Last Week in DeFi - Circle CCTP, Blur Lending, Set Deprecating, and More...

Recap: Week of April 24th

Product Launches 🚀

• Circle CCTP
  Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) now supports native USDC bridging between Avalanche and Ethereum. Previously, Avalanche users who held USDC on Ethereum had to deposit their coins with a Circle partner or use a third-party bridge to transfer their USDC from one network to another.

• Swell Network Beta
  Liquid staking protocol Swell Network launches beta on Ethereum, offering zero-fees staking with an opportunity to participate in Swell’s governance.

• Blur Lending Live
  Blur launches NFT lending with initial support for Azuki, Punks, and Midaly. And lending points have replaced listing points on the supported collections.

• Robinhood Connect
  Robinhood launches Robinhood Connect, a fiat gateway for custodial wallets & dApps. Connect allows users to fund their web3 wallets without leaving the dApps and devs are able to integrate Connect to their dApps.

• Polygon Bridge for zkEVM
  Polygon PoS Bridge is now available for Polygon zkEVM. The bridge comes with some UX improvements including a more visible progress bar, tx history, and recent tx panel with color-coded completion status, time estimates for pending tx, and the ability to filter.

• Filecoin FWS
  Filecoin launched FWS, the web3 version of AWS. FWS offers a stack of computing, storage, and networking services, empowering devs to build dApps.

• Vertex Live on Arbitrum
  Vertex is now live on Arbitrum, enabling cross-margin trading for spot and derivatives. Vertex combines an off-chain order book layered on top of an on-chain automated market maker on a decentralized, self-custodial exchange.

• Zilliqa EVM Compatibility
  L1 Zilliqa rolled out EVM compatibility to its mainnet, adding support for EVM wallets and dApps.

• Cashmere on Testnet
  Cashmere, an MEV-protected cross-chain swap, is now live on testnet and will be deployed to 11 chains including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, etc.

Project Updates 🚩

• Phantom Supports Multichain
  Phantom now supports users to manage tokens and NFTs on Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana without switching their wallets.

• Google Cloud x Polygon Labs
  Google Cloud and Polygon Labs announced a multi-year strategic alliance to accelerate the adoption of core Polygon protocols, including Polygon PoS, Polygon Supernets, and Polygon zkEVM, with Google Cloud infrastructure and developer tools.

• Magic Eden AMM Pools
  Magic Eden launches AMM pools on Solana. AMM pools allow users to manage sell-side, buy-side, and double-sided LPs on Magic Eden.

• LayerZero on Polygon zkEVM
  Interoperability protocol LayerZero is now live on Polygon zkEVM, enabling devs to build on Polygon zkEVM and expand to 30+ supported chains with ease.

• Optimism Superchain Token List
  Optimism introduces the Superchain Token List. The token list serves as the source of the Optimism bridge UI and Base bridge UI, allowing devs to use it for token discovery when deploying apps on the Superchain.

• ether.fi Operation Solo Staker
  ETH staking protocol ether.fi launches Operation Solo Staker program. For limited spots, the program offers Solo Stakers a free machine to run an Ethereum validator node and the ETH to stake.

• ARB for DAOs
  Arbitrum has airdropped the 1.13% token allocation to DAOs. According to Nansen, top recipients include Treasure (8,000,000 ARB), SushiSwap (4,249,418 ARB), Dopex (3,867,103 ARB), Radiant Capital (3,348,026 ARB), and Balancer (3,090,486 ARB).

• ZetaChain Incentivized Testnet
  EVM-compatible L1 ZetaChain is now accepting applications to be a validator for its Athens-3 incentivized testnet.
  Applicants will have to apply via CoinList before April 30.

Governance Highlights 📝

• Arbitrum AIP 1.1, 1.2 Votes
  Arbitrum previously passed the temperature check of AIP 1.1 & 1.2 and will launch formal votes on Tally soon.

• GMX to Integrate Chainlink
  GMX voted to integrate with Chainlink’s new low-latency oracles. GMX will join Chainlink as the launch partner, integrating the new oracles in its upcoming GMX V2 to support market data.

Hacks/Issues 👾

• Level Finance Exploit
  BnB chain-based perpetual protocol Level was exploited and lost ~$1.09m. The attacker exploited Level’s Referal Controller contract and repeated claims to drain the funds. The team has isolated the exploit and will deploy the fix in 12 hrs.

• MerlinDEX Rug Pull
  zkSync-based DEX Merlin lost over $1.82m. According to the Overnight.fi team member, this seems like a rug pull.

• Sushiswap Claim Portal Live
  SushiSwap launches the claim portal for users that were affected by the RouteProcesser2 exploit.

Upcoming ⏳

• Set Protocol Deprecating
  Asset management protocol Set will deprecate its protocol v2 and TokenSets and they will implement the change by the end of May.

• Sui Mainnet
  L1 Sui will launch its mainnet on May 3rd.

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