Key Takeaways

• The Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network has surpassed the BTC capacity of its fellow Layer 2 solution Liquid for the first time. According to BlockStream, Lightning’s capacity is slightly over 3,600 BTC against Liquid’s 3,523 BTC. In addition, over 80M users are now estimated to have access to the Lightning Network.

• The Ethereum (ETH) network’s transition to Proof-of-Stake, also known as “The Merge”, has been pushed back to the 2nd half of the year. Despite the Merge getting pushed back, Ethereum developers will continue to shadow-fork across the various testnets, aiming to reduce client node issues.

• Cronos (CRO) saw a +8.09% increase in total transactions to 32.86M, while its TVL fell to US$ 3.65B (-5.19% week-on-week). The total number of wallet addresses now stands at 682,702, up +11.86% from last week.

Highlights

• Ethereum Foundation holds nearly 0.3% of all ETH: report

• Luna Foundation Guard holds almost 40,000 BTC after weekend purchase

• Ava Labs raises $350M at $5.25B valuation: report

• Cosmos gains Interchain accounts as upgrade kicks in

• Terra’s cross-chain bridge now supports Solana, Avalanche, Fantom, Moonbeam, Osmosis

• Tether (USDT) and USDC stablecoins are being launched on the Cardano blockchain

• Acala, Anchor Protocol team up to unite Terra, Polkadot ecosystems

• Algorand founder Silvio Micali wants to usher in the democratisation of finance

• Algorand rents Times Square billboard to tout Green credibility ahead of Earth Day

• Arweave broadens decentralised data storage capabilities on Avalanche

• Polygon pledges $20M to fund its carbon negative initiative

Layer 1 Project Metrics

* % change is based on the difference between two subsequent bi-weekly periods

† X-Chain total transactions plus C-Chain total transactions

 ‘–’ denotes missing, unavailable, or incomplete data

Sources: Coingecko, Etherscan,Ethernodes, Terra Station, Terra Etherscan, Avascan, Solana Beach, FTMscan, BSCscan,CronoScan, Cronos Explorer, DeFi Llama

Layer 2 Project Metrics

* Figure refers to Lightning nodes with active channels

† Ronin is the sidechain developed by Sky Mavis for Axie Infinity

 ‘–’ denotes missing, unavailable, or incomplete data

Sources:  DeFi Llama, Polygonscan, Clark Moody Bitcoin, 1ML, Ronin Explorer, Coingecko, Optimistic Etherscan, Arbiscan, Boba Explorer, Andromeda Metis Explorer

Thank you for reading! We hope you find our Weekly Layer 1 & Layer 2 News Update enlightening!

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