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News

Ethereum

Staked ETH Withdrawals To Activate On April 12

Ether Rallies 5%

By Samuel Haig

Ethereum’s long-awaited Shanghai and Capella (Shapella) upgrades will be deployed on mainnet on April 12, allowing ETH stakers to withdraw their coins for the first time.

Shapella’s scheduling drove a spike in the price of Ether, with the second-largest digital asset rallying 5% on the news. Shanghai and Capella will upgrade Ethereum’s execution and consensus layers, respectively.

Shapella has already undergone rigorous scrutiny on Ethereum’s testnets. The code passed its final dress rehearsal on the Goerli network on March 14, following successful deployments on Sepolia on Feb. 28 and Zhejiang on Feb. 8.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Decentralized Exchanges

Trader Joe is Fastest-Growing DEX After Shift to Uniswap v3-Like Model

The DEX launched its Liquidity Book model in November.

By Owen Fernau

Decentralized exchange Trader Joe is growing faster than its counterparts in 2023 thanks to a shift to a Uniswap v3-like model.

The DEX’s JOE token has more than doubled in the past two weeks to hit $0.57 as of Mar. 29.

Volume for the exchange isn’t far behind — Trader Joe has processed $609M in transactions in the past week, which represents a 28% jump compared to the previous seven-day stretch.

The DEX ranks fifth among all exchanges in terms of weekly volume and is growing faster than all DEXs in the top five this year.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Layer 2

ConsenSys Opens Public Testnet For ‘Linea’ zkEVM

Ethereum Scaling Race Heats Up

By Samuel Haig

Blockchain software company ConsenSys has opened up the testnet for its zero-knowledge rollup to developers and users.

Linea, which is one of several emerging zkEVM solutions seeking to couple Ethereum compatibility with the security and performance of zero-knowledge proofs, offers native integrations with ConsenSys’s infrastructure and tooling for developers.

The move comes as Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem becomes increasingly competitive, with Matter Labs and Polygon both launching their zkEVM solutions.

Optimistic rollups currently dominate Ethereum’s scaling ecosystem, but the new generation of zkEVMs promise to combine EVM compatibility with the fast finalization and security benefits of zero-knowledge-based solutions.

Read the full story in The Defiant

NFTs

Disney Shutters Metaverse Division

Blockchain Adoption Continues As Ticketmaster Launches Token-gated Ticket Sales

By Tarang Khaitan

The Walt Disney Company has shut down its metaverse division responsible for overseeing the company’s metaverse strategy, with all 50 employees reportedly laid off. The move is part of a wider restructuring by Disney, which will see its workforce reduced by around 7,000 and its budget cut by $5.5bn.

The news comes as Disney+ lost almost 2.4 million subscribers in the first quarter of this year. Meta, the social media giant, also recently announced that it will no longer support NFTs across its platforms, citing quality issues.

While some companies are scaling back, others are experimenting with blockchain technology. Amazon is due to launch its own NFT marketplace in April, while Ticketmaster has launched token-gated ticket sales.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Regulation

CFTC

Market Shrugs Off CFTC Lawsuit Against Binance

Declines in Binance TVL and token barely outpace broader crypto market

By Aleksandar Gilbert

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued Binance, its founder, and a former executive, accusing them of profiting from allowing Americans to trade on the platform without proper screening.

Despite the regulatory action, there has been little reaction in the crypto markets, and analysts believe Binance will survive the lawsuit. However, some attorneys warn that allegations in the complaint could lead to a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.

The CFTC is seeking to fine Binance, ban it and its employees from trading commodities in the US, and claw back money Binance made from US-based customers. The CFTC’s chief counsel said Binance’s compliance efforts were a “sham,” and the platform deliberately chose profits over following the law.

Read the full story in The Defiant

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Binance and CZ sued by CFTC

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How To Use Gains Network – Decentralized Derivatives Trading Tutorial

Podcast Video

Dan Finlay Explains How MetaMask Will Become The Google of Web3