Tests, Restaking, and Upgrades: How Is the Blockchain Ecosystem Shaping Up?

This episode is sponsored by the Stellar Community Fund.

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In this installment of "The Protocol," hosts Brad Keoun, the founding editor of The Protocol Newsletter, and tech journalists Sam Kessler and Margaux Nijkerk, explore the following stories:

The Solana Blockchain Freeze

Solana, the low-latency blockchain that's seen an explosion in activity in recent months, experienced an approximately five-hour outage on Tuesday.

Eigenlayer Lifts Staking Cap, Soars Past $3B

The temporary lift comes as restaking on Ethereum is booming despite warnings from developers that it might strain the network.

Taproot Wizards NFT Project Sells Out

All 3,000 of the "Quantum Cats" digital images were claimed by the end of Monday's public mint, selling for a fixed price of 0.1 BTC ($4,265) each – despite severe technical issues that had delayed the process by a full week.

PROTOCOL VILLAGE INTERVIEW SEGMENT

Final ‘Holesky’ Testnet

The test simulated “proto-danksharding,” a technical feature aimed at reducing the cost of transactions for rollups as well as making data availability cheaper.

Guest: Nebojsa Urosevic is Co-Founder and SVP of R&D at Tenderly - A full-stack infrastructure solutions provider, powering Web3 developer teams with the essential tools and services throughout their development journeys. As a former software engineer for almost a decade, with experience in building, scaling, and maintaining large-scale distribution cloud systems, Nebojsa is now responsible for the development and maintenance of a custom scalable Ethereum Virtual Machine that can reverse engineer transaction execution and perform various simulations in real-time.

TAKEAWAYS |

• The recent Solana outage highlights the challenges of scaling blockchain networks and the need for continuous infrastructure improvement.
• The Eigen Layer restaking protocol offers a new way to earn rewards and secure other protocols, but there are still risks and uncertainties associated with it.
• The DenKun upgrade and Proto-Dang Sharding are important steps towards improving scalability and reducing costs on the Ethereum network.
• The development of layer 2 solutions and the competition among them will play a crucial role in the future of Ethereum and blockchain technology.

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EPISODE LINKS |

Solana Back Up Following Major 5-Hour Outage

EigenLayer Lifts Staking Cap, TVL Soars Past $3B

Bitcoin NFT Project Taproot Wizards Sells Out First Collection, Raking in $13M

Ethereum's Dencun Upgrade Reaches Final ‘Holesky’ Testnet, Starting Countdown to Data 'Blobs'

Tenderly

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The Protocol has been produced and edited by senior producer Michele Musso and our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “Take Me Back” by Strength To Last.