1. Forecast

1. Macro-level summary and future forecast

Affected by uncertainty in tariff policies, U.S. stocks experienced extreme volatility, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq falling across the board. In the past week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by 2.66%, the Nasdaq has fallen by 2.62%, and the S&P 500 has fallen by 1.50%. Market sentiment has become more cautious. The tariff war is still a core factor affecting the market. Although the United States suspends new tariffs on some countries, high tariffs on China continue to be put in pressure, and many countries are actively seeking negotiations to ease trade tensions. US stocks are fluctuating violently under the uncertainty of tariffs and concerns about economic outlook, showing a downward trend overall, and market risk preferences are reduced. We need to be vigilant about further adjustments in the short term.

2. Market changes and early warnings in the crypto industry

Last week, the crypto market, under the dual influence of macro trade policy fluctuations and the collapse of individual tokens, did not follow the decline of the US stock market as a whole, showing a volatile upward trend but accompanied by greater risks. Bitcoin's performance is relatively strong, with mainstream currencies volatility and differentiation, and the confidence of altcoins has been significantly damaged. Frequent mergers and acquisitions and cooperation in the industry show that institutions are still optimistic about the long-term potential of crypto assets. In the future, the market still needs to pay attention to trade war trends, regulatory policy changes and key technical support levels, and reasonably allocate assets and diversify risks.

3. Industry and track hot spots

Fizen, an unmanaged encryption platform dedicated to the use of stablecoin transactions, has developed a non-managed crypto super application, simplifying payment and wallet management based on stablecoin; Firefish, a BTC ecosystem peer-to-peer open lending market, is an open lending market that promotes Bitcoin-secured loans, directly connects borrowers and investors, and avoids the participation of intermediaries; led by A16z, Coinbase followed the $10 million decentralized communication protocol Towns, allowing people to create programmable communication use cases in a permissionless manner, called "Spaces".

2. Market hot tracks and weekly potential projects

1. Potential track performance

**1.1. A brief analysis of the characteristics of the Fizen structure of

the unmanaged encryption platform dedicated to using stablecoin transactions to cover Web3+Web2**

Fizen is a fintech company that has developed a non-custodial crypto superapp that simplifies stablecoin-based payments and wallet management. It supports seamless transactions across multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, BNB chains, Bitcoin, etc., and supports token exchange, NFT and global shopping from more than 25,000 merchants. Fizen has the characteristics of gas-free transactions, AI-driven redemption and 0.5% merchant fee gateways, which bring actual use value to digital assets. It enables consumers and businesses to store, transfer and trade cryptocurrencies efficiently and without complex operations.

Technical details

The Fizen ecosystem is a place where individuals and businesses can work together to create huge benefits.

For users : Fizen Ramp allows users to easily buy and sell cryptocurrencies in a variety of ways (such as bank transfers, credit cards, etc.). Securely store cryptocurrencies on the Fizen super app and use them for payments and shopping.

For businesses that provide products and services : Businesses can easily accept cryptocurrency payments through Fizen Pay, expanding their business to a global audience, including emerging cryptocurrency users, thereby achieving profit growth. Fizen helps businesses sell goods and services within the Fizen super app.

For blockchain projects with tokens and coins : Blockchain projects can integrate their tokens and coins into the Fizen super application, allowing users to use these tokens and coins to purchase a variety of goods and services. This greatly enhances the value of tokens and coins, enhances user loyalty, and deepens connection with projects.

1. Fizen Ramp

For new users, a big problem in buying cryptocurrencies is how to operate. Usually, users need to register an account with a cryptocurrency exchange, complete KYC by providing documents such as passport or ID card (know your customers), and upload a selfie for identity verification. The waiting time for this verification process may range from 30 minutes to a week. Even if you buy cryptocurrencies on exchanges, the process is not necessarily simple and direct.

Fizen understands the challenges faced by customers and is committed to creating the simplest and best experience for them.

• Download the app and create a wallet in 1 minute.
• Purchase cryptocurrency through bank transfer and receive it within 5 minutes.

Currently, Fizen does not require users to KYC for small transactions to provide convenience. However, for larger transactions, and to comply with laws and regulations and to prevent money laundering, Fizen will conduct KYC verification, while prioritizing user-friendliness and convenience.

