GM Defiers!

Ethereum is trading at its highest level in nearly eight months ahead of the Shanghai and Capella upgrades, scheduled for April 12. In NFT land, OpenSea is looking to win back some of its lost market share with the launch of Pro, an aggregator geared towards active NFT traders. Meanwhile, CoW Swap’s new RPC claims to “pay users to protect themselves,” and Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade could be deployed in a fortnight.

✍️ In today’s newsletter:

• ETH crosses $1900 ahead of Shanghai and Capella upgrades
• OpenSea launches Pro offering for active traders
• New RPC from CoW Swap lets Ethereum users profit from MEV
• Optimism’s Bedrock upgrade could go live in two weeks

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📈 Markets in last 24 hrs:

Markets

ETH Crosses $1,900 For the First Time Since August

TLDR ETH has crossed the $1,900 price point for the first time in nearly eight months as traders continue to price in the Shanghai and Capella upgrades, which will allow ETH stakers to begin to withdraw their tokens for the first time.

ETH is up 2% on Wednesday, rising as high as $1,922, while Bitcoin and the U.S. stock market were down by less than 1%.

SO WHAT There’s an ongoing debate about whether the Shanghai and Capella upgrades are bullish or not for ETH. Because starting next week, the Ethereum protocol will be able to process 2,200 ETH in withdrawals each day. 

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NFT Wars

Gem NFT Aggregator Rebrands As OpenSea Pro

TLDR OpenSea has launched OpenSea Pro, an aggregator platform for active traders, which brings together sale listings from 170 other NFT marketplaces onto one platform. The move comes as Blur, a competing marketplace and aggregator, has been continually eating away at OpenSea’s market share.

SO WHAT The launch is an attempt by OpenSea to compete with Blur and regain its dominant position. An upcoming rewards program for users of the Pro platform may attract more traders to OpenSea.

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Ethereum

Top Ethereum Teams Join Forces To Return MEV Profits To Users

TLDR A consortium of more than 30 teams in the Ethereum ecosystem has launched MEV Blocker, software designed to combat on-chain arbitrage techniques that siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from users’ trades.

MEV Blocker submits transactions to a private network of searchers – network participants that monitor Ethereum’s mempool for profitable MEV opportunities and run bots to execute them – who compete for MEV on the condition that they share profits with Ethereum users.

SO WHAT Users of the free MEV Blocker RPC can profit from MEV transactions, as the software redistributes 90% of the profits generated back to users, while searchers claim the remaining 10%.

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Layer 2

Optimism Freezes Code For Bedrock Upgrade

TLDR Optimism, a Layer 2 blockchain, has frozen the code for its Bedrock upgrade on the Goerli testnet and plans to announce a mainnet launch date after two weeks of stability. Bedrock comes amidst increased competition within Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem, with Matter Labs and Polygon recently launching their respective zkEVM solutions.

SO WHAT Bedrock promises reduced fees and improved Ethereum compatibility, which could increase the adoption of Optimism’s Layer 2 blockchain, which has been losing market share despite overall Layer 2 TVL hitting an all-time high of $9.3B.

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🔎 FROM OUR REPORTERS

• Ava Labs teams up with South Korean firm SK Planet, which will launch an Avalanche subnet
• Balancer released “boosted pools” built on Aave V3 markets
• Yearn’s supply of veCRV is at an all-time high of 10.5%
• Milady NFTs floor doubled after crypto influencers adopted them

🌍 ELSEWHERE

• Dubai Moves To Tighten Crypto Licensing Regime (Bloomberg)
• Global Law Enfrocement Shuts Down Darknet Fraud Market (Chainalysis)
• Sentiment negotiates recovery of 90% of stolen funds after suffering reentrancy attack (Twitter)

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• Source: https://thedefiant.io/%f0%9f%9a%80eth-crosses-1900-for-the-first-time-since-august/