JPMorgan estimates that the chances of spot ether ETF approval in May are no more than 50%. The company suggests that, based on recent litigation outcomes and decreasing concentration in Ethereum staking, the SEC will eventually have to approve spot ether ETFs.
Top U.S. House lawmakers, including Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry and Democrat Maxine Waters, met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss advancing stablecoin legislation. They have considered packaging the stablecoin bill with the Federal Aviation Administration's funding reauthorization. Despite doubts about the stablecoin bill passing this year, McHenry, who is retiring, is prioritizing the bill to regulate stablecoin issuers and stabilize cryptocurrency trading.
EIP-3074 is an approved upgrade to Ethereum that will allow externally owned accounts to act like smart contract wallets without deploying a contract. This enables single transaction approvals, batch transactions, wallet asset recovery, sponsored transactions, and more.
Transporter is a new cross-chain bridge developed in collaboration with the Chainlink Foundation. It is designed to securely transfer tokens across multiple blockchains, addressing the industry's need for better security in the wake of $2.83 billion lost to bridge hacks. Transporter prioritizes security, utilizing Chainlink's CCIP for protection and offering a user-friendly interface with 24/7 support and a visual tracker.
Though onboarding and transaction costs decrease by 99% for L3s compared to L2s, the reduction in higher layers is not nearly as significant. L4s and up improve scalability but ultimately settle to Ethereum and do not come with additional cost reduction. There may be L4s that emerge on the most successful L3s, but primarily for ecosystem reasons and not technical or financial benefits.
Uniswap Labs is being sued by the SEC. The Uniswap Protocol is a credibly neutral infrastructure. It acts like an electric grid that can be built upon by other companies and applications to utilize the benefits of trustless liquidity. The company has no control over what is listed or who builds on the protocol — it is merely a software publisher operating a front end.
DeFi is being tested in legal battles. Avi Eisenberg leveraged Mango Markets' code to extract $110 million, arguing that because the code permitted it, he didn't commit a crime. At the same time, the SEC's case against Uniswap Labs could determine how decentralized DeFi can be and whether the vision of a fully autonomous, code-based financial system is realizable.
Arch brings smart contract functionality to Bitcoin through the ArchVM, a Rust-based zero knowledge virtual machine and a decentralized verifier network.