Wall Street giant, BlackRock continues their march forward into the crypto space with a new tokenized asset fund SEC filing, with $100 million in USDC seeded on-chain towards the fund. In the same week, Optimism rolled out their permissionless fault proof system on the Sepolia testnet in a move towards further decentralization of the Superchain.

Overview

Total Value Locked (TVL) across all chains dip further as cryptocurrency majors continue on their downtrend, taking down the altcoin market with it. Notable outperformers to the trend include Bitcoin L2, Stacks, Coinbase-backed L2, Base, and Move-based L1s, Sui and Aptos.

Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/chain-ranking/

Welcome to Alpha Central

With the AI space heating up as the next big narrative for the crypto space, Crypto Distilled breaks down the AI Agent sector and where it stands today.

TL;DR:

• Autonomous agents are the gold standard, being able to detect inputs and act based on their environment. They can self-learn and improve based on inputs and their actions

• Verification of accuracy and privacy of work done by the AI agent still remains difficult.

• AI agents could play a significant role in the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, with agents being able to instruct other bots and machines to streamline current workflows and processes.

Ethereum: BlackRock Deploys On-Chain Tokenized Asset Fund

Blackrock files for a tokenized asset fund with the SEC in collaboration with Securitize, seeding $100 million in USDC in the same week on the Ethereum blockchain. In true crypto fashion, users have been depositing memecoins to the same address and even dusting the address with ETH tokens from Tornado Cash.

Other Product Launches and Updates

• ETH native liquid restaking protocol, EtherFi, releases the second of their trilogy of products, Liquid, an automated vault strategy to optimize yield strategies for assets in the EtherFi ecosystem.

• Vault protocol, Yearn Finance, releases Yearn V3, unveiling new vaults and strategies for yield farmers on Ethereum. Yearn V3 vaults bring better automation, composability and flexibility to DeFi users.

• Multi-chain decentralized exchange (DEX), Paraswap, unveils Augustus v6, the latest update to the protocol for better routing and cheaper swaps. Unfortunately, a bug was uncovered shortly after and the funds were secured in a white hat hack, with refunds underway to affected users.

• Cross chain automated market maker (AMM), Catalyst AMM, opens their final testnet: Tiger. Tiger brings to the protocol multi-chain liquidity pools, instant finality and trust-minimized relaying.

• On-chain structured products provider, Index Coop, releases ETH2x and BTC2x, intending to provide leveraged exposure to ETH and BTC, powered by Aave. These new tokens are designed to replace the existing Flexible Leverage Index (FLI) tokens. Current holders do not need to take any action.

• F(x) Protocol releases rUSD, a stablecoin backed by liquid restaking tokens. Users can now mint and redeem rUSD while earning liquid staking yields, FXN token incentives, EtherFi points and EigenLayer points.

L2s: Optimism Launches Fault Proof System

Optimism releases its open-sourced, permissionless fault proof system on the Sepolia testnet, taking the next step forward to enable fully permissionless withdrawals and deposits onto the chain and chains within Optimism’s Superchain network.

Portfolio tracker and wallet provider, Zerion, announces their upcoming L2 chain, Zero, which is expected to launch in late Q2 or early Q3. The chain seeks to offer zero gas fees for users on the chain to help in onboarding new users into crypto.

BitDAO-backed L2, Mantle, teases the upcoming feature enabling the staking of MNT tokens to earn Ethena Shards, the point system of stablecoin protocol, Ethena.

Other Product Launches and Updates

• Multi-chain DEX aggregator, Matcha, releases gasless swaps on Optimism, enabling swaps without ETH in your wallets on the chain.

• StarkNet-based DeFi suite, Nostra, releases UNO, a StarkNet-native stablecoin backed by USDC. Users can now swap for UNO, borrow and lend it as well as deposit it into Nostra’s liquidity pools for boosted points.

Solana: Jupiter Exchange Supports New Launches With ILM

Solana DEX aggregator, Jupiter Exchange, unveils the Intuitive Launchpool Model (ILM), a generalized version of the LFG Launchpool, allowing any project to launch a specialized pool targeting the needs of their token and project.

Cosmos: Particle Network L1 Incoming

Wallet abstraction service, Particle Network, announced their plans to launch their very own L1, built on the Cosmos SDK and Berachain’s Polaris framework. The L1 seeks to power chain abstraction through universal accounts, unified liquidity across chains and universal gas tokens on all chains.

Cosmos-based Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain, Canto, announces the Canto Cyclone Stack, an upgrade to bring the parallelized EVM to the chain. The upgrade will take place over three phases, introducing faster block times, smoother transactions and removal of storage bottlenecks to the chain.

Injective launches Token Station, their native token launcher, enabling anyone to launch a token in a permissionless manner on Injective, with no-coding experience, in just a couple of minutes.

Another Week, Another Airdrop

Dymension RollApp, Nim Network, releases the eligibility checker for their upcoming NIM token airdrop, where 9% of the total supply, or 90 million tokens will be distributed. Eligible wallets include DYM stakers and specific token and NFT communities among others.

ETH liquid restaking protocol, EtherFi, opens claims for their first ETHFI token airdrop, with claims available until 16th June. Unclaimed tokens will be returned to the treasury and rolled into the Season 2 airdrop instead.

Bridging infrastructure protocol, PolyHedra Network, also opens up claims for their governance token, ZK. The claim period closes in one month, on 19th April.

Tweet of the Week

Cold Blooded Shiller once again drops wisdom on us as the market continues to chop this week, reminding us to not confuse gambling with trading.

Stay updated on your favorite projects and stay tuned for next week’s edition, and keep supporting your favorite projects, degens!