Review of crypto events worth noting in March: Shanghai upgrade, DeFi, NFT, L1 innovation

The opportunities in March may lie therein.

Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade

The Shanghai upgrade is the biggest narrative and public expectation in the market recently. Before the Shanghai upgrade of the mainnet, there will be 3 testnet upgrade tests (Zhejiang→Sepolia→Goerli). Today, Sepolia's Shanghai upgrade was successfully activated. If the previous rhythm of advancing a testnet every 3 weeks is continued, Goerli, as the most watched and participated testnet, will activate the upgrade on March 21. This means that the Shanghai upgrade of the mainnet may occur in April.

We have mentioned the relevant investment targets at the end of January ($ETH, $LDO, $RPL, $SWISE, $ANKR, $FXS, $SSV, etc.). While waiting for the upgrade, readers should also pay attention to changes in the macro environment, such as the new interest rate decision meeting and economic outlook will take place on March 22. The new macro analysis series: "U.S. Treasury Yields and Market Risks" was released today. Welcome to log in to the first.vip platform to view it.

DEFI

yearn.finance ($YFI) - The Yearn team recently stated in the community that as the LSD industry is favored by investors, the upcoming yETH token will enable users to directly access a basket of Ethereum liquid collateral derivatives (LSD). yETH essentially helps users diversify the risk of a single LSD, while also gaining additional income through Yearn's large veCRV position in Curve Pools. With the subsequent launch of yETH, it is expected to bring additional benefits to veYFI stakeholders. It should be noted that the specific launch time of the yETH product has not yet been disclosed.

dYdX ($DYDX) — The development of version v4 is divided into five phases. It is currently in the second phase milestone (M2) and is expected to be launched on the personal test network (M3) at the end of March, completing the third milestone.

Nexus Mutual ($NXM, $wNXM) - The first phase of the Neuxs Mutual v2 upgrade has been completed, and the second phase will begin on February 27 and will last until March 5. During the upgrade, claims will be closed until the upgrade is completed. The final phase of the v2 version upgrade will begin on March 6, when the smart contract will be migrated from v1 to v2. In addition, the user interface UI will also be upgraded. All upgrades are expected to be completed on March 10.

Synthetix ($SNX) — The v3 upgrade originally scheduled for March was deployed on the Ethereum mainnet and Optimism ahead of schedule on February 23. The main iterations of v3 include: adopting the CDP model, increasing on-chain transaction depth through atomic conversion, supporting the establishment of permissionless spot and futures markets, and improvements in liquidation and rewards.

Ondo Finance ($ONDO) — Ondo Finance officially launched its new protocol Flux Finance in February and issued OUSG (US Short-Term Treasury Bond Fund) to officially introduce off-chain bond products to the blockchain. It is expected to issue OSTB (Short-Term Investment Grade Bond Fund) and OHYG (High Yield Corporate Bond Fund) in March and April.

L1&L2s

Filecoin ($FIL) — FEVM will be released on March 14th. Developers will be able to deploy EVM contracts on the Filecoin mainnet through FEVM. Existing Ethereum tools will be compatible with Filecoin, and user-deployed actors can interact with Filecoin built-in actors and access Filecoin functions.

Cosmos ($ATOM) - The previously released proposal to activate the Replicated Security feature has been passed. The Cosmos Hub is expected to upgrade to v9 lambda on March 15, which will enforce the operating rules of inter-chain security (ICS), allowing other consumer chains to benefit from the security of the Cosmos Hub without having to maintain their own validators. In exchange for this service, consumer chains are expected to send a portion of their fees and inflation to Cosmos Hub validators and delegators, and these tokens will be included in the staking rewards of the Cosmos Hub. If multiple consumer chains begin to rely on the validator network of the Cosmos Hub in the future, it will be beneficial for ATOM to gain more value.

Games & NFTs

Parallel Life ($PRIME) - will start circulating $PRIME tokens on March 1. Parallel Life is a sci-fi collectible card game. It previously raised $50 million in funding led by Paradigm at a valuation of $500 million. This is one of the few moves by Paradigm in the gaming field. Parallel Life airdropped tokens to 60,000 addresses holding its card NFTs. As of March 1, the total circulation of $PRIME tokens was approximately 20 million (total supply ~110 million). For more fundamental information, please check the First Class Warehouse's New Coin Express series.

Yuga Labs ($APE) - Yuga Labs announced that it will launch the NFT series TwelveFold on the Bitcoin blockchain based on the Ordinals protocol. The series contains 300 limited edition generative art works engraved on the Bitcoin blockchain. Each work is a 12x12 grid, designed and created by Yuga Labs' internal art team, combining 3D elements and hand-painted features. The company stated that TwelveFold has no connection with its Ethereum-based IP, and there will be no interaction and utility in this regard in the future. The TwelveFold auction will start later this week, and the auction details and exact time will be notified 24 hours in advance. In addition, $APE will unlock 40 million tokens on March 17, accounting for 4% of the total, totaling US$232 million.

Illuvium ($ILV) — Illuvium will launch a new NFT collection game, Beyond, on March 7. This is an interactive and competitive card game based on Illuvitar (a PFP project released by Illuvium), where players can obtain rare Illuvitar NFT collections and improve their ranking on the leaderboard, thereby obtaining more game rewards in the Illuvium universe (including three main games Illuvium: Overworld, Arena and Zero). Beyond is currently open for registration, and the launch of this game may further enrich the playability and more social attributes of the Illuvium universe.

LooksRare ($LOOKS) — ~12,500,000 $LOOKS (worth $2.4 million at current price of $0.19) will be unlocked on March 25, accounting for 1.25% of the total supply. All tokens unlocked this time come from the treasury.

other

Stargate Finance ($STG) — Stargate will implement a 1:1 replacement of $STG tokens on March 15, aiming to replace existing $STG tokens with newly issued $STG tokens 1:1 to “eliminate the risk of illegal transfers of STG from Alamada addresses.” Previously, Alamada purchased 10% of the total supply of STG tokens in the Stargate community sale on March 17, 2023, and verbally promised to lock them up until March 2025. However, recent on-chain transfer data from Alameda wallets suggests that Alameda does not have full control of its wallets and someone is illegally transferring funds.

Helium ($HNT) — The Helium Network will begin migrating to the Solana chain on March 27th. The upgrade will affect all wallets, hotspots, and Helium network status, and will take place over a 24-hour transition period. The existing Helium blockchain will cease operations during the 24-hour transition period on March 27th. Data transfers and Proof-of-Coverage activities will not be affected.

Umee ($UMEE) - Umee, the cross-chain DeFi protocol of the Cosmos ecosystem, announced the launch of the first phase of the closure of the Umee Gravity Bridge by the end of March. In the future, it will cooperate with Axelar, and Axelar Bridge will become the official bridge connecting Ethereum and Cosmos. Currently, you can still use Gravity Bridge to transfer tokens back to Umee, but the official does not recommend using Gravity Bridge to transfer any tokens from Umee to Ethereum. On April 1, the Gravity Bridge Umee to Ethereum asset transfer function will be disabled. At the same time, it is planned to completely shut down Gravity Bridge by the end of May.