The Fizen Super App is also a non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet, which means that users have complete control over their private keys and assets. Fizen and any of its employees have no access to users' crypto assets. This is different from users buying and storing cryptocurrencies on exchanges, where users face higher risks and if problems occur on exchanges, users' assets may be lost, as the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange caused users to lose $10 billion in assets.

2. ****Fizen Super App

What makes Fizen super app special is its user-friendliness and the numerous practical features that users can use immediately in their daily lives. These applications include recharge mobile phone bills, buying movie tickets, buying coffee, etc.

User-friendliness is a particularly important feature of the application because it enables more users, including those who are not familiar with cryptocurrencies. The Fizen super app will be the solution to bring blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to billions of people. To participate, new users no longer need to learn complex terms or technologies like transactions or decentralized finance (DeFi). They simply buy coffee, earn points and enjoy discounts.

By introducing daily applications such as buying coffee, movie tickets or NFT rewards to the Fizen Super App, it will increase the frequency of daily use and help users form usage habits.

3. Fizen Pay Pay Gateway

Information technology is developing at an unprecedented rate, affecting and changing various fields. However, the banking and financial industries are relatively slow in adopting technology. The main reason is that the system is huge and involves large financial institutions, such as banks, credit institutions, payment companies, etc. When you are shopping and using cards like Visa or Mastercard, your transactions need to be processed by multiple companies and organizations. In each link, the transaction fees of these institutions will continue to accumulate.

To prevent users from feeling the loss, payment institutions usually charge fees to businesses that provide goods and services. Naturally, companies cannot absorb all these expenses, but instead include them in the product price. Therefore, customers may feel that they are not charged when using traditional payment methods, but in reality, they are paying these fees indirectly through the price of the commodity.

A distinctive feature of blockchain and cryptocurrency technology is that it provides a peer-to-peer financial system where funds can be transferred directly from one entity to another without the need for intermediaries. This helps reduce payment fees. In order for businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments, they need a payment gateway. While businesses can set up payment gateways themselves, it takes a lot of time and effort. Therefore, Fizen provides Fizen Pay, providing an integrated solution for businesses with extremely low transaction fees, below 1%.

With such low transaction fees, businesses can lower the price of their products, turn them into loyalty points, or provide cash back to customers. What’s even better is that businesses can receive payments instantly without having to go through delays in other payment methods (usually 3 to 15 days).

Most importantly, pure payment gateway solutions are limited in helping enterprises. Businesses don’t know where cryptocurrency users are, and users don’t know which companies accept cryptocurrency payments. This is why Fizen is built as an integrated ecosystem. Fizen not only provides technical solutions, but also connects businesses to customers.

Comments

Overall, Fizen has significant advantages in simplifying cryptocurrency transactions, reducing transaction costs, and improving payment efficiency. However, to achieve large-scale user and market acceptance, challenges such as user education, compliance and market awareness are also needed.

1.2. A brief understanding of how Firefish, a BTC ecosystem peer-to-peer open lending market, makes borrowers and lenders win-win

Firefish is an open lending market that promotes Bitcoin-secured loans, directly connecting borrowers and investors, and avoiding the participation of intermediaries. Borrowers can obtain liquidity without selling their assets by using Bitcoin as collateral to obtain fiat currency or stablecoin loans. Investors provide funds for these loans and ensure a fixed return on interest by the value of Bitcoin collateral exceeding the loan amount. The platform operates in a point-to-point manner, ensuring transparency and security through on-chain hosting systems.

Participants in the Firefish Agreement

• Borrower: An individual or entity that owns Bitcoin and seeks fiat currency liquidity.
• Lender: An individual or entity that has excess fiat currency liquidity and wants to earn interest.
• Liquidator: An entity entrusted by the lender, responsible for liquidating collateral on behalf of the lender when the borrower fails to perform his obligations. The lender can also act as a liquidator on his own.
• Price oracle: an oracle that proves the Bitcoin exchange rate. It can be achieved by trusted institutions, public oracles, or a threshold mechanism composed of multiple institutions and public oracles. Currently, Firefish operates price oracles.
• Payment oracle: an oracle that proves whether fiat currency payment has been completed (such as loan repayment). Currently, Firefish operates payment oracles.
• Firefish: A platform that matches borrowers and lenders and facilitates their secure interaction.

