An Ape's Prologue Weekly (15 February)

Important DeFi News

• Starknet, an L2 validity rollup, has released token airdrop details for its $STRK token with 7% of total supply to be distributed to eligible wallets on 20th February. Its pre-launch futures price at $1.75 on Aevo and Hyperliquid currently imply a market cap of over $1

• Starkware, the developer behind Starknet, is set to launch Cairo Verifier in the coming weeks. This technology will allow L3 verification proofs to be posted on its L2 blockchain

• Polygon, an Ethereum scaling protocol, has developed a Type 1 prover allowing ecosystem chains to unlock ZK-proof L2 functionality

• Blast, a native-yield Ethereum L2, has received over 3000 submissions for its Big Bang competition as registration comes to a close, signalling developer interest in the chain. Winners of the competition will receive 50% of the chain’s upcoming token airdrop and be featured upfront to the users who have locked $1.75B in $ETH in the protocol so far

• Vertex, a cross-margin orderbook DEX, announced Vertex Edge, a Synchronous Orderbook Liquidity layer that unifies cross-chain DeFi liquidity for spot, perpetuals, and money market on a single platform

• CoWSwap, a meta-DEX aggregator, has launched CoW AMM, an MEV-capturing AMM that prevents LP funds from being lost to frontrunning and sandwich bots

• SushiSwap, a multi-chain DEX, has announced Susa, its own perpetuals exchange built on the Layer N blockchain

• Prisma Finance, an LST stablecoin protocol, introduced $ULTRA a stablecoin separate from $mkUSD, backed by LRTs starting with $weETH from ether.fi

• Paraswap, a DEX aggregator, announced Augustus V6, an upgraded aggregator contract that is 14.8% more efficient along with minimized trade reversals and additional safety features for rebase and volatile tokens

• Moby, an ICO platform on Ethereum, introduced Staking V1, offering a tiered protocol fee distribution system that is weighted exponentially heavier toward large $MOBY stakers

• Klaytn and Finschia, blockchains backed by Asia’s leading internet conglomerates, have obtained governance approval from both sides to merge their networks along with $KLAY and $FNSA into a single native token

• MilkyWay, a Celestia LST protocol, has launched the mPoints program for farming its protocol token. 10% of $MILK’s total supply has been allocated to the airdrop farming program

• Trader Joe, a multi-chain DEX, has launched $SHOE, a token based on the DN-404 contract launched on Avalanche enabling users to swap the token on both traditional DEXs and NFT marketplaces

• PlayDapp, a crypto gaming and NFT platform, was exploited for $290M in $PLA tokens over the past week. The team has since announced a plan to reissue the token based on a snapshot prior to the attack

Governance Proposals

• Optimism DAO is proposing implementing the Ecotone network upgrade, bringing the adoption of EIP-4844 and activating Dencun L1 extensions

• Spark SubDAO is proposing to raise $wstETH supply cap from 800k to 1.2M

• Safe DAO is currently discussing strategies for enhancing token utility for $SAFE

• Treasure DAO is currently discussing which ecosystem to build Treasure Chain upon

• Mars Protocol is currently voting to reintroduce staking rewards for a period of two months, allocating 1.5M $MARS for it

News

• Spot $BTC ETFs have seen net inflows of over $4B since launch according to CoinShares

• Ethereum’s validator entry queue surged to its highest since 6th October, signalling renewed interest in $ETH staking

• Franklin Templeton has filed for a spot $ETH ETF over the past week

• Crypto custodian Taurus has enlisted Lido to bring LST to Swiss banks

• Citibank has used Avalanche’s Spruce Subnet to explore the tokenization of private equity funds

• Spanish telecom giant has partnered with Chainlink for improved SIM security

• Major crypto companies have abstained from advertising on Super Bowl this season

• The Block and Wintermute have announced the GMCI 30, a benchmark index tracking the market performance of large-cap cryptocurrencies

• Ethereum’s NFT volume hit its highest weekly level since late February last year

• Solana’s “chapter 2” smartphone has hit 100k presale orders, securing $45M for its development

• New York has expanded its fraud case against DCG from $1B to $3B

• Binance founder CZ’s sentencing has been postponed from 23rd February to 30th April

• The U.S. Treasury is set to discuss concerns about cryptocurrency usage in unlawful activities in an upcoming hearing. Meanwhile, Japanese regulators are advocating for enhanced monitoring of illegal crypto transfers