DeFi & L1L2 Weekly — 📈 The number of unique addresses interacting with Ethereum L2s reached a new high; Helium partnered with US telecommunications giant AT&T

The No. of unique addresses interacting with Ethereum L2s reached a new high; Helium partnered with US telecommunications giant AT&T; Modular blockchain Initia launched its mainnet.

Quick Take

• The Ethereum ecosystem is seeing growing adoption with the number of unique addresses interacting with Ethereum L2s reaching a new high of 13.66 million.
• Helium partnered with US telecommunications giant AT&T. 
• Modular blockchain platform Initia launched its mainnet and native token, INIT.
• Unichain saw a 48% surge in total value locked (TVL) in the last week, driven by the introduction of new liquidity mining and staking incentive programmes. Bitcoin’s TVL witnessed 44% growth.

Weekly DeFi Index

This week, the market capitalisation, volume, and volatility indices all rose by +6.27%, +23.51%, and +74.65% respectively.

Chart of the Week

The Ethereum ecosystem is seeing growing adoption, with Layer-2 (L2) active addresses reaching new highs and the number of unique addresses interacting with L2 networks increasing by 74% over the past week, now totalling 13.66 million.

• Unichain, a Layer-2 (L2) blockchain developed by Uniswap, experienced a significant activity surge following the launch of a US$21 million liquidity incentive campaign on 15 April.
• Multichain DEX aggregator 1inch launched on Solana, enabling Maximal Extractable Value (MEV)-protected swaps.

News Highlights

• Helium, a decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN) protocol, partnered with US telecom giant AT&T to provide users with access to Helium’s community-built Wi-Fi network. AT&T customers can connect to any of the 93,500 hotspots under the Helium Network, most of which are in the US.
• Initia, a modular blockchain platform, launched its mainnet and native token INIT on 24 April, airdropping 5% of its total token supply, or 50,000,000 INIT, to qualified users. The platform combines the base layer with a customisable L2 rollup framework.
• The Interchain Foundation backed Stride, a liquid staking protocol, to develop Stride Swap, a decentralised exchange (DEX). The platform will enable asset swaps between Cosmos and Ethereum, expanding decentralised finance (DeFi) offerings of the former. The strategic move aims to turn the Cosmos Hub into a central liquidity and application layer for the local ecosystem.
• Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation firm Securitize partnered with Mantle Network to launch a new institutional crypto index fund. Known as Mantle Index Four (MI4), the fund is said to provide exposure to BTC, ETH, SOL, and USD stablecoins.
• DeFi Development Corp, a Nasdaq-listed firm, is seeking to raise over $1 billion in capital to invest in Solana tokens. The funds will be used for corporate purposes, which include the establishment of a Solana treasury fund, token acquisitions, and validator operations for staking.
• Kakarot, a startup backed by Vitalik Buterin and StarkWare, completed a working implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) using a Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Proof system, aiming to provide real-time Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge (STARK) proofs on Ethereum by the end of 2025.
• Solana-based DeFi lending protocol Loopscale paused activities after suffering a $5.8 million hack. The exploit, which affected the USDC and SOL vaults, resulted in losses representing around 12% of Loopscale’s TVL. Loan repayments have been restored, but other functionalities remain disabled while the team investigates the exploit.
• A hacker exploited a compromised administrative account belonging to the team supporting the Ethereum scaling protocol ZKsync on 15 April, stealing approximately $5 million worth of ZK tokens. The protocol offered a 10% bounty in return for 90% of the funds, which the hacker accepted. The stolen funds have been recovered, and a final investigation report is being compiled.

Recent Research Reports

• Research Roundup Newsletter [March 2025]: We present to you our latest issue of Research Roundup, featuring our deep dives into ‘Crypto Card Consumer Spending Insights 2024’ and ‘RWA Tokenisation’.
• Crypto Card Consumer Spending Insights 2024: A full breakdown of what the Crypto.com community across the globe spent on in 2024.
• Wall Street On-Chain Part 2 – RWA Tokenisation: Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation is revolutionising traditional finance by bringing liquidity, efficiency, and accessibility. This report explores tokenisation by asset classes, including institutional adoption and regional initiatives, as well as RWAs by chain.

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