Weekly project updates: StarkWare 2023 roadmap, etc

1. Solana’s weekly summary

a. Solana Labs announces open-source reference implementation for ChatGPT plugin link

On April 26, Solana Labs announced an open-source reference implementation for the ChatGPT plugin, allowing users to interact directly with the Solana network. Once the ChatGPT plugin is available, users will be able to check wallet balances, transfer tokens, and purchase NFTs. In addition, the Solana Foundation announced a $1 million fund to explore the intersection of Solana and artificial intelligence, with grant sizes ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.

b. Solana Wallet Phantom adds support for Ethereum and Polygon link

Solana Wallet Phantom adds support for Ethereum and Polygon, which was originally scheduled for the 2023Q1, but was delayed until today. Phantom once completed a financing of $109 million at $1.2 billion in January 2022. Paradigm led and A16Z participated.

c. Solana NFT Market Tensor surpasses Magic Eden in daily trading volume link

According to Flipside, on April 26, the Solana NFT market Tensor surpassed Magic Eden for the first time in single-day trading volume, accounting for about 51% of the Solana NFT market’s daily trading volume. Since the announcement of financing in early March and the adoption of a strategy similar to Blur, Tensor’s transaction volume and active users have seen a substantial increase. In April, the cumulative active users reached 20,000, a new high.

2. Proposed code changes for the next Ethereum upgrade discussed at ACDE link

On April 29, according to Christine Kim’s summary of the 160th Ethereum All Core Developers Meeting (ACDE), the meeting mainly discussed which code changes should be included in the upcoming Ethereum upgrade (Cancun). In addition to the protagonist of this upgrade, EIP4844 (reducing L2 transaction fees), developers also agreed to include the following EIPs in the upgrade: EIP6780 (modifying the functionality of the SELFDESTRUCT opcode, mainly to prepare for future Verkle tree applications), EIP6475 (introducing new simple serialization types for optional values to provide better readability and compact serialization), and EIP1153 (introducing transient storage opcodes). In addition, some EIP proposals have not yet been formally accepted for inclusion in the upgrade, and some have been determined not to be considered for inclusion in this upgrade.

3. StarkWare reveals 2023 roadmap with focus on performance and UX link

On April 25, L2 network StarkWare announced the 2023 roadmap. The current development focus is on performance and UX. In 2024, the focus will be on the decentralization of operations and decision-making. This may mean that the Token and airdrop will be in 2024.

4. Polygon’s weekly summary

a. Franklin Templeton expands its OnChain US Government Money Fund to Polygon link

Franklin Templeton, an investment management giant with about $1.4 trillion in assets under management, has expanded its OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund to the Polygon blockchain. Launched in 2021, the fund was first available on the Stellar blockchain. Polygon is the second blockchain the fund is supporting.

b. Polygon launches Polygon Bridge for zkEVM link

On April 27, Polygon announced the launch of Polygon Bridge for Polygon zkEVM, users can withdraw funds from the Ethereum mainnet within 30–60 minutes, supporting the expansion of ERC-20 and ERC-777. Previously, Polygon zkEVM was released as a Mainnet Beta on March 27.

c. Google Cloud and Polygon Labs announced a multi-year strategic alliance link

On April 27, Google Cloud and Polygon Labs announced a partnership to simplify the deployment and management of Polygon nodes and increase adoption of the ecosystem. Google Cloud will support all Polygon protocols, including Polygon PoS, Polygon Supernets, and Polygon zkEVM, reportedly helping developers save time and costs in deploying and managing nodes.

d. 0VIX suffers $2 million hack on Polygon POS network link

On April 28, the multi-chain lending protocol 0VIX suffered a hack on Polygon POS, resulting in a loss of around $2 million in USDC, USDT, and GHST. The attacker bridged the funds to Ethereum and converted them to 1,070 ETH. 0VIX is working with its security partner, and Polygon POS and zkEVM markets have been paused, though zkEVM was not affected. The root cause of the attack was a flaw in the price calculation of the deflationary token. The attacker borrowed a large amount of vGHST to increase the corresponding borrow amount, then transferred a large sum of money to the vGHST contract, affecting the conversion rate from vGHST to GHST. As a result, the contract became insolvent, and the attacker profited from liquidating it.

