Web3 developer activity continues to grow stronger, ever on the rise. So what have the developers been up to this week? Probably the most anticipated Web3 update coming up, is the Ethereum 2.0 transition. But is all the excitement around it eclipsing another major update, that of the Cardano Vasil hard fork?

This week we’ll look at both of these, plus some other interesting happenings from the world of blockchain and Web3.

Let’s dive in!

The Road to ETH 2.0

Ethereum Ropsten, longest-lived PoW testnet, is switching to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), after the Ropsten beacon chain genesis was implemented successfully.

Ethereum is now closer than it has ever been to what is known as The Merge, the next step in Ethereum’s full transition to PoS.

Ethereum developer Tim Beiko announced that the Ropsten Merge is set to take place around June 8th.

Are you ready for Ethereum 2.0?

The Merge on Ethereum is closer than ever as the Ropsten testnet is set to execute its own Merge to give developers a look at what to expect for the real thing. https://t.co/8Ai4tRsDI4

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) May 31, 2022

10% of ETH in ETH 2.0

More on Ethereum – its believers are absolutely hooked on the idea of Ethereum 2.0. This becomes evident when you look at the amount of ETH that has been deposited and locked up into ETH 2.0’s smart contract.

As of May 30th, the amount of addresses that have staked ETH into ETH 2.0 amount to around 12,711,363, with a whopping total amount of ETH staked coming in at 10.72% of the total ETH currently in circulation.

On May 30th, the number of staking ETH 2.0 deposit contract addresses has reached 12,711,363, and the staking rate has reached 10.72%, which means more than 10.72% of the Eth currently in circulation has been deposited in ETH2. https://t.co/X0iZNI20FI

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 30, 2022

Optimism Airdrop

It had long been speculated upon, with many expecting the Ethereum scaling solution Optimism to distribute its token via an airdrop to qualifying users.

The time has now arrived, with 248,699 wallet addresses being eligible to claim Optimism’s native token $OP in the Airdrop.

At the time of writing, over 52% of the Airdrops have been claimed. For the up to date details, check out this page.

Wow, what a day.

OP Drop #1 had a turbulent launch which we finally stabilized after more than five hours of non-stop work.

We’ll be publishing a full, detailed retrospective on the lessons learned next week. Let’s quickly talk about what happened.

— Optimism (✨🔴_🔴✨) (@optimismFND) June 1, 2022

ADA Flips ETH

The Cardano Vasil hard fork is the talk of the town within the Cardano and ADA community. All eyes seem to be on the long-time brewing Layer 1. The Basil Hard Fork is available on Cardano’s public Testnet since June 2nd, with a later mainnet launch planned for June 29th.

Also, the dev activity has seen a massive surge recently – check it out. It has been on a steady rise since its massive decline in October 2021.

Furthermore, what is very interesting to see, is how Cardano flipped Ethereum for total 24 hour volume just a few days ago.

Could the Cardano chain, led by the IOHK and Charles Hoskinson be the most used Layer 1?

Bring on the Smart Contracts!

Ghostchain 👻🤣🤦‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/WmC1HrVlLb

— ₳₿Ξ (@AbeCnft) May 29, 2022

TRON and USDD

The recent downfall of Terra LUNA, and its rebranding to LUNA Classic, alongside the birth of the Terra 2.0 chain, taught us all many lessons. Developers of competing chains have most likely been taking notes ahead of their plans to release a stablecoin.

On that note, TRON, with Justin Sun at the helm, have laid out their plans for their native stablecoin, the USDD.

TRON will be displaying all the details on their TRON DAO Reserve website.

It seems that $600m worth of USDD will be backed by $295m of USDT, $82m of BTC, and $181m of TRX.

The TRON DAO Reserve’s target market cap is $2b by the end of Phase One, which is in October. Their goal is to grow the reserve to $10b total to support their project long-term.

Read TRON’s latest medium article here.

🌐Built on the back of #TRON’s thriving stablecoin ecosystem, #USDD will be over-#collateralized by a combination of stable and volatile assets #decentralized #stablecoin (#CDS).

🛡We want $USDD to be the new settlement currency of #crypto.https://t.co/2Au2opIMhR

— H.E. Justin Sun🌞🇬🇩🇩🇲🔥₮ (@justinsuntron) June 1, 2022

Goldman Sachs and FTX

Goldman Sachs is eyeing a derivatives trading deal with crypto exchange FTX, with hopeful plans to integrate some aspects of their derivatives businesses.

Prada NFTs

Joining in with the already popular (and big) fashion brands – including Lancôme, Balenciaga and Gucci – luxury fashion brand Prada is next in line on the catwalk towards the NFT space.

The Prada NFTs will be available for free for 24 hours to those who purchase items from the Prada Timecapsule initiative.

This Thursday, which is when the NFTs debut, the Prada website will make a new collection of shirts available that will come with a free NFT. The NFT is designed like a pill capsule, and is minted on the Ethereum blockchain. There will be 100 shirts and NFTs in total.

Perspective on BTC low fees and immutability

A little perspective here on what it means to transact via Fiat vs via Bitcoin.

Someone transferred $329,220,000 in #Bitcoin and paid a fee of $0.12

That’s a transaction fee of 0.0000000003644%

No government bank or third party had to verify the transaction, nor could they have STOPPED IT, if they wanted to.

— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) May 29, 2022

Metamask aid

Metamask, the browser-based crypto wallet plugin, has announced that it will attempt to help users who have fallen victims to crypto related scams, as well as phishing attacks.

This will be achieved via their new partnership with Asset Reality, focusing on the recovery of stolen digital assets.

MetaMask’s New Partnership Will Aid in Recovering Stolen Crypto Assets https://t.co/0WV9N49hul

— Nick Hex (@nicholashexican) May 26, 2022

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