Brief description of the architecture

1. Hosting contracts <br style="font-size: inherit; font-family: PingFang SC,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Hiragino Sans GB,Heiti SC,Microsoft YaHei,WenQuanYi Micro Hei,sans-serif;">Hosting contracts are the core part of the Firefish protocol. It allows the locking of Bitcoin collateral to a specific address, and the collateral can only be further operated if the following conditions are met:

• When certain conditions are met (e.g. loan repayment)
• Perform in a specific way (contract output can only be sent to a predetermined address)

The custodial contract can be represented in the following ways:

The first layer of the custodial contract is the tx_escrow transaction. Its input is the UTXO of the borrower (Bitcoin of the borrower), and the output is a 3/3 multi-signature address, and the signature key is held by the following three parties:

• Price Oracle
• Payment Oracle
• Borrower (temporary key), B-EPH

The output of the tx_escrow transaction is the custody itself, and Bitcoin will be locked at this address during the loan period.

The second layer of the escrow contract consists of a set of partially signed transactions (PSBTs) that allow the output of tx_escrow to be consumed, i.e. the collateral is unlocked and sent to the predetermined address. This operation occurs when a specific condition is met (eg, loan repayment) and the missing signature is added to the PSBT.

2. Prefund Contract **
   **To enable borrowers to easily use various bitcoin infrastructures (hardware wallets, software wallets, custodial wallets), the protocol recommends the use of an additional on-chain transaction to consolidate and confirm UTXOs that will be used to fund custodial contracts.

This additional on-chain transaction is called tx_prefund , which is located before the tx_escrow transaction and can be represented as follows:

This structure allows borrowers to easily interact with the Firefish protocol: they send Bitcoin collateral to a specific address A_prefund.

A_prefund represents a complex expenditure condition:

• 3/3 Multi-signature (borrower's temporary key B-EPH, price oracle, payment oracle)
• After a specific time lock, the borrower uses its temporary key B-EPH signature

The multi-signature branch is used in tx_escrow transactions, while the other two options provide additional security and reduce the required trust between parties.

Firefish Agreement, Pre-financing and Custody Contracts:

3. Firefish App

The Firefish protocol is designed to minimize risks and reduce reliance on mutual trust among parties. To take full advantage of the security of pre-financing and escrow contracts, borrowers must be able to build addresses and transactions, or verify that they have been properly implemented under the agreement.

In order to make the protocol accessible to borrowers with different technical levels and using different wallets, the Firefish application was developed. This is a dedicated Bitcoin wallet software with the following features:

• The application is open source software that can be compiled and run by the borrower on his own hardware (in the desktop or in the browser).
• The application is able to build complex addresses and transactions based on the Firefish protocol.
• The application generates temporary key pairs, signs transactions, and stores necessary data (such as PSBT).

Comments

The Firefish protocol provides an innovative decentralized lending solution that ensures transactions secure and transparent through smart contracts, custodial contracts and pre-financing contracts. However, problems such as technical thresholds, oracle dependence, Bitcoin price fluctuations, and platform centralized management are still potential risks and challenges.

1.3. **A brief analysis of the characteristics of the decentralized

communication protocol Towns led by A16z and followed by Coinbase to invest $10 million?**

The Towns protocol is an open source protocol used to build decentralized real-time messaging applications. It consists of an EVM-compatible L2 chain, decentralized outbound nodes, and smart contracts deployed on Base. Towns allows people to create programmable communication use cases in a permissionless way, called "Spaces". These spaces are available with on-chain subscriptions ("members"), extensible reputation systems, and end-to-end message encryption.

