ETH Weekly | Zhejiang, the first public withdrawal test network, was launched on February 1; the survey report shows that the bullish sentiment of Ethereum exceeds that of Bitcoin (1.30-2.5)

1. Overall overview

1. Overall overview

According to The Block Research data, in January this year, Bitcoin options trading volume and open interest on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) hit a record high. As of Tuesday (31st), CME’s Bitcoin options trading volume in January reached $1.1 billion, with open interest exceeding $736 million. Institutional trading firms are shunning unregulated or semi-regulated platforms in the wake of FTX's bankruptcy, and their caution may be one reason for the surge in trading volumes at CME, said Steven Zheng, head of research at The Block. CME offers Bitcoin and Ethereum options and futures trading. Compared with cryptocurrency futures, institutional investors prefer encrypted option products.

Second, the secondary market

Second, the secondary market

1. Spot market

According to OKX market data, the price of ETH once rose to $1,717 last week, and closed at $1,650 during the week, up 2.4% month-on-month.

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The daily chart shows that the price is currently consolidating around $1,650. In the short term, the price may continue to test $1,600 downwards. If the support is valid, it is expected to continue to hit $1,700. The upper resistance level is $1,700.

2. Network operation

etherchain.org3. Large transaction

3. Large transaction

OKlink data4. Rich list address

4. Rich list address

OKlink data3. Ecology and technology

3. Ecology and technology

1. Technological progress

1. Technological progress

Ethereum core developer: plans to activate the Shanghai upgrade on the Zhejiang testnet on February 7

Minutes of the Ethereum core developers’ conference call #154 on February 2nd, the Ethereum public withdrawal testnet Zhejiang was launched on February 1st, anyone can request the testnet ETH from the faucet and start it on the network Their own validator, the Zhejiang testnet is currently supported by 61,000 active validators, most of which are run by the Ethereum Foundation.

If the Shanghai upgrade goes smoothly on the Zhejiang testnet, the developers will decide on the activation date during the ACDC conference call on February 9 to release the upgrade on the Sepolia testnet. The developers plan to release the Shanghai upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli test network at the end of February or early March. After the transition is successful, it will switch to the main network. Ethereum core developers discussed issues related to EIP-4844, including Gas pricing, transaction validity rules, transaction pool testing, and blob/block coupling.

2. Voice of the Community

2. Voice of the Community

ZenGo proposes a solution to solve the offline signature vulnerability by using EIP-6384

Cryptographic security and wallet provider ZenGo has launched a solution, EIP-6384, to address the growing problem of offline signature exploits. Such exploits have led to attackers tricking users into signing hard-to-read wallet messages to steal crypto assets and NFTs.

By implementing EIP-6384, all Ethereum smart contracts will take on the responsibility of providing a clear interpretation of messages, thereby maintaining a free transaction experience for decentralized applications. This change will allow wallet users to receive a clear and understandable description of the message they are asked to sign, allowing them to make an informed decision when signing transactions. (The Block)

3. Project trends

3. Project trends

(1) The option protocol Lyra has opened deposits in Arbitrum, allowing users to deposit USDC into ETH MMV

According to official news, the option protocol Lyra has opened the deposit function on the Ethereum second-layer network Arbitrum, and users can deposit USDC into the ETH Market Maker Vault (MMV) to prepare for the upcoming release of Newport. MMV allows liquidity providers to earn fees from transactions as well as stkLYRA rewards. In addition, the Lyra Council has allocated 30 million Lyra/year or 1.15 million Lyra/first two cycles to incentivize deposits, and transactions and rewards will be launched within about 48 hours.

(2) Ethereum ZK coprocessor Axiom launches demo application

The Ethereum ZK coprocessor (coprocessor) Axiom aims to provide smart contracts with trustless access to all on-chain data, allowing developers to access historical on-chain data and perform verified calculations on it by querying Axiom, To enhance blockchain consensus through zero-knowledge proofs.

Axiom launched 4 demo applications on the Ethereum mainnet, enabling users to prove account age, prove Uniswap v2 TWAP value, access RanDAO randomness, etc., and also open source the ZK circuit and smart contract behind its demo.

(3) The oracle machine Pyth Network launched Arbitrum

The oracle machine Pyth Network is launched on Arbitrum, which currently only supports some smaller protocols. Previously, Pyth Network has launched Ethereum and Optimism in November 2022. (The Block)

(4) Increment, the zkSync ecological DeFi protocol, released the governance token INCR airdrop proposal

Increment, a decentralized exchange rate perpetual contract based on zkSync 2.0, released a proposal for the creation and distribution of governance token INCR. If the community votes in favor of the proposal, INCR tokens will be created and part of the tokens will be distributed retroactively to members of the Increment ecological community.

According to the proposal, at the beginning of INCR’s creation, 20 million tokens will be minted on the Ethereum mainnet, of which a total of 2.4 million tokens will be airdropped to community users in three stages, a total of 3 million tokens will be airdropped to core contributors, and a total of 3 million tokens will be airdropped to the ecosystem. Grants, partners, etc. allocate 800,000 tokens, allocate 1.48 million tokens to developer funds, allocate 3.12 million tokens to seed investors, and allocate 9.2 million tokens to future agreement users.

