Quick Take

• Friend Tech launches its FRIEND token.

• $70 million address poisoning attack.

• LayerZero launches a self-report sybil program.

• EigenDA onboards rollups to mainnet.

Harpie is an onchain security solution that protects your wallet from theft in realtime. Harpie helps you detect and block suspicious transactions before they execute, safeguarding your assets from malicious attacks and scams. Try Harpie for free at harpie.io/ethdaily.

Friend Tech Launches FRIEND

Friend Tech, a Base-native social application where users can trade profile-based shares, quietly launched its V2 update alongside its FRIEND token airdrop. Users who accumulated points over the previous eight months are now able to claim FRIEND tokens. FRIEND has a total supply of 72 million and a market cap of $130 million. Following its release, the price of FRIEND dropped to a low of approximately $1 but has since rebounded to around $1.90. Eligible users can instantly claim 10% of their airdrop and must follow at least 10 users and join a Club to unlock the remaining 90%. A Club is a tokenized chatroom featuring a custom price curve. FRIEND is used as the native currency for purchasing Club memberships.

$70 Million Address Poisoning Attack

A user lost $70 million from an address poisoning attack. The victim sent 1,155 WBTC to an attacker who spammed the victim’s wallet with a zero-value ETH transfer using an address that looks similar to their own. The attack vector aims to trick the victim into transferring assets to a similar-looking fraudulent address. In this case, the victim fell for the simple attack vector. Etherscan typically makes an effort to hide zero-value token transfers on its block explorer by default. However, some transfers can still slip through the filter. Users are advised to carefully verify addresses and refrain from copying addresses directly from Etherscan.

LayerZero Self-Report Sybil Program

LayerZero, a cross-chain messaging protocol, launched a self-report program for sybil users as part of its upcoming airdrop. The program rewards sybil users who voluntarily report themselves by granting them 15% of their intended allocation. Sybil users who fail to self-report and are identified by bounty hunters will forfeit their entire token allocation. Users have until May 17th to self-report. LayerZero is expanding the scope of sybil behavior to include more than just sybil factories. The protocol will flag the repetitive use of gas refueling dapps to appear active as sybil activity. LayerZero confirmed that the snapshot for its airdrop was taken on May 1st. LayerZero’s bridging protocol enables dapps to access cross-chain liquidity.

EigenDA Mainnet Rollup Onboarding

EigenDA, EigenLayer’s native data availability solution, is now onboarding rollups onto its mainnet. Although still in beta, the onboarding process is intended to stress test the network’s traffic capacity. EigenDA has 115 operators and 400,000 ETH in delegated stake from 42,000 re-stakers. EigenDA is set to be competitive with data blobs and will be production-ready as part of a general availability release in the upcoming months.

Other News

Follow us on X, Lens, and Farcaster.

Futures open interest, which indicates the total value of outstanding futures contracts yet to be settled, experienced a marked increase. On May 15, futures open interest stood at $28.45 billion but surged to $31.18 billion by May 16. This represents a substantial increase of approximately 9.6%. This rise suggests a growing investor interest in Bitcoin futures, driven by the anticipation of further price movements. The rise in OI is essential as it shows an influx of new capital into the market, signaling traders’ expectations and potential price direction.

In the options market, open interest also saw a significant uptick. On May 15, options open interest was $18.43 billion, rising to $20.71 billion by May 16. This increase of approximately 12.4% highlights the heightened activity and interest in options contracts as traders positioned themselves for the price surge.

The distribution of options open interest on May 16, with calls accounting for 66.16% and puts for 33.84%, indicates a bullish sentiment among traders, expecting further upward movement in Bitcoin’s price. A deeper look at the options volume further confirms the overwhelmingly bullish sentiment. On May 16, the volume of call options constituted 58.18%, compared to 41.82% for puts, showing that traders were predominantly betting on the price increase.

Deribit’s daily options volume dramatically increased, jumping from $1.01 billion on May 15 to $2.42 billion on May 16.

The volume and distribution between shorts and longs provide further insights into the state of the market. On May 16, the total liquidations amounted to $150.52 million, with long liquidations at $40.76 million and short liquidations at $109.76 million. The significantly higher short liquidations indicate that many traders were caught off guard by the price increase, resulting in the forced closure of short positions. This liquidation asymmetry reinforces the bullish trend observed during this period, as shorts were squeezed out of the market.

Analyzing the changes in OI and volumes is crucial for understanding how the derivatives market responds to price movements. Once a niche market catering to a small subset of sophisticated investors, Bitcoin derivatives have grown to become a market foundation. The tens of billions in open contracts across products show that derivatives are significant and important enough to affect the broader crypto market. 

Data from CoinGlass indicates a growing bullish sentiment among traders, with a notable preference for call options and a high volume of short liquidations. This behavior suggests that traders are positioning for further price appreciation in Bitcoin. If this bullish sentiment persists and is supported by continued positive price action, we may see further increases in open interest and trading volumes, potentially driving Bitcoin’s price higher.

