The Dawn of the Council | Newsletter #51

Welcome to the Pythiad, the official newsletter of the Pyth Network. Biweekly updates on all things DeFi await you below. Let’s get started.

What’s New with Pyth

• On March 29, the inaugural Price Feed Council was elected and approved by the Pyth DAO, selecting the 7 Pythians who will be signers of the Price Feed Multisig Wallet. Learn more here.
• As of March 20, over 300 dApps are now officially powered by the Pyth Network. 
• As of March 19, Pyth powers more than 90% of TVS on 10 chains and more than 50% on another 7 chains.

What’s New with DeFi

Regulations

• The SEC is attempting to classify Ether as a security. If the SEC moves forward with regulating Ether, it could potentially put the regulator in conflict with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
• Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, is sentenced to 25 years in prison.
• Litecoin becomes the second best-performing cryptocurrency after being declared a commodity by the CFTC.

Technology and Development

• Vitalik explains at ETH Taipei that a primary challenge for Ethereum’s proof-of-stake mechanism is potential centralization stemming from general staking activity.
• Starknet, an Ethereum L2, plans “parallel execution” to mimic Solana’s speed feature.
• The 13,900 nodes supporting the Ethereum network are now running more than 1 million validators, with 26% of the supply staked.

Stablecoins

• Gyroscope, a Galaxy Ventures-backed stablecoin project, is introducing a high-yield liquidity pool that seeks to generate returns from trading, rehypothecation of assets, and loyalty points.
• Decentralized stablecoin project Frax Finance moves forward in reinstating protocol fee switch by introducing a new proposal.

Ecosystems

• Solana leapfrogs Ethereum on DEX volume – all thanks to memecoins.
• Ethereum L2 adoption is soaring after the much-anticipated Dencun upgrade that went live on March 13.
• Etherescan is giving Google data that now shows Ethereum Name Service wallet balances in search results.
• BlackRock debuts BUIDL, its first tokenized fund on Ethereum. Coinbase is chosen as a key infrastructure provider for the new fund.
• Daily volume on Base network sees 51% surge to $356 million, and its total value locked has also reached a new all-time high: $745 million.
• The daily total net inflow for the spot bitcoin ETFs in the United States was $183 million as of March 28.

Exchanges

• According to a blogpost from Galaxy Asset Management (GAM), the firm reported over $10 Billion in AUM. This is a result of skyrocketing institutional interest in digital assets.
• The Bitcoin crash on BitMEX on March 18 showed $BTC valued under $9K for 7 minutes. Now, the exchange is under an “unusual activity” investigation.

Gaming

• Yield Guild Games announces the launch of its token on the Ronin Network to reach more gamers in the Web3 community.
• Immutable’s Mobile Ethereum RPG, “Guild of Guardians,” will be released in May.
• Aptos Labs has announced the launch of Aptos GameStack: a development suite that eases crypto game production – with Google Cloud’s help.
• Solana-based shooter “Nyan Heroes” is offering double the rewards in its current play-to-airdrop campaign starting March 30.

Community Shoutout

This week, we’ve received some amazing artwork by Pythians greg_vzla, drops2021, @kais7sol, and @leeland_sol. Keep up the good work, everyone!

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