Crypto News Recap: Week of 12/4 - 12/11
New Account Abstraction use case, token updates, + more
Things do not seem to be slowing down ahead of the holidays. Seems like everyone across the board is focused on shipping as many things as possible ahead of 2024.
Here’s the TL;DR of what went down last week:
Wipro and Shell partner to launch a supply chain/equipment data tracking project using Alchemy’s AA infrastructure
Ethereum Foundation formalizes list of upgrades for Dencun hardfork
Helium partners with TMobile to expand its cell phone offering
🪙 Tokens
Synthetix tokenholders follow the path of Cosmos by voting to eliminate token inflation, reducing staking fees in favor of stabilizing token price
New Arbitrum tokenomics proposal to make $ARB the gas token (rather than $ETH)
Newly merged media projects Rug Radio and Decrypt planning to launch a new media ecosystem token for creators, consumers and advertisers on Arbitrum, in partnership with Offchain Labs
Eigenlayer will be adding 6 new LSTs (voted on by 12.8k wallets) and raising deposit caps to 200k for each token on December 18
Brazilian finance giant Itau launches crypto trading, while Nubank partners with Circle to offer USDC to their banking customers
💰 Onchain finance: RWA and crypto
Heron Finance, an SEC-registered investment advisor launches private credit offering on Goldfinch for accredited investors, with account abstraction provided by ZeroDev
Brahma launches Console, a non-custodial crypto asset management and trade execution platform for Safe Smart Account users
Republic creates a dividend-paying note tokenizing its portfolio
🏦 Traditional enterprise
Wipro and Shell partner to launch Falcon, a supply chain/equipment data tracking project on Polygon, using Alchemy’s AA infrastructure
Deloitte expands its and digital identifier/verification chain Kilt extending their partnership, now expanding to include trade-tech firm Nexxiot to create KYX (KYC + know your cargo) for shipping companies
SocGen’s Forge digital assets unit pushes forward on multiple fronts:
The unit underwrote the bank’s first digital green bond as a security token, bought by fund managers Axa and Generali (continuing a series of bond launches started in 2020)
SocGen’s regulated/MiCA compliant Euro stablecoin, launched for institutions in April, will now publicly trade on Bitstamp
🔗 Protocol updates and proposals
Arbitrum & Offchain Labs (partnering with Horizen) join the competition to build the new ApeChain via ApeCoin DAO, following Optimism and Polygon’s proposals
Optimism delegates vote to adopt the Canyon upgrade, the first for Optimism since Bedrock (details here)
Ethereum Foundation formalizes list of upgrades for Dencun hardfork (with testnet hardfork expected January)
Solana’s DEX volume exceeds Arbitrum’s and is approaching Ethereum’s; Solana’s TVL is now top-5
Paradigm builds OS time-lock contracts for protocol upgrades for Blast
🧰 Wallets and Account Abstraction
Safe and Web3Auth partner to offer SafeAuth as a single signin for Safe Smart Account users (also compatible with Safe Wallet)
Safe also launches Safe Recover, enabling wallet users to designate a third party “recoverer”, in partnership with Sygnum Bank and Coincover
Coinbase Wallet introduces ability to send crypto via text link, where recipient can open a Coinbase Wallet to receive; USDC tx will be fee-less, while others will require network fees
AA infra project Stackup has upgraded its Paymaster to support 312 ERC20 tokens as gas fees
AA wallet project Rhinestone closes pre-seed round, and integrates its ModuleKit with ZeroDev’s Kernel
📊 Indexing and data
Covalent launches Goldrush, an open-sourced toolkit for app developers to build custom, cross-chain block explorers drawing on Covalent’s data
Indexing startup Shadow raises $9M seed round, led by Paradigm, and introduces proposal to formalize shadow events as a data structure for Ethereum (full text)
Decentralized IOT/5G network Helium expands its cell phone offering nationwide in partnership with TMobile