a key win in its court battle with Ryder Ripps link

On April 22, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) creators Yuga Labs has scored a key win in its long-running court battle with Ryder Ripps, the co-creator of copycat NFT project RR/BAYC. The Court further ruled that Yuga Labs is entitled to an injunction and damages, the latter of which will be determined at trial. Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen created the BAYC derivative NFT collection RR/BAYC back in May 2022 as a satire and protest against Yuga Labs. The project essentially uses all of the same imagery from the BAYC NFTs.