Arbitrum Nitro Upgrade Completed | Axelar's AXL Tokenomics | ChainBridge Critical Vulnerability | Summer of Optimism & More!
Last Week In The Multi-Chain Ecosystem (29th Aug to 4th Sept 2022)
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Bridge Updates
1) Critical Vulnerability Discovered in ChainBridge
Haechi, a security audit firm, found a critical issue in ERC721Handler of the Bridge Contract that could have allowed an attacker to override the recipient on the destination chain in certain circumstances. The issue was discovered during an audit on recent upgrades made to the ChainBridge smart contracts, and has now been resolved.
2) Intro to Axelar’s AXL Token 🧐
Axelar’s AXL token is set to go live in the coming weeks. The team has provided a high-level introduction to the AXL token — how AXL will be used within the Axelar architecture, its benefits to token holders, and how one can stake and validate AXL on the Axelar network.
3) Rubic Now Supports Bridging to BTC 🎊
Bridging to $BTC is now live on Rubic. Users can now swap from 17 blockchains and 15k+ tokens supported by Rubic to the native Bitcoin blockchain. Cross-chain transfers from Bitcoin are currently not supported.
4) Nomad Releases List of Whitehat Hacker Addresses 🤝🏻
Together with TRM Labs, the lead investigator for the Nomad Bridge hack, Nomad has released a current list of whitehat addresses in their open-source hack data repository. The list enables whitehat hackers to avoid being blocked by TRM in relation to the Nomad hack.
5) Axelar Increases Immunefi Bounty to $2.25M 💸
Axelar has increased its bug bounty rewards from $1M to $2.25M on Immunefi. The bug bounty program is an integral part of Axelar’s security measures to help strengthen the security of the Axelar network.
Multi-Chain Ecosystem Updates
1) Arbitrum Nitro is Now Live 🚀
Arbitrum One is now fully upgraded to the Nitro stack, making it brighter, faster, and cheaper. The upgrade increases Arbitrum’s throughput, lowers fees, and improves the rollup architecture.
2) Seaport Launches on Polygon 💜
Seaport, an open-source marketplace built by OpenSea, has added support for Polygon. Users can now enjoy Seaport’s new features, such as no listing threshold, native token support, bulk transfers, etc., on Polygon.
3) Sei Raises $5M to Build the Best L1 for Financial Apps 🔥
Sei Network has raised $5M from notable investors such as Multicoin Capital, Delphi Digital, Coinbase Ventures, etc., to build the first layer 1 blockchain optimized for DeFi.
4) Helium Foundation’s Proposal to Migrate Helium to Solana 🧐
Helium developers have proposed HIP 70, which talks about Helium moving to Solana as the new Layer 1 to support the Helium Network. The proposal also seeks to improve Helium’s scalability, speed, and reliability by moving PoC and Data Transfer Accounting to Oracles.
5) Myria L2 is Now Live 👏🏻
Myria, an Ethereum Layer 2, built to scale digital assets, NFTs and blockchain gaming, is now live. The team has also launched the Myria Wallet, an NFT marketplace, and the Developer SDK Toolkit.
What’s Popping on Twitter?
Earlier this year, Optimism kickstarted the Summer of Optimism — a season of OP token grants and incentives distributed with the goal of bootstrapping the growth of the Optimism ecosystem. The Optimism community has distributed OP tokens in the form of grants to 43 projects, and with only 12 of these programs live, the Optimism ecosystem is already booming.
In the coming months, we expect to see huge amounts of bridging volume to Optimism as the incentives by the remaining projects start kicking in. Here’s a list of bridging projects that have received a grant to make it easier for users to bridge to Optimism and explore its ecosystem:
1. Synapse
# OP allocated — 1M
How will the project use the grant?
150k OP tokens for developers to build tools and applications leveraging Synapse to increase the ways users can enter the Optimism ecosystem.
450k OP tokens for LPs and users to increase the TVL that enters Optimism through Synapse’s stableswap pools.
400k OP tokens for token holders to incentivize the SYN/Stablecoin Curve pool on Optimism to ensure proper liquidity.
2. Hop Protocol
# OP allocated — 1M
How will the project use the grant?
Cover fees to onboard to Optimism — Every user who onboards to Optimism using Hop Protocol will have 80% of their total onboarding fees refunded in $OP.
3. Connext
# OP allocated — 1M
How will the project use the grant?
Incentivize liquidity to open up Optimism to more users and protocols by offering liquidity mining rewards for stable swap LPs
Subsidizing gas fees for transfers to Optimism
Moreover, the team plans to promote educational activities such as guides, videos (check the "Burning Bridges channel on Youtube), AMAs, and the Connext Grants program to help develop cross chain apps (xApps) with Optimism as a central hub.
4. Celer cBridge
# OP allocated — 1M
How will the project use the grant?
650K OP tokens for a liquidity mining program for Optimism-based cBridge pools.
150K OP tokens to reduce user-onboarding costs by subsidizing a portion of the gas fees.
200K OP tokens as builder grants for building cross-chain dApps that help improve the UX and growth of Optimism.
5. Biconomy’s Hyphen
# OP allocated — 1M
How will the project use the grant?
250K OP tokens for liquidity mining and user incentives to bridge funds over to Optimism.
500K OP tokens for ecosystem grants and gas grants to go gasless on Optimism, i.e., subsidizing the users’ gas fees on dApps.
With 12 programs live and 31 more coming, we’re just getting started with the Summer of Optimism. As more projects utilize their allocations, OP Summer will only become bigger and better. Expect to see billions in volumes bridged to Optimism in the future!
Interested in exploring the Optimism ecosystem? Bridge today with TransferTo.xyz! 🦎
Interesting Reads
1) Exploring Security Characteristics of Bridged Tokens $FRAX to Arbitrum
2) Assessing Blockchain Bridges
3) A Year of Bridge Exploits
4) A Closer Look into Synapse
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