Feature analysis

1. Main features

• Application Chain built for social networks – Towns guarantees read/write permissions separately on Base, enabling our application chain to make trade-offs on activity and send messages to thousands of participants as quickly as any existing centralized social network.
• Communications that can be owned – Space creators truly own the space they create as an on-chain asset.
• Programmable Space – The space is deployed on-chain and has a programmable interface that allows custom rules (such as who can read and write), and integrates with any other external EVM-compatible contract.
• On-chain membership and built-in protocol fees – Users need to hold valid membership tokens to send and receive messages in one space. Member pricing enforces agreement fees to cover network operation costs.
• On-chain social graph – Member tokens and spaces can be discovered on-chain.
• Scalable reputation system – Towns’ communication space can be programmed to allow members to discover peer-based, space-specific ratings on the chain.
• End-to-end encrypted messages – Through advanced encryption technology, ensure the security and privacy of messages between the sender and authorized users.

2. Towns smart contract

Towns smart contracts are the cornerstone of the Towns ecosystem, providing a powerful framework for creating, managing, and interacting digital communities (called “spaces”) on the blockchain. These contracts are deployed on the Base mainnet, an Ethereum Layer 2 solution optimized for scalability and efficiency.

• Unique contract address for each space
  • Unique Operations and Governance : Each space in the Towns ecosystem is equipped with a unique contract address. This personalized approach makes each space unique in operation, governance, and interaction, ensuring that each space maintains its unique identity and operational structure.
• Advantages of Towns smart contracts
• Programmability : Towns smart contracts allow every aspect of the space to be fully programmed. Developers can create complex membership restrictions based on token balances, NFTs, or on-chain activities; implement dynamic pricing and automatic subscriptions; deploy robots to enhance community interaction; and seamlessly integrate with other Web3 applications and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to open up new possibilities for on-chain community interaction.
• Scalability and Efficiency : By leveraging Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, Towns smart contracts significantly improve operational scalability, ensuring that the growing demands of the digital community are met without compromising performance.
• Reduce transaction costs : The use of Layer 2 solutions plays a key role in reducing transaction costs, making users more economical to interact within the Towns ecosystem.
• Enhanced security and transparency : Smart contracts themselves provide a secure and transparent framework for digital interactions. The combination of immutability of blockchain technology and the transparency of smart contracts creates a trustworthy environment for all users.
• Automated Governance : These contracts promote automated governance mechanisms. This automation ensures that the rules and protocols defined for each space can be executed consistently and impartially.

3. Towns Communication Protocol

The Towns Message Protocol is the core infrastructure used to authenticate and transmit encrypted messages. It provides an innovative approach to secure and private group messaging. The protocol is designed to operate seamlessly in blockchain infrastructure, leveraging the power of decentralized technology to provide a high-quality permissionless messaging experience.

Read/write permissions are guaranteed on Base, allowing Towns to make an active trade-off to send messages to thousands of participants as quickly as any existing centralized social network. The Towns protocol was originally built for a wide range of chat application use cases and chat business logic, but in the future the protocol will be abstracted to form the basic layer of any form of encrypted messaging use cases. Its characteristics are

• Encrypted communication

  • End-to-end encryption : The Towns messaging protocol adopts the most advanced encryption method to ensure that all communications are secure from the end to the end. Except for the sender and authorized users, no one, including the Towns node operator, can decrypt and read messages in the Towns ecosystem.
  • Privacy Design : This protocol emphasizes user privacy, ensuring that message content is only visible to the intended recipient and cannot be accessed by anyone else.

• Decentralization

  • Distributed Network : This protocol operates on a distributed node network to ensure reliability and protect against the risk of centralized failure points.
  • User Autonomy : The space in the protocol is governed by users, promoting a community-driven environment where users can control their communication channels.

• Scalability and efficiency

  • Scalable architecture : designed to process large amounts of messages without compromising speed or security.
  • Resource optimization : Efficiently utilize network resources to ensure the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of protocols.

• Components

• Towns Chain **
  **A Layer 2 blockchain solution, which supports the Towns messaging protocol, provides consensus and security.

• Stream node **
  **Responsible for managing the nodes in the protocol for message flow and handling tasks such as message verification, storage and encryption.

• Permission Management **
  **Manage users ' permissions and access systems in the space to ensure a safe and orderly communication environment.

Comments

Through decentralized, privacy protection and efficient messaging functions, the Towns protocol can provide users with a secure and flexible communication platform, especially suitable for social applications that require high privacy protection. However, its dependence on blockchain, cost issues and governance structure challenges also need to be considered in practical applications.

