The Polygon PoS chain halted at block 25,811,386. The Heimdall validator chain stopped producing blocks due to an AppHash mismatch, and the Bor chain halted as well. The Polygon team announced that block production has resumed on the PoS chain after a hot fix was released. The team shared that they are working on implementing a long-term fix to address the issues that led to the chain halt.
The Evmos team shared a post mortem about the recent chain halt incident. The chain halt is being attributed to a highly complex upgrade that was pushed out too quickly in response to a critical security vulnerability.
The Block announced a 4M AVAX (worth roughly $290M USD) subnet incentive program called Avalanche Multiverse. The Multiverse program will allocate rewards to subsidize the AVAX staking requirement for subnet operators, reward early users, and distribute liquidity mining incentives.
Andre Cronje, a technical advisor to the Fantom Foundation and prominent DeFi developer, has stepped down from his role at the Foundation. User interface maintenance in approximately 25 applications and services (including Yearn Finance, Keep3r Network, Multichain, and the Solidly exchange websites) will be handed over to the existing teams.
The Interchain Foundation has shared details about the upcoming Cosmos Hub Theta testnet. Developers plan to simulate the upgrade process on testnet around Mar. 17, 2022.
Notable Messari Governor Updates
The Origin DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to introduce the launch of a new governance token, OGV, for the Origin Dollar (OUSD). The new governance token will create a clear distinction between Origin products by separating Origin Story, the platform’s NFT platform, and Origin Dollar. Voting is now active.
The Yearn Multisig has submitted a proposal that seeks to provide a $400k donation to the Nomic Foundation to support its mission to empower developers to decentralize the world. Voting is now active.
The SpookySwap DAO passed a proposal that aims to approve a budget to support the listing of BOO on a Tier 1 Centralized Exchange and approve Kronos Research as the market maker.
The Balancer DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to approve a payment of $125,000 USDC to Messari in exchange for quarterly financial reports from the Messari Hub. Reports will be produced in the 2 weeks following the end of the next 4 quarters starting with a Q1 report released in April. Voting is now active.
The Frax DAO passed a proposal that aims to approve a 10M FRAX loan, at 5% interest (paid in PERP), to Perpetual Protocol for market making for Curie, its V2 decentralized futures exchange on Optimism.
Sector Returns
For the third week in a row, markets have continued to see reversals. A trend like this hints at the possibility that this is a consolidation phase. The gaming sector was the hardest hit this week, posting a 10.47% loss—this week’s only double-digit negative return. DeFi also had a rough week, finishing second to last with a -8.61% return. The sector with the least decline was top assets, returning -2.69%.
Top Assets
Terra (LUNA) has not ceased to impress as the alternate Layer-1 platform has continued outperforming amidst a global conflict. It is the third week in a row that LUNA has secured double-digit positive returns, prompting investors to wonder how sustainable this rally is. However, LUNA is at a critical point, now that it has briefly reached all-time-high territory. It remains to be seen whether this will mark a double top (and potential freefall) or if the $100 price line will become support for new price discovery. LUNA finished the week with a 15.4% gain while Ripple (XRP) was the only other asset within the top ten assets by market capitalization that ended the week in the green (1.7%).
DeFi Assets
No DeFi top assets made it above water this week. One of last week’s top two performers, Anchor (ANC) saw its price reach an all-time-high of $6.19 during the first half of the week in anticipation of the upcoming Arca and Polychain anchor proposals and potential future tokenomic changes. ANC saw heavy upwards price action earlier week followed by abating price towards the end of the week, marking the money market protocol asset’s largest recorded decline. The magnitude of the loss was enough to shift it from the top spot down to last, finishing the week with a -18.2% return. True DeFi TVL (no double count TVL of certain protocols) is sitting at a stable $158.9 billion.
Smart Contract Platforms
For the third week in a row, Terra (LUNA) has led the smart contract platform sector by a wide margin. Although this week was no different, it seems as if its momentum might be slowing down for the moment after posting a more conservative (compared to previous weeks) return of 15.4%. The Cosmos-based IBC chain’s recent rally is a testament to how deeply tied its performance is to the issuance of new UST, which recently reached its peak issuance limits driven by a massive demand for decentralized stablecoins. Only two other smart contract platform assets finished the week in the green: NEAR Protocol (NEAR) and Tron (TRX) with 4.9% and 1.2%, respectively.
Currencies
Privacy coins have had notable performances lately, mainly driven by the events surrounding the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the recent executive order signed by President Joe Biden on cryptocurrencies. Although both Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) found themselves in double-digit territory towards the end of the week, only ZEC was able to maintain its momentum. ZEC secured a 12.6% gain while XMR took the third spot with a 2.2% return.
Web3
While Stacks (STX) has not been demonstrating much positive price performance, a green candle yesterday saw its price wick up to 72% following news that Okcoin pledged $165 million to support Bitcoin-related projects. While STX finished the week with a 26.6% gain, Arweave (AR) was the only other asset within the top Web3 assets that ended the week with a positive return (3.9%).
Gaming
Aavegotchi (GHST) was the only top gaming asset that closed the week with a positive return, bringing in 0.1%. The low figure was expected due to the asset’s comparatively low volatility. Losses for the other top gaming assets by market capitalization ranged from -6.2% to -14.8% corresponding to Enjin (ENJ) and Alice (ALICE), respectively.
