Axelar's Maeve Upgrade | LayerZero's Summer 2022 Update | Ethereum's Bellatrix Upgrade | LI.FI Supports Stargate | zkBNB's Introduction & More!

Last Week In The Multi-Chain Ecosystem (5th to 11th Sept 2022)

Sep 12, 2022

Welcome to LI.FI’s Cross Chain Insider newsletter. If you want to join this community of cross-chain aficionados learning about bridges, interoperability, and the multi-chain ecosystem, subscribe below:

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Bridge Updates

1) Axelar Completes Maeve Upgrade 💪🏻

Axelar has completed its Mainnet upgrade, code-named Maeve. The upgrade introduces the implementation of quadratic voting to bolster the security and decentralization of Axelar’s validator set. Quadratic voting ensures that a small number of validators cannot obtain a disproportionate stake in the network.

2) LayerZero’s Summer of 2022 Update 🔥

LayerZero has released an update with a host of new features and tools. Here’s what’s new:

Pre-Crime is Live — The feature is now open to everyone, “allowing developers to define custom security guarantees by setting their own invariants for all messaging.”
LayerZero Scan — an omnichain blockchain explorer for all LayerZero messages.
Ultra Light Node Library (ULNv2) — ULNv2 contains the required support for LayerZero’s upcoming non-EVM chains, LayerZero Scan, gas improvements, and patches for security issues in ULNv1.
New Chains — LayerZero has added support for Moonbeam, Harmony, Swimmer, and DFK. It is also live on eight other pre-launch chain’s testnets, including non-EVMs such as Aptos, Sui, and Solana.

3) LI.FI Now Supports Stargate 🦎

LI.FI has added support for Stargate. This makes Stargate the 10th bridge currently supported by LI.FI on TrasnferTo.xyz.

4) Ronin PSA: $30M Recovered 👏🏻

With assistance from Chainalysis, the U.S. government has recovered nearly $30M in stolen funds from the Ronin Bridge hack. According to the team, this accounts for 12% of the stolen funds, as the current total value of the stolen funds is ~250M.

5) Nomad Bridge Hack Update — $37M of the 186M Recovered 🤝🏻

The Nomad team has successfully recovered $37M from the $186M in stolen funds with the help of whitehat hackers and security firms. The team is currently in Phase 2 of their “Road to Recovery” roadmap — The design mechanism to ensure fair distribution of recovered funds has been completed, and smart contract audits have kicked off. Nomad plans to begin Phase 3, which will see the bridge restart, in early October.

6) Rainbow Bridge Paused for the Merge 🌈

As of 1 PM CET on September 11, the Rainbow Bridge has been paused because of the upcoming Merge. As per the team, during the Merge, several technical risks exists. To mitigate these risks, the Rainbow Bridge's interaction with Ethereum will be paused and will resume after the Merge, post security checks.

Multi-Chain Ecosystem Updates

1) Ethereum Bellatrix is Now Live 🐼

The Ethereum Merge inches closes as the first upgrade known as Bellatrix successfully went live. The Merge is expected to be completed this week.

2) Cardano Vasil Upgrade Date Confirmed 💪🏻

Cardano has set September 22nd as the date for the Vasil upgrade. The upgrade is the most significant Cardano upgrade to date and is expected to increase network capacity and lower transaction costs.

3) Binance to Convert All USDC to BUSD 🤔

Binance is introducing BUSD Auto-Conversion starting September 29th — This will see users’ existing balances and new deposits of USDC, USDP, and TUSD stablecoins automatically converted to BUSD at a 1:1 ratio. With this, Binance aims to enhance liquidity and capital efficiency for users.

4) Liquid Staking Wars on Cosmos 🔜

a) Lido to Launch on Cosmos — The Lido community has proposed a framework “for deploying Lido as a custom implementation designed to serve the liquid staking needs of the entire IBC ecosystem.” This will be done by launching on Neutron, a permissionless CosmWasm Gateway to IBC built by one of Lido’s core contributors.

b) Stride Mainnet is Now Live — Stride, a blockchain built using the Cosmos SDK, is now live, offering multi-chain liquid staking services for the Cosmos ecosystem. Stride has initially launched with support for ATOM staking and plans to add support for other Cosmos chains like OSMO and JUNO this year.

5) zkBNB — BNB’s Scaling Solution 🧐

BNB Chain has launched zkBNB, a zero-knowledge proof-based scaling solution for web3 dApps (better suited for GameFi and Social dApps). The team is targeting to launch the Mainnet by the end of 2022.

6) Algorand Protocol Upgrade Completed ✔️

Algorand announced a major upgrade to its protocol which is now live on Mainnet. The upgrade features State Proofs that enable trustless cross-chain communication and a 5x increase in performance from 1,200 to 6,000 transactions per second (TPS).

What’s Popping on Twitter?

Typically, events in crypto create a buzz only within the ecosystem; unless it’s a triple-digit million-dollar hack or a cryptocurrency going to 0, the outside world doesn’t pay much attention. However, the Merge is different. It is a once-in-a-lifetime event scheduled to take place on 13-15th September, and its significance can be seen across Webs — If you Google “the Merge” right now, here’s what you’ll see.

As we await the Merge, here’s some useful knowledge from across Crypto Twitter to help you prepare for it:

Primer on what to expect on the network during the Merge — what happens on the tech/blockchain level during the Merge?

superphiz.eth 🦇🔊🐼 @superphiz

I wrote a layman's primer for what to expect on the network during the Ethereum Mainnet Merge. I'm no expert, but I hope this helps improve understanding and expectations:

reddit.comr/ethfinance - Comment by u/superphiz on ”Daily General Discussion - September 3, 2022”287 votes and 520 comments so far on Reddit

How to Watch the Merge, Ethereum’s Biggest Upgrade Ever
Christine Kim @christine_dkim
Introducing the ultimate guide for how to watch next week's Ethereum Merge upgrade 🐼 galaxy.com/research/insig…
3:14 PM ∙ Sep 9, 2022
232Likes62Retweets
How to best position yourself for the ETH merge — TL;DR: Hold native ETH tokens on the Ethereum Mainnet.

Bobby Ong @bobbyong

The Ethereum Merge is scheduled to take place on 13 September. Christmas season is here again. ETH holders will soon be airdropped ETH PoW tokens. What should you do to best position yourself? Here are 7 steps you may consider to fully take advantage of the Merge:

The countdown for the Merge has begun, and the Bellatrix upgrade was recently activated. This prepares Ethereum for the Merge and is one of the last hurdles before the main event.

In a few days, we will witness a historical event, the significance of which cannot be understated. The stage is set, and we couldn’t be more excited about it!