Ethereum has officially cleared the final hurdle before The Merge.
Bellatrix, Ethereum’s final hardfork before its very anticipated move to proof-of-stake, was activated on Tuesday. This means that Ethereum is officially ready for The Merge, scheduled sometime between September 13th and 16th.
We’ve talked a lot about The Merge over the past few weeks, and for a good reason, as it is one of the most significant events in the history of crypto. Now that all systems are clear for takeoff, it is definitely a good time to catch up on our past Merge articles here, here, here, and here to make sure you are as prepared as possible.
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| Although this week wasn’t the most exciting when it came to stories, there were some notable fundraises that deserve a mention: Blockchain gaming company Limit Break raised $200 million Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm Seven Seven Six plans to raise $177.6 million for a new fund focused on cryptocurrency Executives from Galaxy Digital and Genesis are raising $500 million for a new crypto-focused fund Blockchain incubator PANONY closed a Series A funding round at a $100 million valuation Blockchain gaming platform Xterio raised $40 million 21Shares parent company raises $25 million at a $2 billion valuation Community-owned livestreaming platform Stacked raised $12.9 million DeFi oracle developer RedStone raised $7 million NFT software company Dust Labs raised $7 million “HQ Trivia meets NFT” game Internet Game raised $7 million in a seed funding round Cosmos layer-1 blockchain Sei raised $5 million in a round led by Multicoin Capital |
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UNest Makes Family Investing Easy, Now Including Crypto |
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Arbitrum Gets Much Faster |
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The largest layer-2 just became a whole lot stronger.
Arbitrum officially underwent its much-anticipated Nitro upgrade last Wednesday, which (1) made Arbitrum much faster and cheaper to use and (2) raised excitement levels to all-time highs.
Let’s discuss why…
A Quick Primer on Layer-2s
In the world of cryptocurrency, we sort blockchains by layers.
Layer-1 (L1) blockchains are the chains we all know and love. Think Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche.
Historically, applications get built on top of L1s. This works well when crypto is small, but falters as crypto grows. The problem is best visualized through the infamous blockchain trilemma, which says that no L1 can simultaneously be decentralized, secure, and scalable.
Ethereum, the largest L1 by a mile, has prioritized security and decentralization over scalability. Unfortunately, this has resulted in extremely high fees during periods of high congestion.
Layer-2s (L2) alleviate this congestion and lower fees, thus boosting scalability.
Arbitrum is the most popular of these L2s.
Arbitrum Nitro
Nitro comes with a host of upgrades for Arbitrum: 7-10x faster speed Reduced transaction costs Ethereum L1 gas compatibility Additional L1 interoperability Long story short, Nitro makes Arbitrum much more attractive to use and much better at scaling Ethereum.
The results have so far been promising, with Arbitrum reaching all-time highs on a number of key metrics.
Looking Ahead
Although Nitro is a substantial technological development, it is just the precursor to other big things soon to come for Arbitrum.
Now that Nitro is complete, Arbitrum Odyssey can resume. In Arbitrum Odyssey, people are invited to use Arbitrum-native projects in the hope that they qualify for the upcoming Arbitrum token airdrop.
Since Arbitrum is already the largest L2 and the 7th largest chain period and contains a fascinating ecosystem of projects, its native token should be pretty valuable.
It looks like Arbitrum is a place you want to be over the coming months. So, if you haven't already done so, it might be a good time to start positioning yourself for the airdrop.
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1inch and SudoSwap Announce Airdrops |
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Rejoice if you’re hurting from the bear market (like most of us) because relief is coming.
Before you ask, no, we are unfortunately not predicting a price rally (although we definitely wouldn’t be opposed).
This relief instead takes the form of airdrops by 1inch and SudoSwap.
Below we will explain what an airdrop is and two projects that are preparing to airdrop free tokens to users, and how you can get involved.
What Is An Airdrop?
Airdrops are one of the coolest parts of crypto.
Basically, airdrops are free tokens gifted by projects to users. The potential for free money incentivizes people to use the project, which makes airdrops a powerful method for new projects to bootstrap some initial usage.
Airdrops are often very lucrative for users. It is not uncommon for airdrops to be worth thousands of dollars, with some users earning up to five or even six figures.
It’s a low-risk, high-reward strategy… precisely what you want during a bear market.
1inch Airdrop
The first project to recently announce an airdrop was decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch.
1inch is airdropping 300,000 OP tokens to users who swapped tokens with 1inch on Optimism.
The airdrop will be distributed equally among all wallets that made a 1inch swap on Optimism up to September 1st. Unfortunately, this means that if you haven’t already done so, you will not be able to qualify for the airdrop.
If you do qualify, keep your eyes peeled on the 1inch Twitter account for further information on how to claim your airdrop.
SudoSwap Airdrop
Unlike 1inch, this one you still have a chance to qualify for.
If you’re unaware of SudoSwap, go check out our article breaking it down. (TL;DR: SudoSwap is a decentralized NFT marketplace that uses liquidity pools instead of an orderbook)
SudoSwap just released their plans to release the SUDO governance token, and a significant amount of SUDO is due to be airdropped.
The best way to qualify for the airdrop is to purchase and lock XMON tokens, as 41.9% of the total SUDO supply goes to XMON lockers at a rate of 10,000 SUDO per XMON. But don’t let the price of XMON – which is currently trading at ~$35k – dissuade you. There are no rules stopping you from buying and locking a small amount of XMON.
With each XMON token holder receiving 10,000 SUDO, you can simply take the percentage of XMON you purchase and multiply by 10,000 to calculate how much SUDO you will receive.
Final Notes
Airdrops are one of the best ways to land some free money, and our advice is to take advantage of these opportunities as you find them.
However, airdrops are not entirely without risk. It is well established that most people dump their airdrop soon after receiving it. This means that if you receive an airdrop, unless you are very confident in the token appreciating over time, it is probably in your best interest to sell it ASAP.
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