Arbiturm Sets the Layer-2 Summer | SnapFingers Weekly #10
📂 Key Takeaways of the Week
- Up to September 6, $1 billion has been locked up in the Layer 2 network, 79% up in August.
- According to the test carried out by Chainnews, the cost of L2 entering Optimism is twice that of entering Arbitrum. The transaction fee of Optimism and Arbitrum is 40% of that in L1 and their Dex trading cost is 7% of that in L1, and the costs of adding liquidity each are 3.6% and 13% of those in L1.
- Some protocols are helping Optimistic Rollup solve the exit period problem. Matter Labs and Starkware are striving to implement EVM computing in ZK Rollup.
- Loot is making people see the potential of NFT Lego and understand Loot and its ecosystem.
📂 №1 Potential areas
Progress of Arbitrum and Layer 2
Up to September 6, over $1 billion has been locked up in the Layer 2 network. (l2beat)
On September 1, the eye-catching Arbitrum officially announced the launch of its mainnet test version Arbitrum One. In the meantime, Uniswap, Sushiswap, Balancer, DODO, and other applications are on the line as well. The co-founder of Offchain Labs supporting Arbitrum, Steven Goldfelder revealed that Arbitrum would not be issuing tokens on short notice, nor soon. The $120M Series B funding is only for equity funding. However, DAO is likely to be tokenized in the future.
-01 How to use Arbitrum layer-2 network
- Add Arbitrum One network. Automatically switch networks by accessing Arbitrum asset bridge (https://bridge.arbitrum.io/) or manually add the network through Metamask.
- Transfer assets on Ethereum mainnet to Arbitrum One L2 network using bridge (https://bridge.arbitrum.io/). Or you can transfer cross-chain your assets on other networks (such as BSC and Polygon) to Arbitrum using the Celer cbridge (https://cbridge.celer.network), costing only considerably inexpensive fees.
- Choose the DApp you want to use and conduct operations.
- Withdraw funds from Arbitrum One L2 network to Ethereum mainnet.
-02 Fees of Arbitrum, Optimism, and Ethereum
- Entry cost
Before users pick up L2 applications, they need to top their assets on L1 through a gateway or bridge to interact with applications in L2. Take the example of transferring ETH to L2, the cost entering Optimism is $70, entering Arbitrum is $30, half of the former.
- Transaction fees
The transaction fees on Arbitrum and Optimism is 40% of those on Ethereum mainnet in the same network.
- Dex transaction fee
Uniswap V3 is a DeFi trading protocol deployed on Ethereum L1, Optimism, and Arbitrum. Take the example of ETH-USDT, the transaction fee on Arbitrum and Optimism is basically the same (the cost in the real test is $4.3 and $4.4), 7% of the transaction on Ethereum mainnet.
- Costs for adding liquidity
Take the example of adding ETH-USDT liquidity in Uniswap V3, it takes $16 on Arbitrum (13% of Layer 1) and $4.4 on Optimism (3.6% of Layer 1).
-03 Recent progress on Layer 2
3.1 Optimistic Rollup Pathway
Advantage: EVM-compatibility
Disadvantage: longer challenge period
- Optimism recently launched a new gateway interface allowing users to transfer any tokens between the Ethereum mainnet and Optimism Layer 2 network. The emergence of Hop Protocol enables users to withdraw USDC and USDT quickly from Optimism to Ethereum mainnet, which prevents the users to wait another 7 days for Optimistic rollup withdrawal.
- Metis is a branch using OVM of Optimism. It plans to build a public testnet and launch its mainnet in October. It simplifies the transition of the existing Ethereum applications to L2 through Polis middleware.
- Arbitrum is 100% EVM-compatible. The issuer won’t need to rewrite programs for migration. There are already 74 projects fully deployed on testnet and 5 projects with mainnet online. The number of projects announcing its Arbitrum partnership has exceeded 400, leading the Ethereum Layer 2 competition.
3.2 ZK Rollup Pathway
Advantage: More secure
Disadvantage: non-EVM-compatible
- zkSync 2.0 claims to feature the security, high throughput, and high efficiency of ZK Rollup (ZKR) and EVM compatibility as well. Therefore, it is considered as the optimistic Ethereum scaling solution. The co-founder Alex G of the supporting team behind zkSync Matter Labs stated that to design and implement zkEVM is actually a tough project and that they had implemented a compiler-based zkEVM in their public testnet they are about to launch.
