TLDR CRYPTO 2023-06-02

MAKERDAO PAVES WAY FOR ADDITIONAL $1.28B U.S. TREASURY PURCHASE

The community governing MakerDAO has approved the purchase of up to $1.28 billion in US government bonds via BlockTower Capital. The vote supports the opening of a new real-world asset vault funded by Maker's overcollateralized DAI stablecoin. This move is part of Maker's strategy to diversify the reserve assets backing DAI and generate revenue through yield strategies. It also highlights the growing demand for traditional financial instruments among crypto-native entities like DAOs.

BINANCE TO BLOCK PRIVACY COINS IN FOUR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Binance will delist 12 privacy coins, including Zcash and Monero, in France, Italy, Poland, and Spain starting June 26. Privacy coins enable anonymous transactions, making tracking sender, recipient, and transaction amounts difficult, which has led to the EU’s concerns over potential money laundering. Although Binance aims to support numerous projects, it must comply with local laws and regulations. Affected users have been informed that they will be unable to purchase or trade privacy tokens on the platform after June. Withdrawals will remain open.

FIFA, MADDEN MAKER EA SPORTS TO ADD NIKE NFTS TO GAMES

Nike and EA Sports are teaming up to integrate digital collectibles of Nike merchandise into future EA games via .Swoosh, Nike's web3 platform that allows users to buy membership cards and digital sneakers. The aim of the collaboration is to enhance in-game experiences with a focus on customization, enabling players to acquire virtual Nike items for their in-game characters. While the specifics of the partnership are yet to be disclosed, Nike’s platform has demonstrated its potential with a fairly limited offering, generating close to $200 million in revenue since its launch in December 2021.

PRODUCTION GRADE ZK-LIGHT CLIENT ON LAYERZERO

LayerZero has announced the launch of a production-grade zk light client developed by the PolyhedraZK team. This zkLightClient is based on notable work in the field of zero-knowledge proofs and is built exclusively on LayerZero. It features custom circuits that achieve significant compression and can batch multiple transaction verifications into a single zk proof. LayerZero's unique modular configuration allows every application to construct its desired security stack, thus offering a flexible security-cost balance tailored to individual applications.

WHAT IS TOKEN-2022?

This blog from Helius dives into Solana's Token2022, an upgrade to its current token program. It introduces extensions for enhanced functionality while maintaining functionalities like minting, transferring, and burning tokens. New features include transfer fees, transfer hooks, closing mint, interest-bearing tokens, non-transferable tokens, confidential transfers, memos on incoming transfers, immutable ownership, default account state, and permanent delegate. These additions meet the growing demand for more complex and adaptable token features, providing developers more flexibility. Despite similar features on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, Solana's speed, low transaction costs, and Token2022's new functionalities could provide a competitive edge in the L1 race.

INTENT-BASED ARCHITECTURES AND THEIR RISKS

The article discusses the concept of "intents" in Ethereum, which refer to the desired outcomes of transactions, an innovation which could enable an improved user experience by simplifying transactions. Intents are sets of declarative constraints that allow users to outsource transaction creation to third parties without losing control. Although intents can provide enhancements to the Ethereum ecosystem, they also pose challenges, particularly with off-chain infrastructure. These challenges include the potential for centralization and the proliferation of middlemen, order flow control, and opacity.

POLYGON-BASED USDC CAN NOW BE SENT ON COINBASE WALLET WITH ZERO GAS

Coinbase Wallet has introduced zero gas fees for USDC transactions on the Polygon network, enhancing convenience and efficiency. This advancement has the potential to further simplify cross-border transfers and makes USDC operations easier. Enabled by EIP 4337, or "Account Abstraction", developers can subsidize gas fees for certain account transfers. Some Coinbase users hope this zero gas fee offering could extend to other networks like Solana, NEAR, or Avalanche. In other USDC-related news, Circle announced that USDC will be natively available on Arbitrum on June 8.

LEDGER NOW SUPPORTS ENS DOMAIN ADDRESSES

Ledger Live and Ledger hardware wallets are now compatible with ENS names. This can help simplify the user experience and enhance transaction security. The integration utilizes Ledger's new Trusted Name Service, which ensures secure mapping between ENS and Ethereum hexadecimal addresses. Since Ethereum’s hexadecimal addresses are long and complicated, ENS enables users to replace these addresses with simpler, human-readable aliases, reducing transaction errors. With this update, the hardware wallet’s display can now show these ENS addresses, which further facilitates easier transaction verification. Currently, only ENS is supported, but according to Ledger, compatibility with more networks and namespace providers will be added in the future.

‘The Goose’, one of the most recognizable NFT pieces that exists, is part of Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers collection. It was purchased by 3AC for $5.9m and is now being auctioned off by Sotheby’s as part of the defunct firm’s liquidation process with an estimated value of $2m - $3m, which a Sotheby’s VP said is “conservative”.

REDEEMABLE NFTS COULD BE A BIG DEAL

Redeemable NFTs offer additional utility beyond being digital art or membership into a club, serving as digital assets that can be exchanged for physical items, event access, other NFTs, or various experiences, bridging the gap between the virtual and physical world. More and more products enabling these types of NFTs have been cropping up with good initial traction.

DISCUSSION ON LIDO CONTROLLING TOO MUCH STAKED ETH

A Redditor posted an analysis of why he thinks Lido’s market share is a threat to the entire ETH ecosystem. LDO holders have voted against self-limiting inbound stake flow. This means that the only real option to combat this large stake share is for other protocols to crop up and take share.

GIDDY PARTNERS WITH BITREFILL TO BRING DEFI YIELD TO GIFT CARDS

Giddy has partnered with Bitrefill to allow users to use DeFi yield for real-world purchases, offering auto-compounding and a variety of payment options across 5,600+ retailers.