Weekly Layers 1 & 2 Update (Week 10, 08/03/2022 – 14/03/2022)

ETH investment funds reach record-high inflows in 13 weeks. EU parliament votes against ban on Proof-of-Work consensus. Layer 2 solution developer StarkWareLtd raises $100M at $6B valuation.

Key Takeaways

• Ethereum (ETH) investment funds recorded their largest inflows in 13 weeks against a discouraging investment backdrop. In addition, the Eth 2.0 deposit contract crossed the 10M ETH mark as the community continues to support the network’s transition.
• The European Parliament voted against a proposed ban on proof-of-work (PoW) mining under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) legislation, which would have blocked member states from mining PoW cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC).
• Layer 2 solution developer StarkWare raised USD 100M at a $6B valuation. StarkWare provides two layer 2 solutions, StarkEx and StarkNet. Recently, the developer launched StarkNet at the end of February.
• Cronos (CRO) saw a +8.07% increase in total transactions to 21.55M, while its TVL grew to $2.73B (+14.51% week-on-week). The total number of wallet addresses now stands at 442,534, up +3.94% from last week.

Highlights

• Ethereum ‘Merge’ edging closer with final Kiln testnet launch
• Ethereum gas fees drop to lowest levels since August 2021
• Block’s wallet will have a fingerprint sensor, not a screen
• Now You can try ‘teleporting’ bitcoin for greater privacy with CoinSwaps
• How El Salvador is fixing Chivo Wallet, trying to get Bitcoin adoption back on track
• Polygon network back up with a ‘temporary fix’ after eight-hour stoppage
• Cosmos’ Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) surpassed 11 million transfers in February
• Fantom Foundation issues clarification statement about departure of Andre Cronje and Anton Nell