(5) The Ethereum expansion project Scroll has deployed the Uniswap V 3 front-end on the testnet

The Ethereum expansion project Scroll has deployed the front-end of Uniswap V3 on the test network for users and developers to participate in the experience.

(6) The number of ENS domain names created in January exceeded 56,000, the first increase since September 2022

Dune data shows that in January 2023, the number of domain names created by the Ethereum domain name service ENS reached 56,820, and the number of independent participating addresses was 23,468. The two indicators have increased for the first time since September 2022. Currently, the total number of ENS domain names created is 2,799,141, including 475,970 primary domain name registrations and 649,075 independent participating addresses.

(7) Lodestar releases version v1.4.0, becoming the fifth consensus client of Ethereum Pledge Launchpad

The open source Ethereum consensus (Eth2) client Lodestar has released v 1.4.0 version. With this release, Lodestar will lift its "under audit and review" status from the Ethereum Foundation and officially become the fifth consensus client on the Ethereum Staking Launchpad. Lodestar has completed major upgrades such as joining Rocketpool, implementing light client protocol upgrades, and launching the loading key progress indicator.

(8) Aave launched the position migration tool from V2 to V3

Aave announced the launch of the V2 to V3 position migration tool, which currently supports Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche. Aave recommends that users migrate no more than five assets at a time and pay attention to health factors to mitigate liquidation risks. Dune data shows that the current market size of Aave V 3 on Ethereum is $61.1 million.

(9) Solidity releases the latest version of the compiler Solidity 0.8.18, which supports Paris hard fork

The Ethereum programming language Solidity released the latest version of the Solidity compiler Solidity0.8.18. The features of the new version include: disabling CBOR metadata, supporting Paris hard fork, deprecating selfdestruct, and generating EVM bytecode from Yul. The team recommends that all Solidity developers upgrade to version 0.8.18 to take advantage of these improvements and optimizations.

(10) The cross-chain margin platform Prime Protocol launched Arbitrum, participating in the test may get airdrops in the future

Cross-chain margin platform Prime Protocol launched its testnet today on Arbitrum, which will be the first cross-chain broker to allow users to withdraw margin from their entire account. Prime Protocol uses Axelar's messaging technology to enable cross-chain transactions. It also integrates with Wormhole, allowing Prime Protocol to connect with non-Ethereum-based chains. Colton Conley, founder of Prime Protocol, said that no tokens are currently listed, but they may be listed sometime in the future. Once live, it plans to run incentives to channel liquidity. Those who participate in its testnet may receive an airdrop or some kind of reward, he added. (The Block)

According to data from Dune Analytics, the market size of Aave V 3 on Ethereum has exceeded 100 million US dollars ($110.4 million). In addition, the current number of Aave V3 users on Ethereum is 777, and the loan scale is about 40.55 million US dollars. According to previous news, Aave V3 completed the deployment of the Ethereum mainnet on January 27 and released the position migration tool from V2 to V3 on February 1.

4. Borrowing

DeFiLlamaThe data shows that the value of locked collateral on the chain rose from $28.85 billion to $29 billion last week, up 1% in a week. Specifically, the number of ETH mortgages dropped from 17.52 million to 17.4 million last week, a drop of 1%. From the perspective of individual projects, the top three lock-up values ​​are: Lido $8.42 billion; MakerDAO $7.28 billion; Curve $4.54 billion.

4. News

4. News

(1) CoinShares Survey: Ethereum’s Bullish Sentiment Exceeds Bitcoin

According to a survey conducted by CoinShares between December 29, 2022 and January 23, 2023, although Bitcoin has outperformed Ethereum year-to-date, 60% of investors surveyed believe that Ethereum has the best performance. Significant growth prospects, higher than the survey results in October last year (40%).
On the other hand, about 30% of respondents believe that Bitcoin is the most attractive cryptocurrency in the future, which is lower than the proportion of respondents who had the same opinion in the previous survey (nearly 40%).

The survey further revealed that more than 30% of investors invested in Bitcoin and 28% invested in Ethereum. "The weighting of digital assets in portfolios has risen from a low to 1.1 percent, up from 0.7 percent in the October survey," the report said.

Last week, CoinShares noted that weekly inflows into investment products that allow investors to bet on lower bitcoin prices hit their highest point since last July, while investment products that bet on higher ethereum prices stabilized inflow of funds. This dynamic highlights market pessimism for Bitcoin relative to Ethereum. (Seeking Alpha)

(2) CME Bitcoin options trading volume and open interest reached new highs in January this year

According to The Block Research data, in January this year, Bitcoin options trading volume and open interest on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) hit a record high. As of Tuesday, CME’s Bitcoin options volume for January reached $1.1 billion, with open interest exceeding $736 million.

Institutional trading firms are shunning unregulated or semi-regulated platforms in the wake of FTX's bankruptcy, and their caution may be one reason for the surge in trading volumes at CME, said Steven Zheng, head of research at The Block. CME offers Bitcoin and Ethereum options and futures trading. Compared with cryptocurrency futures, institutional investors prefer encrypted option products. (The Block)

(3) Russian bank Sberbank will launch an Ethereum-compatible DeFi platform by May