5. Andre Cronje launches closed beta of crypto payment infrastructure project link

On April 23, Fantom co-founder Andre Cronje said on Twitter that he is building an crypto payment infrastructure project and has launched a closed beta version of the product, which may not be open to US citizens and cannot avoid KYC.

6. Circle launches CCTP, a USDC cross-chain transfer protocol link

On April 26, Circle announced the launch of CCTP, a USDC cross-chain transfer protocol between Ethereum and Avalanche. CCTP is a permissionless on-chain tool that enables USDC to flow between different blockchains through local burning and minting. It is expected to expand to more public chains in 2023.

7. SushiSwap to propose tokenomics changes to promote Uniswap v3 adoption link

On April 27, SushiSwap announced plans to update its token economic model and adopt Uniswap v3, with a community-wide vote planned in late May. SushiSwap’s team also plans to roll out a series of changes to the protocol’s interface that aim to facilitate cross-chain swapping, according to Grey’s tweets. Prior to this announcement, the SushiSwap contract experienced an approval-related error resulting in losses of over $3.3 million.

8. Filecoin to launch Filecoin Web Services (FWS) link

On April 27, Filecoin announced the launch of Filecoin Web Services (FWS) this week, claiming to build an open-source alternative to AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. Filecoin introduces that the FWS technology stack includes various components such as computing, storage, and network resources, which developers can use to build decentralized applications.

9. Trust Wallet’s weekly summary

a. Trust Wallet browser extension discloses MT19937 pseudo-random number issue link

On April 22, according to SlowMist, a vulnerability related to the MT19937 pseudo-random number generator was disclosed in the Trust Wallet browser extension. Wallets created between November 14 and 23, 2022 are at risk. The MT19937 pseudo-random number generator used in the Trust Wallet browser extension did not provide enough randomness, allowing private keys to be cracked and leaked. The Trust Wallet team quickly patched the vulnerability, and all addresses created after those dates are safe. The attack resulted in a total loss of about $170,000 and a compensation process has been created for affected users on the official website.

b. Trust Wallet launches MPC solution with Web3Auth link

On April 26, Binance’s Trust Wallet announced the deployment of the MPC solution, powered by Web3Auth, users can access with their existing Google, Apple, Telegram and Discord accounts, SMS OTP and email recovery, and the MPC function is currently in beta.

10. NFT’s weekly summary

a. Coinbase launches Stand With Crypto NFT collection to promote crypto protection link

On April 25, Coinbase released a commemorative NFT series called “Stand With Crypto,” which features a blue shield emblem symbolizing the collective stance of protecting and promoting the crypto ecosystem. The NFTs were released on the Zora platform and were minted for free, without any practical value. As of the morning of April 29th, over 83,787 NFTs have been minted.

b. NFTfi introduces loyalty program with exclusive rewards for borrowers and lenders link

On April 26, peer-to-peer lending protocol NFTfi announced the launch of a loyalty program, NFTfi Rewards. Through organic borrowing and lending activities, users can earn virtual and non-transferable reward points, including OG points and Earn points. OG points are rewarded to borrowers and lenders who successfully repay their loans on NFTfi before the snapshot and start new lending activities before May 15, 15:00 CEST to protect their OG points. The majority of the points are allocated based on transaction volume, with a smoothing function applied to outliers. Meanwhile, Earn Season 1 will officially launch on May 15, with more points awarded for larger loans. The reward points will be planned to be redeemed for blockchain tokens or other benefits for eligible users at a later time.

c. Blur announces it will detect cheating behavior of Blur farmers link

Recently, some Blur farmers have been reported to withdraw their bids just before they are accepted, in order to obtain points without buying assets at risk. This may be someone using bots to bid, and as soon as the bot detects a user trying to sell, it quickly removes ETH from the Bid Pool. In response, Blur stated that this activity can be easily detected on the chain, and all cheaters will be filtered out starting from Season 2. Most on-chain analysis will be performed at the end of Season 2, but to improve the experience, the team will also begin filtering wallets in the coming weeks.

d. Magic Eden launches the Magic Eden AMM link

On April 28, Magic Eden announced the launch of the Magic Eden AMM, which allows users to act as buyer LP, seller LP, and bilateral LP. The current Maker fee is 0 (until further notice), and all liquidity pools have a 1.3x fee multiplier (with a $50,000 prize pool), and all fee multipliers will be sent to liquidity pool providers.