- StarkWare possesses two main products: ZK-Rollup scaling network StarkNet and L2 scaling engine StarkEx. Among those two, StarkEx is one application scene of StarkNet. At the end of July, StarkEx 3.0 was on its mainnet, enabling L2 users to easily interact with L1. Up to August 22, the number of total transaction orders has exceeded 10M and the number of registered users has reached over 100,000. StarkWare has provided basic services for dydx, deversifi and Immutable X. Most recently, dydx and Immutable X displayed powerful competitiveness in derivatives and NFT games. Warp from Nethermind is converting the ERC-20 contract EVM bytecode to StarkNet contract and deploying on StarkNet. The next thing is to convert any smart contract from EVM language Yul to Cairo.
- As the earliest Ethereum L2 network implementing zkRollup, Loopring embraced its new round of growth for its recent launching NFT minting, trading, and transaction functions.
Some protocols can help Optimistic Rollup solve the exit period problem. Matter Labs and Starkware are working on implementing EVM computing in ZK Rollup. With the comprehensive strength of Rollup increasing, the locked position growing rapidly, and the projects moved to Layer 2 network mounting, let’s look forward to the boom of Layer 2.
📂 №2 Highlighted Project
What is Loot?
Total supply of 8000 bags, with 222 reserved by the creator as rewards, in the form of eight lines of text in a pixel font with eight geat items: weapon, chest, head, waist, foot, hand, neck, and ring.
-01 “Fair Mint”
Loot is called a “fair mint” project because the contract does not sell the NFTs — they are free to mint aside from the gas cost. Loot is making the NFT minting process more decentralized. People claim Loot by calling a function directly on the contract, usually through Etherscan.
-02 Loot Lego (expand on the world of Loot)
Anyone can build derivative projects based on Loot. Many people think that Loot is like the Uniswap for DeFi as the building block bottom layer for the future of the Metaverse. According to the information disclosed on Loot’s minimalist website: there are currently 41 derivative projects built on top of Loot. Currently, some available gameplays include:
- First collection on the Loot’s project metadata. Generative and animated.
- Generates pixel characters from loot bags
- Provide a backstory for your adventurer
- Guilds divided by items and attributes
Loot is interesting because it leaves the interpretation open for any gaming publisher. One checks the NFT cards held by a user, generates character traits and gives back to the user. What’s in it for a publisher? A captive userbase that is willing to spend thousands of dollars. According to @joel_john95 of LedgerPrime
-03 Rights of Loot Holders
- Airdrop-Adventure Gold airdrops of 10,000 AGLD tokens for each Loot bag. Adventure Gold itself is a game that has not yet been developed. Currently, AGLD has become the governance token of the entire Loot community.
- In the future, Loot holders may obtain equipment or characters in the game that can be rent or sold, thereby generating cash flow and turning them into interest-bearing assets.
-04 More on Loot
- Dom Hofmann, the founder of NFT project Loot, tweeted that the new dynamic supply project More Loot (MLOOT) was launched. MLOOT numbers start from 8001 and are dynamically produced at 1/10 of ethereum’s block rate, around 250,000 per year, with a current cap of 1,316,005.
- Inspired by Loot, Yearn.Finance founder Andre Cronje has created the core of a game called Rarity. He’s created the fundamentals of the game, on the Fantom blockchain — where fees are relatively cheap. There 11 characters in the game: barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger rogue, sorcerer, wizard.
SnapFingers compiled the top recent headlines, 35 in total.
📂 №1 Market Data
#Macro
- The total issuance of stablecoins on the blockchain reached $83.06 billion, an increase of 1.1% from last week. (Debank, September 6)
- The global crypto market cap is 2.34 trillion, up 13% from last week. (CoinmarketCap, September 6)
- On September 3, Tether issued an additional 1 billion USDT in TRON.
#New Public Chain
- The total locked-up value of Solana Ecosystem was $4.74 billion, a record high, and the ranking rose to second place. (Defillama, September 6)
- The total lock-up volume of Fantom Ecosystem was $1.23 billion, a record high. It rose 62% in one week and rose to fourth place. (Defillama, September 6)
#Others #Wallet #NFT
- The number of active users of MetaMask in July exceeded 10 million, an increase of over 1800% over the same period last year.
- The total transaction volume of the NFT word game project Loot (for Adventurers) has exceeded $200 million, ranking first in the 7-day transaction volume.
📂 №2 Project Development
#Ethereum #Layer2
- L2 scaling solution Optimism released a new gateway interface, allowing any ERC20 token to access Optimism.
