Upgrade of Ethereum Shanghai.
The Shanghai upgrade is the biggest narrative and public expectation in the recent market. Before the Shanghai upgrade on the mainnet, there will be three upgrade tests on the testnet (Zhejiang → Sepolia → Goerli). Today, the Shanghai upgrade on Sepolia was successfully activated. If the previous pace of upgrading a testnet every three weeks continues, Goerli, as the most anticipated and highly participated testnet, will be activated on March 21 for the upgrade. This also means that the Shanghai upgrade on the mainnet may happen in April.
DEFI
yearn.finance($YFI)——The Yearn team recently announced in the community that with the increasing popularity of LSD industry among investors, the upcoming yETH token will allow users to directly access a basket of Ethereum liquidity collateralized derivatives (LSD). yETH is essentially helping users diversify single LSD risk, while also gaining additional returns through Yearn's large veCRV position in Curve Pools. With the subsequent launch of yETH, it is expected to bring additional benefits to veYFI stakeholders. It should be noted that the specific launch time of the yETH product has not been disclosed yet.
dYdX($DYDX)——The development of version 4 is divided into five stages, and it is currently in the second stage milestone (M2). It is expected to launch a personal testnet (M3) by the end of March and complete the third milestone.
Nexus Mutual($NXM, $wNXM)——The first phase of the Nexus Mutual v2 upgrade has been completed and entered the second phase on February 27th, which will continue until March 5th. During the upgrade, the claims application will be closed and will be reopened after the upgrade is completed. The final stage of the v2 version upgrade will start on March 6th, when the smart contract migration will be carried out from v1 to v2. In addition, the user interface UI will also be upgraded, and it is expected to complete all upgrades by March 10th.
Synthetix($SNX)——The v3 upgrade, originally scheduled for March, was deployed earlier on February 23 on the Ethereum mainnet and Optimism. The main iterations of v3 include the adoption of the CDP model, the improvement of on-chain transaction depth through atomic conversion, support for building permissionless spot and futures markets, as well as improvements in liquidation and rewards.
Ondo Finance($ONDO)——Ondo Finance officially launched its new protocol, Flux Finance, in February and issued OUSG (US Short-Term Treasury Bond Fund), bringing off-chain bond products into the blockchain. It is expected to issue OSTB (Short-Term Investment-Grade Bond Fund) and OHYG (High-Yield Corporate Bond Fund) in March and April, respectively.
L1&L2s
Fliecoin($FIL)——FEVM will be released on March 14th, allowing developers to deploy EVM contracts on the Filecoin mainnet using FEVM. Existing Ethereum tools will be compatible with Filecoin, and actors deployed by users can interact with Filecoin's built-in actors and access Filecoin's functionality.
Cosmos($ATOM)——The previously proposed activation of the Replicated Security feature has been approved, and Cosmos Hub is expected to undergo the v9 lambda upgrade on March 15th. This upgrade will enforce the running rules of Interchain Security (ICS), which can allow other consuming chains to benefit from the security of Cosmos Hub without maintaining their own validators. As an exchange for this service, consuming chains are expected to send a portion of their fees and inflation to Cosmos Hub validators and delegators, and these tokens will be included in Cosmos Hub's staking rewards. If multiple consuming chains begin to rely on the validator network of Cosmos Hub in the future, it will be beneficial for ATOM to gain more value.
Game & NFT
Parallel Life($PRIME)——The token circulation of $PRIME will begin on March 1st. Parallel Life is a sci-fi themed collectible card game that was previously valued at $500 million and completed a $50 million financing led by Paradigm, one of the few investments the company has made in the gaming industry. Parallel Life airdropped tokens to 60,000 addresses that hold its card NFTs. As of March 1st, the total circulation of $PRIME tokens is approximately 20 million (total supply ~110 million).
Yuga Labs($APE)——Yuga Labs announced that it will launch an NFT series called TwelveFold on the Bitcoin blockchain based on the Ordinals protocol. The series includes 300 limited edition generative art pieces engraved on the Bitcoin blockchain. Each artwork is a 12x12 grid designed and created by Yuga Labs' in-house art team, combining 3D elements and hand-drawn features.
The company stated that TwelveFold has no connection to its Ethereum-based IP and will not have any interaction or utility in that regard in the future. The TwelveFold auction will launch later this week, and the auction details and exact time will be announced 24 hours in advance. In addition, $APE will unlock 40 million tokens on March 17, which represents 4% of the total supply and a total of $232 million.
Illuvium($ILV)——Illuvium will launch a new NFT collection game called Beyond on March 7th. Beyond is an interactive and competitive card game based on Illuvitar, a PFP project launched by Illuvium. Players can improve their ranking on the leaderboard by acquiring rare Illuvitar NFT collections, and earn more game rewards in the Illuvium universe (including the three main games: Illuvium: Overworld, Arena, and Zero). Beyond is currently open for registration and its launch may further enrich the gameplay and social features of the Illuvium universe.
LooksRare($LOOKS)——Approximately 12.5 million $LOOKS (worth $2.4 million at the current price of $0.19 per token) will be unlocked on March 25th, accounting for 1.25% of the total supply. All of the tokens to be unlocked will come from the treasury.
其它
Stargate Finance($STG)——Stargate will execute a 1:1 token swap plan for $STG on March 15, aiming to replace the existing $STG tokens with new ones to "eliminate the risk of illegal transfer of STG from Alamada addresses."Previously, Alamada had purchased 10% of the total supply of STG tokens in the Stargate community sale on March 17, 2023, and verbally promised to lock them until March 2025.However, recent on-chain transfer data from the Alameda wallet shows that Alameda does not have complete control over its wallet, and someone is illegally transferring funds.
Helium($HNT)——Helium Network will begin migrating to the Solana blockchain on March 27th. This upgrade will affect all wallets, hotspots, and the Helium network status and will be done within a 24-hour transition period. The existing Helium blockchain will stop running during the 24-hour transition period on March 27th. Data transfers and Proof-of-Coverage activities will not be affected.
Umee($UMEE)——Umee, a cross-chain DeFi protocol in the Cosmos ecosystem, announced the launch of the first phase of the Umee Gravity Bridge shutdown before the end of March. In the future, it will work with Axelar, and the Axelar Bridge will become the official bridge connecting Ethereum and Cosmos. Currently, the Gravity Bridge can still be used to transfer tokens back to Umee, but the official recommendation is not to use it to transfer any tokens from Umee to Ethereum. On April 1st, the functionality of transferring assets from Umee to Ethereum through Gravity Bridge will be disabled. The Gravity Bridge is planned to be completely shut down before the end of May.