Weekly Update - Layer 1 & Layer 2 News (Week 27, 05/07/2022 – 11/07/2022)

Ethereum developers have activated the Merge on the Sepolia testnet. Approx. 50 Terra projects are migrating to the Polygon network. Ronin attacker in March gained access via a fake job advert.

Key Takeaways

• Ethereum (ETH) developers have activated the Merge on the Sepolia testnet. This exercise was essentially a dry run for activating the Merge on the main network, which is currently scheduled for later this year.

• Two months on from the Terra (LUNC) collapse, around 50 projects formerly on the network have begun to migrate to Polygon (MATIC).

• It has been revealed that the hack in which four out of nine Ronin validators were taken over by an attacker was conducted using a fake job advertisement. The attack on Axie Infinity’s sidechain resulted in US$540M in losses in March this year.

• Cronos (CRO) has completed 50.01 million transactions since its launch, an increase of  +1.52% from last week.

Highlights

• Ethereum layer 2 Immutable X launches ETH-to-dollar withdrawals

• Marathon Q2 Bitcoin production down 44% as fleet remains crippled

• SHIB burn rate spikes 231% as 187 million SHIB sent to dead address

• New York State slings another arrow at Bitcoin mining

• Baseball club Perth Heat to enhance fan experience with Lightning Network

• Bitmain launches 2,400 megahash E9 Ethereum miner ahead of the Merge

• Riot Blockchain announces plans to move NY miners to Lone Star State

• Compass Mining retrenches 15% of staff, execs to take major pay cuts

• Cardano ‘sharks’ scoop up 79.1 million ADA ahead of Vasil hard fork

• Polygon scores deal with Reddit for new NFT marketplace

Layer 1 Project Metric

* % change is based on the difference between two subsequent bi-weekly periods

† Sum of P, X and C-chain total transactions

 ‘–’ denotes missing, unavailable, or incomplete data

Sources: Coingecko, Etherscan,Ethernodes, Cardanoscan, Avascan, Solana Beach, FTMscan, BSCscan,CronoScan, Cronos Explorer, DeFi Llama

Layer 2 Project Metric

* Figure refers to Lightning nodes with active channels

† Ronin is the sidechain developed by Sky Mavis for Axie Infinity

 ‘–’ denotes missing, unavailable, or incomplete data

Sources:  DeFi Llama, Polygonscan, Clark Moody Bitcoin, 1ML, Ronin Explorer, Coingecko, Optimistic Etherscan, Arbiscan, Boba Explorer, Andromeda Metis Explorer

---

Thank you for reading! We hope you find our Weekly Layer 1 & Layer 2 News Update enlightening!

Hungry for more? Visit our Research Hub and University to access other insightful crypto research! 

Share with a friend if you like our email!