- The decentralized oracle machine Chainlink is launched on the Optimism network and has been integrated by Synthetix.
- Ethereum expansion network Arbitrum announced that the mainnet public beta version of Arbitrum One is fully online. The development team currently reserves the right to upgrade and set speed limits. Multiple applications such as Uniswap, Sushiswap, Balancer, and DODO have been launched simultaneously. #New Public Chain #Ecological Support
- On August 30, the smart contract platform Fantom announced the launch of an incentive plan, which will invest 370 million FTM to better adjust the incentives between users, builders, and the network.
- Celo officially launched the “DeFi for the People” alliance collaboration project. The Celo Foundation and Aave, Curve, Sushi, and other partners will provide more than $100 million in funds for ecological construction to realize DeFi mobilization.
#NFT
- Yearn Finance founder AC was inspired by Loot to launch the adventure game Rarity. The game contains 11 characters and 6 core attributes.
- Dave White, a research partner of Paradigm, a blockchain investment institution, proposed the NFT derivative solution Floor perps, a synthetic NFT that can track the reserve price of a given project, and it can be minted by locking the project’s NFT.
- CryptoPunks has signed an agency agreement with UTA and intends to enter Hollywood.
- FTX.US has launched the NFT minting function, and the access function will be available in the next few weeks.
- UTA, the largest brokerage company in the United States, has signed an exclusive contract with Larva Labs’ NFT art projects CryptoPunks, Meebits, and Autoglyphs. UTA will use these art projects for film, TV, video games, and publishing projects. (The Hollywood Reporter)
- The Binance NFT market launched the upper-scale NFT series of the Russian Hermitage Museum, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and other art masters. There are 5 NFTs in total. Available for auction, each with a starting price of 10,000 BUSD.
📂 №3 Large Corporations
#CeFi #Fund Raising
- Thai cryptocurrency startup Zipmex said on Tuesday it had raised $41 million.
- FTX.US said on August 31 that it was acquiring LedgerX, a CFTC regulated designated contract market.
- Crypto exchange Binance is planning an initial public offering for its US arm within the next three years depending on business growth, CEO Changpeng Zhao said.
- Blockchain.com CFO says the company could IPO in ‘18-months’ in 2023.
#Asset Management
- Billionaire fund manager Bill Miller has taken a significant position in Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC); the Miller Opportunity Trust owns 1.5 million shares of GBTC valued at $44.7 million.
📂 №4 Voice and Opinions
- According to Bloomberg Intelligence, bitcoin at $100,000, $5,000 ethereum is path of least resistance.
- Will Clemente tweeted on Sept 5th and quoted Glassnode data: In the past 10 days, the holdings of Bitcoin whales increased by 41,580 BTC, valued at approximately US$2 billion.
- Willy Woo tweeted on Sept 5th that NFTs are not in a bubble, not yet. Once they get fractionalised and traded with derivatives at scale, now that’s when it becomes a bubble.
📂 №5 Project Financing
#DeFi
- Polka ecosystem DeFi protocol, Parallel Finance, raised $21M in Series A funding led by Polychain Capital.
- Decentralized investment protocol Syndicate announced its completion of $20M Series A funding led by a16z and joined by over 150 investors including CoinbaseVentures.
- Avalanche ecosystem DeFi protocol Trader Joe completed its $5M token funding.
- Solana ecosystem algorithm stablecoin protocol UXD Protocol completed its $3M seed round funding led by Multicoin Capital.
#Infrastructure
- Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution Arbitrum completed its $120M Series B funding led by Lightspeed.
- The multi-chain crypto network based on NEAR, Octopus Network, finished its $5M Series A funding joined by Continue, Youbi and DCG.
#Other #DAO #NFT #Dapp
- Decentralized portfolio management protocol Pollen DAO completed its $500 funding led by The Graph and AlphaBit.
- NFT cross-chain trading platform PolkaFantasy raised $4.31M in its first round of NFT auditions.
- Crypto instant message network XMTP finished its $20M Series A funding led by a16z and joined by 19 institutions including Coinbase Ventures and approximately 90 individual investors.
🔖Follow SnapFingers:
Discord | Twitter | Youtube | Telegram | Medium | Website
📧E-Mail: contact@snapfingers.com
🔑SnapFingers Monthly Exclusive Access: Join Discord https://discord.com/invite/pypmaJYVQj
More to be unlocked:
💎SnapFingers Gem NFT