The post Derivatives saw spike in Open Interest and volume as Bitcoin broke $66k appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Quick Take

• Aave introduces Aave 2030

• Aave V4 Unified Liquidity Layer.

• Redstone goes live on mainnet.

• Agora launches its governance platform.

Harpie is an onchain security solution that protects your wallet from theft in realtime. Harpie helps you detect and block suspicious transactions before they execute, safeguarding your assets from malicious attacks and scams. Try Harpie for free at harpie.io/ethdaily.

Aave Introduces Aave 2030 Roadmap

Aave Labs introduced Aave 2030, a comprehensive roadmap for advancing the Aave protocol. The roadmap includes the launch of Aave V4, a Cross-Chain Liquidity Layer (CCLL), the introduction of the Aave Network, the integration of Real World Assets (RWAs) with the GHO stablecoin, and an updated visual brand identity. The proposal outlines a three-year implementation timeline. The strategic plan aims to maintain Aave’s position as the top non-LST DeFi protocol. For the first year, Aave Labs is requesting a budget of 15 million GHO and 25,000 stAAVE to fund development. The completion of the Aave V4 code is targeted for Q2 2025. The proposal is currently in a Temp Check phase and is open for community feedback.

Aave V4 Unified Liquidity Layer

Aave V4 is the newest evolution of the Aave protocol, introducing a Unified Liquidity Layer, a new architecture that centralizes liquidity into a single layer. The design enables Aave to support greater modularity, streamline governance, improve capital efficiency, minimize liquidity fragmentation, and more seamlessly integrate GHO. The upgrade includes Fuzzy-controlled Interest Rates, which automatically adjust based on market demand to optimize efficiency. Aave V4 also introduces Liquidity Premiums that adjust borrowing costs according to the risk associated with a collateral. It will also incorporate Smart Accounts to further enhance the user experience.

Redstone L2 Goes Live On Mainnet

Redstone, a gaming-focused L2 network built on the OP Stack, is now live on public mainnet. The launch features a native bridge, a Uniswap v3-based DEX called Redswap and an NFT marketplace called Redstone Market. The network uses chain id 690. Users can now bridge to Restdtone to mint a commemorative launch day NFT. Redstone is designed for ultra-low-cost transactions by using an Alternative Data Availability (Alt-DA). Instead of posting DA to Ethereum L1, Redstone posts a data commitment hash to L1 and maintains its input state offchain. It also features a permissionless challenge system to ensure data integrity and security. Users can now interact with the network through daily quests.

Agora Launches Governance Platform

Agora, a governance tooling platform optimized for DAO voting, is now open for general availability. Any DAO or decentralized project can now register to set up its own community governance portal via Agora. The portal features support for delegation, delegate profiles, delegate discovery, and proposal voting. Agora also announced a $5 million funding round led by Haun Ventures. Agora already powers governance portals for Optimism, Uniswap, and NounsDAO.

Other News

Follow us on X, Lens, and Farcaster.

• Digital assets investment products saw $130 million in inflows, the first after four weeks of outflows.
• Bitcoin remains above $62k and saw inflows of $144 million this past week.

As Bitcoin shows fresh resilience above $62,000, latest market data reveals that digital asset investment products recorded inflows for the first time in over a month last week.

On Monday, digital assets manager CoinShares published its weekly report on crypto investment products.

The details showed the industry saw $130 million in inflows for the week ending May 10. It’s the first time the metric reads positive since the first week of April – a run of four weeks of outflows.

Notably, Bitcoin saw inflows of $144 million, while short-Bitcoin ETPs recorded outflows of $5.1 million.

The majority of the inflows were seen in the US, with $135 million. Hong Kong saw $19 million in inflows. Elsewhere, Canada and Germany recorded outflows of $20 million and $15 million respectively.

ETP volumes remain low

While the week saw inflows overall, CoinShares’s head of research James Butterfill wrote in the company blog that ETP volumes have continued to decline.

For instance, the market saw ETP volumes of $8 billion last week, while it averaged $17 billion in April.

“These volumes highlight ETP investors are participating less in the crypto ecosystem at present, representing 22% of total volumes on global trusted exchanges relative to 31% last month,” Butterfill noted.

Quick Take

• EigenLayer introduces the $EIGEN stakedrop.

• EigenLayer intersubjective forking protocol.

• SEC investigated ETH as a security in 2023.

• Ethereum reaches 1 million active validators.

Harpie is an onchain security solution that protects your wallet from theft in realtime. Harpie helps you detect and block suspicious transactions before they execute, safeguarding your assets from malicious attacks and scams. Try Harpie for free at harpie.io/ethdaily.