2. Detailed explanation of the project that week

**2.1. Detailed explanation of Animoca 's investment of 6 million US

dollars, and the Layer 2 network built on ZK Rollup technology can be used to pay gas by native Token.**

Introduction

OpenZK Network is a Layer 2 solution based on Zero Knowledge Rollup (ZK Rollup) technology designed to address Ethereum’s scalability, cost and performance limitations while maintaining its security guarantees. The OpenZK network provides an efficient, secure, and low-cost transaction processing environment, especially for decentralized finance (DeFi), real-world assets (RWA), NFT and trading applications.

ETH staking and rewards **
**One of the core innovations of the OpenZK network is its native ETH staking mechanism, which allows users to bridge ETH to the network while earning ETH staking and restaking rewards on Ethereum without additional operations, thus contributing to the stability and security of the Ethereum ecosystem.

This native staking mechanism is seamlessly integrated into the OpenZK architecture. Once the user's ETH is bridged to OpenZK, it will be pledged/re-staked immediately. The reward is generated immediately. The user will receive a mobile token (ozETH) representing the pledged/re-staked ETH location and related rewards.

Stablecoin rewards **
**The OpenZK network also includes a native stablecoin reward and incentive feature that allows users to receive additional rewards in their stablecoin holdings. The rewards related to stablecoins are simple and easy to use. Users can bridge certain stablecoins (such as USDT, USDC, DAI, or other supported assets) to the OpenZK network, which will automatically participate in the L1 unmanaged saving mechanism (such as MakerDAO/sky.money), generating reference tokens and related rewards (ozUSD) for that location without additional user actions or complicated steps.

OZK Tokens **
**OZK is a protocol token for the OpenZK network, designed to provide practicality and governance capabilities. It will play an important role in promoting networks, facilitating transactions and aligning incentives within the ecosystem. Users can use ozETH and future expected OZK to pay for gas fees on the network, supporting the basic practical features of OZK.

The OpenZK network will adopt a non-inflationary token model. It is expected that where applicable and in accordance with community governance decisions, some gas fees paid by OZK may be removed from the supply and distributed to the pool for community/ecosystem initiatives.

Technical analysis

1. ETH pledge and re-pled **
   **The Liquidity Manager contract (Liquidity Manager contract) is an ERC20-compliant smart contract for managing liquidity allocations in multiple treasuries through a weighted system. Users can "stake" native ETH into liquidity management contracts, thereby obtaining an ozETH ERC20 token in return.

The underlying assets in the liquidity management contract are native ETH.

Core contract

• ozETH Token
• Liquidity Manager
• Rocket Pool Vault
• Re-staking contracts through EigenLayer
• Price oracle

Liquidity Manager Contract

As the central controller of the entire system, the liquidity manager is responsible for the following tasks:

• Asset allocation
  • Manages the allocation of ETH between multiple Vaults.
  • Implement a weight-based allocation system.
  • Issuance represents the share of the user's proportional equity.
• Vault Management
• Maintains the registry of supported Vaults.
• Controls the addition and removal of Vault.
• Manages the Vault weights of deposit allocations.
• Process Vault's deposit and withdrawal interaction.
• Share tokenization
• Issuing ERC20 tokens representing user deposits.
• Calculate share based on Vault performance.
• Share destruction when processing extraction.

Vault contract (Rocket Pool)

Vault is a contract that specifically interfaces with a specific staking protocol:

Protocol integration

• Implement deposit/extraction logic for specific protocols.
• Manage the conversion between ETH and protocol tokens.
• Handle protocol-specific staking mechanisms.

asset Management

• Hold and manage protocol-specific tokens.
• Track asset balance and share calculations.
• Implement safety inspections and extraction restrictions.

Re-staking contract

Repair contracts are used to allocate shares from Vault contracts to other pledge/repair agreements such as EigenLayer. In this case, the share in the Vault becomes an asset. Re-staking is an optional feature of Vault, maintaining a 1:1 relationship, while Vault can only re-staking shares to a re-staking agreement.

Price oracle

When the protocol requires converting the price of an asset or share to local ETH, the price oracle is called and the price is returned via Uniswap v3.

