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Ethereum

Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade Passes Final Testnet Deployment

Mainnet Launch Will Enable Staked ETH Withdrawals

By Samuel Haig

The final dress rehearsal for Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade was executed on the Goerli test network on Tuesday, paving the way for staked ETH withdrawals to activate on mainnet.

The Goerli testnet was upgraded at around 10:25 pm UTC but initially suffered from low network participation, as less than two-thirds of validators had upgraded their software clients in time.

But enough testnet validators updated their nodes following the update, and Shapella finalized at roughly midnight UTC on Wednesday.

Goerli users can now fully or partially withdraw staked Ether from the testnet’s Beacon Chain.

Read the full story in The Defiant

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DeFi

MakerDAO Passes Emergency Measures To Reduce USDC Exposure

The proposal increases support for Paxos’ stablecoin.

By Samuel Haig

MakerDAO, the issuer of the DAI stablecoin, will execute emergency governance measures to reduce the protocol’s exposure to USDC on Tuesday after bank failures over the past week highlighted the risk of centralized stablecoins.

The governance proposal behind the changes was published and passed on Saturday after USDC suffered a violent depeg.

“The proposed changes are intended to limit Maker’s exposure to potentially impaired stablecoins and other risky collaterals,” the proposal said.

Read the full story in The Defiant

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Decentralized Storage

Filecoin Launches Ethereum-compatible Smart Contracts

Update Enables DeFi, ‘Data DAOs’ and Perpetual Storage

By Aleksandar Gilbert

Filecoin, a blockchain built to store data, has enabled Ethereum-style smart contracts, the final step in its “master plan” to disrupt Amazon Web Services and other legacy cloud computing and data storage platforms.

Filecoin’s FIL token, one of the top 30 by market capitalization, rallied 20% on the news, to a three-week high of $7.51.

The Filecoin Virtual Machine is compatible with Ethereum, meaning existing Ethereum applications can be brought to Filecoin without major code modifications. Popular Ethereum applications set to debut on Filecoin include Sushi, Ankr and Axelar.

Read the full story in The Defiant

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Layer 2

Aztec To Sunset Privacy Protocol

Over 100,000 Wallets Have Used Aztec Connect

By Samuel Haig

Aztec, a team working on privacy-focused scaling solutions for Ethereum, plans to sunset the Aztec Connect Layer 2 network.

Aztec said it will disable the deposit contract for its Connect product on March 21, preventing users from transferring assets onto the network. The rollup will continue operating for 12 months to facilitate user withdrawals before its sequencer is retired on March 21, 2024.

Connect’s total value locked peaked above $17M on Tuesday, according to L2Beat. Aztec said more than 100,000 unique wallets have executed transactions on the network.

Aztec also open-sourced the entire codebase for Connect and encouraged community members to fork, deploy, or develop a new version of the rollup.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Web3

NFTs

Meta Abandons NFTs After Less Than A Year

Social Media Giant Draws Criticism From Digital Artists

By Samuel Haig

Meta has decided to abandon support for NFTs across Instagram and Facebook less than a year after it began rolling out features supporting digital collectibles.

Stephane Kasriel, the commerce and fintech lead at Meta, broke the news via Twitter on Monday. He said the firm will redirect its resources to other products, including Meta Pay.

But NFT creators panned the firm for abandoning support for NFTs.

“Such a short-sighted move,” said Dave Krugman, a digital artist.

Read the full story in The Defiant

Defiant Video

Trends

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Podcast Video

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