EigenLayer Introduces $EIGEN Stakedrop

EigenLayer introduced EIGEN, its protocol token coined as the Universal Intersubjective Work Token.  The total supply of EIGEN is 1.67 billion tokens, with 55% allocated for investors and early contributors, while the remaining 45% is allocated for the community. Of the community’s share, 5% is allocated for an initial stakedrop. Restakers on EigenLayer can check their eligibility for the first stakedrop at claims.eigenfoundation.org. The stakedrop is based on a snapshot taken on March 15th. Claiming will go live on May 10th; however, the tokens will initially be non-transferable. Users who have restaked on EigenLayer using complex LRT integrations will need to wait until a later date to claim their tokens Transferability of EIGEN tokens is planned to be enabled after the community has a solid understanding of the new protocol design, once payment and slashing mechanisms go live, and once the community stakedrops are completed. Users will also have the ability to stake their EIGEN tokens.

EigenLayer Intersubjective Forking Protocol

EigenLayer published a whitepaper introducing its Universal Intersubjective Work Token, a new protocol design that provides social consensus as a service. The system allows for token forking in instances where a majority of stakeholders engage in malicious behavior. It addresses intersubjective faults, which are issues that require subjective consensus among observers. While ETH staking targets objective faults with specific use cases, EIGEN staking is designed for more universal applications, addressing intersubjective faults. The protocol incorporates a dual-token system to mitigate risks linked to forking, including a metering system to assess the costs of switching tokens and a compensation mechanism to safeguard users from losses. The framework is currently open to community input.

SEC Subpoenaed ConsenSys In 2023

Recent court documents reveal that the SEC began probing Ethereum’s classification as a security in March 2023. The investigation commenced before a house committee meeting where SEC Chair Gary Gensler was unable to classify Ethereum as either a security or a commodity. The SEC authorized its enforcement staff to issue subpoenas and conduct inquiries into individuals. In 2023, Consensys received three subpoenas demanding detailed information on its Ethereum transactions, acquisitions, and its role in the Ethereum Improvement Proposals relating to the Merge. Consensys complied with the requests, producing an extensive 88,000-page report. Despite cooperating, the SEC escalated its scrutiny by issuing a Wells notice to Consensys.

Ethereum Reaches 1 Million Validators

Ethereum has reached a milestone of 1 million active validators securing the network, the highest number since the Beacon Chain was launched. Currently, 32 million ETH are staked, representing 26% of the total supply of Ethereum, valued at just over $100 billion. The increased amount has led to a reduction in the staking APY to approximately 3.5%.

Other News

Follow us on X, Lens, and Farcaster.

Quick Take

• Stripe to support USDC payments.

• Consensys sues the SEC.

• The FBI issues a PSA on crypto transmitters.

• Fluidkey launches on Base.

Harpie is an onchain security solution that protects your wallet from theft in realtime. Harpie helps you detect and block suspicious transactions before they execute, safeguarding your assets from malicious attacks and scams. Try Harpie for free at harpie.io/ethdaily.

Stripe To Support USDC Payments

Stripe has unveiled plans to introduce support for global stablecoin payments, initially supporting USDC on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. During the Stripe Sessions annual conference, co-founder John Collison demonstrated the new feature, which allows connections to wallets like MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, and Rainbow. Transactions in USDC will be settled onchain and will be automatically converted to fiat currency. Businesses interested in adopting crypto payments can join a waitlist to be early adopters of this feature, slated for release this summer. Stripe already supports fiat-to-USDC payouts.

Consensys Sues The SEC

Consensys, a key provider of Ethereum infrastructure, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, citing the agency’s excessive regulatory overreach. The lawsuit challenges the SEC’s inappropriate expansion into regulating Ethereum, asserting that Ethereum is a commodity, not a security. It also seeks to address the disruption caused by the SEC’s actions to those developing on Ethereum. The lawsuit argues that self-custody applications like MetaMask should not be classified as securities brokers. The SEC’s overregulation has stifled growth in blockchain. Coinbase has similarly filed lawsuits against the SEC over the past year.

FBI Warns Against Non-KYC Services

The FBI issued a public service announcement advising against the use of money-transmitting cryptocurrency services that are not registered as Money Services Businesses (MSB). The agency says that users of the unregistered services might face disruptions if the services are targeted and seized by law enforcement. The warning comes one day after the agency arrested developers behind a privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet. The FBI says users should verify whether a crypto service is registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as an MSB and advised users to avoid platforms that do not implement know-your-customer (KYC) requirements.

Fluidkey Launches On Base

Fluidkey, a provider of transaction privacy tools, launched a beta version of its app on Base. Users can access the beta release between now and April 27th to register for a privacy-focused fkey.eth ENS subdomain. Fluidkey enhances privacy by automatically rerouting payments made to a private ENS to a new address under the user’s exclusive control. In addition to Base, Fluidkey is also live on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, and OP Mainnet.

Other News

Follow us on X, Lens, and Farcaster.