ConsenSys-backed zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) chain, Linea, sets off on their latest quest campaign, the Linea Voyage, the NEAR Foundation and Polygon partner up to support WASM chains on Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK), and finally, a new telegram trading bot is in town, released by Flashbots co-founder, Stephane Gosselin.

Massive week in the world of DeFi! Let’s dive deeper into what went down in DeFi this past week.

Overview

Total value locked (TVL) across all chains continues to climb as the crypto market continues its upward trajectory. Notable outperformers include Cosmos-based L1 chain, Kujira, and Move-based L1 chain, Sui, which both saw 62% and 44% increases in TVL respectively.

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

Welcome to Alpha Central

Wolfgang Vitale dives deep into the key developments at Solana Breakpoint in a mega 30 tweet thread.

TL;DR:

• Solana’s current healthy validator count (2000), geographical distribution, and low carbon footprint

• Jump’s Firedancer client and how it achieves its high performance through its unique infrastructure

• Solana Mobile and how it is pushing for wallet standards on iOS and a Safari extension for self-custody on Apple devices

• And more!

Ethereum: Lending Markets at Risk

Money market protocol, Aave, takes preemptive measures to freeze affected markets in Aave V2 and V3 across chains after a potential bug was discovered by whitehat developers. No funds were at risk.

LSDFi stablecoin protocol, Raft, has been exploited, resulting in unbacked minting of $6.7 million in their native stablecoin, R. Contracts have been paused and plans are underway to compensate affected users.

Other Product Launches

• Flashbots co-founder launches Telegram bot, Alfred, a trading bot that protects users and their trades from maximal extractable value (MEV) attacks. Users can use the bot now to earn loyalty points which could yield rewards in the future.

• MEV protection decentralized exchange (DEX), CoWSwap, launches Programmatic Orders, a new set of orders which enables orders to be set and executed into perpetuity, based on conditions set by the user.

• Liquid staking protocol, Rocket Pool, announces the upcoming Housten upgrade for the protocol, which seeks to introduce an advanced decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to govern the protocol.

L2s: Linea Voyage Sets Off

ConsenSys-backed zkEVM chain, Linea, begins the Linea Voyage, a new set of quests, starting the first week with tasks on fellow ConsenSys product, the MetaMask hot wallet.

Creator-focused L2, Frame, is now live on public testnet, opening the chain up for deposits via the Sepolia testnet. Users can now complete quests on the chain for soulbound badges, with the first quest being to bridge onto the chain.

Other Product Launches

• Optimism liquidity hub, Velodrome, launches Velodrome Relay, an automated voting and reward compounding mechanism for veVELO holders to increase automation and efficiency in the voting process.

• Dual investment DEX, Dyson Finance, launches on Polygon zkEVM, after a successful launch on Linea earlier this year. Users can complete tasks and interact with the application to qualify for the upcoming DYSN airdrop.

• Multi-chain DEX, SushiSwap, deploys Smart Pools across eight chains, enabling automated concentrated liquidity management on their platform. Smart Pools keeps users’ positions in range, greatly increasing the efficiency of their liquidity.

• Arbitrum-based hybrid orderbook-automated market maker DEX, Vertex Protocol, introduces Take Profit/Stop Loss orders on the protocol, enabling greater control over trades with partial reduction, complete position closure and more.

• Lending protocol, Notional Finance, is finally public with their V3 launch, which has thus far been in a private launch. V3 enables fixed rate borrowing and lending, leveraged lending and variable rate lending. Incentives are also now live on the platform.

• Options trading platform, Rysk Finance, announces the launch of Put and Call Debit Spreads, enabling greater capital efficiency over option trades and opening up more trade opportunities on Rysk.

• Polygon Labs and the NEAR Foundation are collaborating to develop a zero-knowledge prover for WASM chains, enabling greater flexibility for builders looking to utilize Polygon’s chain development kit.

• Perpetuals platform, Rage Trade, introduces its aggregator function, allowing traders to trade perpetuals across multiple chains and applications, including GMX, dYdX, Synthetix and more.

Solana: Lending Orderbook FlexLend Now Live

Lending protocol, Lulo Finance, launches FlexLend, an orderbook-based lending product where users can set their desired rates for lending. Funds will remain in their wallets until the desired rate is met.

Cosmos: Cosmos SDK Eden Upgrade

Cosmos unveils the v0.50 upgrade for the Cosmos SDK - Eden, designed to improve the developer and user experience in the Cosmos ecosystem and its appchains.

Elusive Cosmos L1, Berachain, rolls out private testnet invites to projects building on Berachain, looking to build the smoothest possible experience for the eventual public testnet.

Perpetuals DEX, dYdX, deploys the v4 chain on the Cosmos ecosystem. Trading, however, has not been enabled yet.

Another Week, Another Airdrop

Aptos-based trading platform, Blackwing, releases their retrospective airdrop to the 300 existing users who have been whitelisted on their platform.

InnerSphere releases a FlipsideCrypto calculator for the upcoming JUP airdrop by Solana DEX aggregator, Jupiter. Note that this is not an official calculator and official numbers may differ.

Tweet of the Week

CMS reminds us on how to find winners based on how the average retail buyer thinks.

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