System Process

Deposit Process

1. The user deposits ETH into the liquidity manager.
   Liquidity Manager:

* Calculate the allocation based on the Vault weight. 

* Assign deposits to registered Vault.
* Issuing shares to represent the user\'s deposit.

2. Each Vault: * Receive a portion of the ETH. * Convert ETH to protocol-specific tokens. * Update internal accounting. * Report to the liquidity manager.

Extraction process

1. User initiates a withdrawal request using share.
   Liquidity Manager:

* Calculate the scale extraction from each Vault. 

* Coordinate the extraction request. 
* Destroy user share.

2. Each Vault: * Convert protocol tokens back to ETH. * Handle any protocol-specific unstaked operations. * Return ETH to the liquidity manager.

3. The liquidity manager returns the merged ETH to the user.
4. Stable Coin Pledge

This protocol allows users to deposit and "stake" their stablecoins (such as USDT, DAI, USDC, etc.) through sky.money's unmanaged savings mechanism and obtain liquidity tokens (ozUSD) representing the position.

Core contract

• ozUSD Vault
  • The ozUSD Vault contract allows users to deposit specific tokens that are exchanged for USDS through Sky Money's "Converter" contract ("Sky Money Converter").

System Process

Deposit Process

1. Users deposit allowed stablecoin assets into the ozUSD Vault contract.
2. If needed, the assets will first be exchanged for DAI via the UniSwap v3 router (and follow the defined slippage limit) and then converted to USDS via Sky Money Converter.
3. The conversion rate is 1:1 (DAI:USDS).
4. The received USDS will be stored in the sUSDS Vault. The obtained share (sUSDS) will be kept in the ozUSD Vault contract, and for each sUSDS share is held, an ozUSD will be minted in the ozUSD Vault.

Extraction process

1. Users can withdraw/unstake by destroying ozUSD and automatically redeeming each sUSDS underlying stablecoin and accumulated rewards. The user can start this process by calling the QueueWithdraw function.
2. The user will receive a nonce that is used to complete the extraction after the cliff period is over.
3. Each ozUSD is destroyed and redeems its corresponding sUSDS and underlying stablecoin assets, which are then automatically exchanged for user-selected stablecoins through ozUSD Vault and Uniswap and saved in ozUSD Vault.
4. Once the cliff period is over, the user can complete the extraction by executing the Withdraw function with the provided nonce.

Summarize

OpenZK provides decentralized and automated stablecoin staking solutions that can improve liquidity and bring additional rewards, but also face challenges such as risks of relying on external tools, slippage and fee issues, and delays in the withdrawal process. This system provides good advantages for users who focus on decentralization, liquidity and automation, but there may be certain limitations for users who require high flexibility and instant extraction.

3. Industry data analysis

1. Overall market performance

1.1 Spot BTC&ETH ETF

ETF, November 1, ET) Ethereum spot ETF total net outflow of 10.925,600 US dollars

1.2. Spot BTC vs ETH Price Trend

BTC

Analysis

As expected last week, BTC continued to open a large-volume rebound market after consolidating in the range of 83,000 to 86,000 US dollars last week. From the perspective of trading volume, before testing the resistance range around 89,100 US dollars, the resistance faced by the bulls was not large, and given the stabilization of fundamentals, there is a reason for the rebound momentum. Therefore, users can directly pay attention to the strong resistance of the US $89,100 above this week. If enough upward chips were accumulated in the range of 86,400 to 89,000 US dollars in the first half of this week and then broke the volume, they can continue to look up to the second-line resistance zone of 92,000 US dollars (as shown in the figure). On the contrary, if the upward pin is inserted during the breakthrough period and the volume is rapidly shrinking, it may mean that the energy of the rise is exhausted, and the coin price will continue to open a wide-range fluctuation around the range of 81,000 to 89,000 US dollars in one week.

ETH

Analysis

Although ETH has not yet effectively broken through the short-term key resistance of $1,630 after stabilizing at $1,560, as fundamentals gradually recover, a slow upward trend is a high probability event. This week, users can directly pay attention to the strong resistance of $1,690 in the first-line, and after breaking up, they will directly look to the second-line resistance of $1,750 (the lower track of the green consolidation zone). This resistance may be an area that bulls cannot overcome in the near future.

