Weekly Market Highlights - Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade Goes Live

09 May 2025Macro/TradFiThe U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said that national banks are permitted to buy and sell customers' crypto assets on their behalf,and can outsource crypto custody and trade execution services to third parties.New Hampshire and Arizona have become the first two U.S states to pass a bitcoin reserve bill into law.Galaxy Digital integrated with Zodia Custody to offer institutional-grade blockchain custody services in Europe, enabling Zodia’s customers to earn staking rewards while maintaining custody of their assets.Robinhood is exploring the launch of a blockchain-based platform that would allow users in Europe to trade U.S securities.Revolut has partnered with Lightspark, a firm that is building on the Bitcoin L2 Lightning Network, to enable faster Bitcoin transactions in the UK and European Economic Area countries.The U.S. Senate is set to start voting on the landmark stablecoin bill, which will create a safe and pro-growth regulatory framework for stablecoins, on Thursday.Strike, the Bitcoin Lightning-based payments app, has announced a new crypto lending program for both individual users and corporate accounts.IntoTheBlock and Trident Digital announced a merger to form Sentora, which will offer institutional grade curated access to DeFi yield strategies and real-time risk management tools.Asset management firm Bitwise has submitted an S-1 for a spot NEAR ETF.Asset manager firm VanEck has submitted an S-1 for a spot BNB ETF.CryptoL1/L2:The Pectra upgrade has gone live on Wednesday, making it Ethereum’s largest update since the Merge in 2022.Flare Network, an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain, has seen its TVL spike more than 160% over the past 2 weeks from US$45m to US$120m after the launch of USDT0.Tari Network, a privacy-focused Layer 1, launched its mainnet on Tuesday and will allow users to mine XTM tokens using consumer grade equipment.The Solana Foundation announced that validators coordinated a network update to patch a zero-day vulnerability that would have given an attacker the ability to unlimited minting of certain tokens.Unichain becomes the first Ethereum L2 network to process blocks using Rollup-Boost, a trusted execution environment tool built by Flashbots and Uniswap Labs.ZKSync has achieved full EVM equivalence following a governance approval as part of ZIP-9.Others:Coinbase acquires crypto derivatives platform Deribit in a US$2.9B deal.DeFi Development Corp, aiming to be the “Strategy of Solana”, announced a US$11.2M purchase of 82,404.5 SOL to take their holdings to 400,091 SOL.DeFi Development Corp is set to acquire a Solana validator business for a purchase price of US$3.5M.Metaplanet issued a series of ordinary bonds worth US$25M for additional bitcoin purchases, following its latest acquisition of 555 BTC that took its total holdings to 5,555 BTC.AdTech company Thumzup Media Corporation is offering US$200M in stock, warrants and other units to investors to bolster the size of its Bitcoin treasury.Brown University, an Ivy League school, disclosed US$5M worth of shares in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF.Latest Binance Research Publications Check out our latest publications:Pectra and Fusaka Upgrades: What does it mean for Ethereum?Tariff Escalation and Crypto Markets: Impact AnalysisNavigating Crypto: Industry MapWhere Are Our Airdrops Going?The Future of Bitcoin #4: DeFiExplore our Binance Research website for more project and macro research.For more frequent market updates and insights, follow us on Twitter @BinanceResearch.That’s a wrap!Binance ResearchAbout Binance Research: Binance Research is the research arm of Binance, the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange. 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