🟣 T-2 To ETF Deadline

We march closer. Inch by inch, gwei by gwei, sat by sat.

The ETF race is turning the final corner as issuers add the final details to their applications, with all attention on the fees. Bitwise came in the lowest with 0.00% for six months and 0.24% thereafter.

They undercut other big-name issuers like 21shares/ARK with 0.00% for six months and 0.25% thereafter, VanEck with a consistent 0.25%, Blackrock with 0.20% for twelve months and 0.30% thereafter, and Fidelity with a consistent 0.39%.

While most issuers are in a knife fight for the lowest fees, Grayscale was the sole firm to take the opposite approach, coming in at a consistent 1.50%! Their strategy could be to take advantage of existing liquidity, given they are the only issuer converting a trust to an ETF.

This will be an interesting measure of investor price sensitivity. All that to say, we march closer. Inch by inch, gwei by gwei, sat by sat.

Bringing things back onchain, we just launched a new dashboard and accompanying flashnote on Celestia's onchain activity. The purpose-built DA network launched only two months ago, so our dashboard serves as a tool to monitor network growth.

My takeaways on the current state of the chain:

  • Minimal demand right now, but this is a non-issue. The team nailed RaaS integrations

  • Fees are probably a long-term issue. Needs a massive increase in demand

  • First-price auctions are inefficient, as highlighted by Manta Network overpaying for transactions

Get a further explanation and check out both resources on the Blockworks Research portal.

 - Dan Smith

zkSync unique addresses deploying contracts are nearly 10 times higher than Base and Arbitrum unique addresses deploying contracts and more than 16 times higher than Optimism unique addresses deploying contracts.

Similarly to most activity on zkSync, deployed contracts are gamed by airdrop farmers. Following the decision to airdrop to contract deployers by several protocols and chains, including Celestia who airdropped TIA to public GitHub contributors for Ethereum, Bitcoin, rollup and Cosmos protocols, airdrop farmers have been

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  • How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Execution Sharding - Scott Sunarto

    • This video talks about how Argus Labs is building blockchain infrastructure for gaming through a proposed "world engine" solution, the challenges faced by the on-chain game Dark Forest, and how the Cardinal protocol implementation utilizes sharding and a shared sequencer to enable scalable smart contract gaming applications.

Solana ended 2023 hot across NFTs, stablecoins, DEXs, liquid staking, and even memecoins. We expect a retracement in activity as the hype cools down to begin 2024. However, the continued improvements to the Solana base layer make a compelling case for the chain to onboard new users into crypto throughout the year.

Solana is generating an increasing amount of transaction fee revenue, with various fee market dynamics and ongoing proposals that are set to further accelerate this trend.

The insights, views and outlooks presented in the report are not to be taken as financial advice. Blockworks Research analysts are not registered broker/dealers or financial advisors. Blockworks Research analysts may hold assets mentioned in this report, further outlined in the Firm’s Financial Disclosures.