As for support, we can only focus on around $1,560. If the downward trend does not break this point, it will still be bullish. If the price falls below, it means that the bottoming market will continue.

1.3. Panic & Greed Index

2. Public chain data

2.1. BTC Layer 2 Summary

Analysis

1. Merlin Chain ($MERL) tokens are available online

Merlin Chain, one of the leading Bitcoin L2 protocols, launched its native token $MERL on April 19. The agreement has a total lock-in value (TVL) of more than $3.6 billion and covers more than 200 decentralized applications (dApps), covering areas such as DeFi, gaming and social platforms. $MERL tokens will be used for protocol governance, staking and transaction fee payments. The token has been launched on major exchanges including OKX and Bitget, showing strong community support and institutional confidence.

2. Stacks (STX) Nakamoto upgrade

Stacks activated its Nakamoto upgrade in late April, improving transaction finality and reducing block time to about five seconds. This upgrade supports the upcoming sBTC, an asset pegged to Bitcoin, making the integration of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications between Bitcoin and Stacks smoother.

3. BitVM and Bitlayer Innovation

Bitlayer introduced BitVM, a computing model that combines optimistic Rollup and Bitcoin’s scripting capabilities, enabling fraud proof on Bitcoin. This innovation makes it possible to implement complex smart contracts without changing the underlying structure of Bitcoin, attracting projects such as decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and AI-based protocols.

4. Union Bridge Agreement

The Union protocol is a trust-minimized bridging protocol designed for Rootstock to make BTC transfers between Bitcoin and other secondary blockchains secure. By adopting a multi-party variant of BitVMX, the Union protocol can provide scalable Bitcoin interoperability solutions when assuming that at least one party participant remains honest.

2.2. EVM &non-EVM Layer 1 Summary

Analysis

EVM compatible with Layer 1 blockchain dynamics

1. EOS EVM main network online

The EOS Network Foundation successfully launched its EVM mainnet on April 14, aiming to combine its performance with Ethereum compatibility. ​EOS EVM has a throughput of more than 800 swaps per second, with three times faster than Solana and BNB and 25 times more than Avalanche, providing developers with an efficient development platform. ​

2. Polkadot 2025 Roadmap Release

Polkadot announced that it will support EVM and Solidity in 2025, adopting a multi-core architecture to improve scalability, and upgrading the cross-chain messaging protocol through XCM v5 to enhance interoperability. In addition, Polkadot will simplify address management, shorten DOT unlocking time, and support Rollup to pay handling fees.

3. Injective introduces EVM compatibility

The Layer 1 blockchain Injective of the Cosmos ecosystem announced that it will natively support EVM, allowing Ethereum-compatible DApps to run on its network. This feature is currently under development and is expected to be launched on the main network by the end of 2025. ​

** Non-EVM Layer 1 Blockchain Dynamics**

1. Solana transaction throughput increases

Solana's non-voting transaction throughput is expected to exceed 5,000 transactions per second in 2025, a 6-7-fold increase from current levels. The main upgrades include the comprehensive deployment of Firedancer client, the optimization of core Anza client, and more efficient cost market and program compression solutions to improve on-chain resource utilization efficiency. ​

2. Avalanche9000 upgrade

Avalanche announced that it will carry out the Avalanche9000 upgrade, which is expected to reduce Layer 1 deployment costs by 99.9% and reduce C-chain transaction fees by 25 times. The upgrade aims to improve the application of the network in the fields of tokenized assets, DeFi, games, etc.

3. The N1 blockchain main network is about to be launched

N1 is a low-latency, high-throughput Layer 1 blockchain that supports multiple programming languages ​​(such as TypeScript, Python, C, etc.), aiming to provide developers with an efficient decentralized application development platform. N1 also launched NTS (TypeScript smart contract development environment), NordVM (Rust-based order book framework) and N1 Studios (application incubation platform) to promote the development of the ecosystem.

2.3. EVM Layer 2 Summary

Analysis

1. Ethereum L2 interoperability takes key steps

The Ethereum community is actively promoting unified standards for L2 interoperability. Among them, ERC-7683 (Cross Chain Intents) is regarded as a key progress. ​This standard is designed to simplify the cross-chain transaction process, allowing users to conduct seamless asset transfers and governance voting between different L2s.​ Several projects, including Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base and Uniswap, have expressed support for this standard. ​It is expected that cross-chain transactions will become easier in the next few months.

2. Vitalik Buterin proposes the concept of "embedded zkEVM"

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a new zkEVM architecture aimed at integrating zkEVM directly into the Ethereum main chain to improve verification efficiency and security. ​This proposal may have a profound impact on existing L2 projects such as Polygon, Matter Labs and Scroll.

3. Emerging L2 project InfinixChain launches

InfinixChain is a new EVM-compatible L2 blockchain designed to improve scalability, reduce transaction costs, and increase transaction speed. ​This project supports decentralized applications such as DeFi, NFT and GameFi, providing high throughput and low latency transaction experience. ​At present, InfinixChain has launched token pre-sales and plans to launch native tokens in the future.

4. L2BEAT strengthens L2 safety standards

L2BEAT announced that it will implement stricter safety standards for L2 projects. ​Projects that fail to provide adequate data availability assurance or proof system will be reclassified into the “Other” category. ​All L2 projects need to meet new requirements by mid-2025, otherwise they may face reclassification.

5. The unified upgrade of Ethereum L2 will be completed within 2025

The Ethereum community plans to complete the unified upgrade of L2 in 2025, allowing different L2 platforms to achieve seamless interoperability. ​This will promote cross-chain operation of decentralized applications between multiple L2 networks, improving the overall efficiency and user experience of the Ethereum ecosystem.

4. Macro data review and key data release nodes next week

In March 2025, U.S. retail sales increased by 1.4% month-on-month, higher than market expectations of 1.3% and 0.2% in February, the largest single-month increase since January 2023. As of the week ending April 12, the number of initial unemployment benefits in the United States recorded 215,000, falling to a new low since the week of February 8, 2025, lower than market expectations of 225,000 and the previous value of 223,000.

This week (April 21-April 25) important macro data nodes include:

April 24: Number of initial jobless claims in the United States to April 19

April 25: U.S. University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Index Final Value

V. Regulatory policy

USA

• IRS DeFi Broker Rules Overturned : President Trump signed a bill to repeal the IRS-amended rules that treat decentralized exchanges (DEXs) as brokers, requiring them to report taxes. The initiative aims to reduce the regulatory burden on DeFi platforms.
• Establishing Strategic Bitcoin Reserve : An executive order creates a strategic Bitcoin reserve, with approximately 200,000 BTC confiscated and injected by the Ministry of Finance. The reserve is designed to enhance the digital asset space and respond to the policies of the previous government.
• SEC计划举行加密货币圆桌会议 ：美国证券交易委员会（SEC）宣布将举行四次圆桌会议，讨论加密货币交易、托管、代币化和去中心化金融（DeFi），旨在为数字资产制定监管框架。

EU

• 欧洲央行开发数字欧元 ：为应对美国稳定币政策的担忧，欧洲中央银行正在开发数字欧元，以增强支付独立性并保护法定货币。

China

• 关于没收的加密资产的辩论 ：中国正在就如何管理从犯罪活动中没收的加密货币展开辩论。提案包括集中管理和司法确认加密货币作为资产的性质。

South Korea

• 打击未注册的交易所 ：金融情报单位（FIU）正在针对未注册的海外加密货币交易所，包括BitMEX和KuCoin，进行执法，以推动合规。

Italy

• 对美国稳定币政策的担忧 ：意大利经济部长贾安卡洛焦尔杰蒂表示，担心美国在美元挂钩的稳定币上的政策可能会破坏欧元的地位，并影响欧洲的货币主权。

Pakistan

• 启动加密货币委员会 ：巴基斯坦成立了加密货币委员会，旨在监管和促进本国加密货币市场，增强汇款服务，并保护用户免受诈骗。

Australia

• 推出加密货币监管框架 ：澳大利亚政府计划在2025年推出加密货币监管框架，要求交易所和托管服务按照现有金融服务法进行合规。