First Class Cabin: March Crypto Major Events Preview

Author: First Class Cabin

Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade

The Shanghai upgrade is the biggest narrative and public expectation in the market recently. Before the Shanghai upgrade on the mainnet, there will be three testnet upgrade tests (Zhejiang→Sepolia→Goerli). Today, the Shanghai upgrade on Sepolia was successfully activated. If the previous pace of advancing one testnet every three weeks continues, Goerli, as the most watched and highly participated testnet, will activate the upgrade on March 21. This means that the mainnet's Shanghai upgrade may occur in April.

The relevant investment targets were mentioned at the end of January ($ETH, $LDO, $RPL, $SWISE, $ANKR, $FXS, $SSV, etc.). While waiting for the upgrade, readers should also pay attention to changes in the macro environment, such as the upcoming interest rate decision meeting and economic outlook on March 22.

DEFI

yearn.finance ($YFI) ------ The Yearn team recently stated in the community that with the LSD industry gaining favor from investors, the upcoming yETH token will allow users to directly access a basket of Ethereum liquidity staking derivatives (LSD). yETH essentially helps users diversify the risk of a single LSD while also generating additional yield through Yearn's large veCRV positions in Curve Pools. With the subsequent launch of yETH, it is expected to bring additional benefits to veYFI stakeholders. It should be noted that the specific launch date for the yETH product has not yet been disclosed.

dYdX ($DYDX) ------ The development of version 4 is divided into five phases, and it is currently at the second phase milestone (M2), with the personal testnet (M3) expected to go live at the end of March, completing the third milestone.

Nexus Mutual ($NXM, $wNXM) ------ The first phase upgrade of Nexus Mutual v2 has been completed, entering the second phase on February 27, which will last until March 5. During the upgrade period, claims will be closed until the upgrade is completed and reopened. The final phase of the v2 upgrade will begin on March 6, during which smart contracts will be migrated from v1 to v2, and the user interface (UI) will also be upgraded, expected to complete all upgrades by March 10.

Synthetix ($SNX) ------ The v3 upgrade originally scheduled for March has been deployed early on the Ethereum mainnet and Optimism on February 23. The main iterations of v3 include: adopting the CDP model, increasing on-chain trading depth through atomic swaps, supporting the establishment of permissionless spot futures markets, and improvements in liquidation and rewards.

Ondo Finance ($ONDO) ------ Ondo Finance officially launched its new protocol Flux Finance in February, issuing OUSG (US Short-Term Treasury Fund), officially bringing off-chain bond products to the blockchain. OSTB (Short-Term Investment Grade Bond Fund) and OHYG (High Yield Corporate Bond Fund) are expected to be issued in March and April.

L1&L2s

Filecoin ($FIL) ------ The FEVM will be released on March 14, allowing developers to deploy EVM contracts on the Filecoin mainnet through FEVM. Existing Ethereum tools will be compatible with Filecoin, and user-deployed actors can interact with Filecoin's built-in actors and access Filecoin features.

Cosmos ($ATOM) ------ The proposal to activate the Replicated Security feature has been approved, and Cosmos Hub is expected to undergo the v9 lambda upgrade on March 15. This upgrade will enforce the operational rules of Inter-Chain Security (ICS), allowing other consumer chains to benefit from the security of Cosmos Hub without maintaining their own validators. In exchange for this service, consumer chains are expected to send a portion of their fees and inflation to Cosmos Hub validators and delegators, which will be included in the staking rewards of Cosmos Hub. If multiple consumer chains start relying on the validator network of Cosmos Hub, it will benefit ATOM by providing more value.

Game & NFT

Parallel Life ($PRIME) ------ The $PRIME token circulation will begin on March 1. Parallel Life is a sci-fi themed collectible card game that previously completed a $50 million financing led by Paradigm at a valuation of $500 million. This is one of the few investments by Paradigm in the gaming sector. Parallel Life will airdrop tokens to 60,000 addresses holding its card NFTs. As of March 1, the total circulation of $PRIME tokens is approximately 20 million (total supply ~110 million).

Yuga Labs ($APE) ------ Yuga Labs announced that it will launch the NFT series TwelveFold on the Bitcoin blockchain based on the Ordinals protocol. This series includes 300 limited edition generative art pieces inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain, each piece is a 12x12 grid designed and created by Yuga Labs' internal art team, combining 3D elements and hand-drawn features. The company stated that TwelveFold has no connection to its Ethereum-based IP and there will be no interaction or utility in the future. The TwelveFold auction will start later this week, with auction details and exact timing to be notified 24 hours in advance. Additionally, $APE will unlock 40 million tokens on March 17, accounting for 4% of the total, totaling $232 million.

Illuvium ($ILV) ------ Illuvium will launch a new NFT collectible game called Beyond on March 7. This is an interactive and competitive card game based on Illuvitar (a PFP project released by Illuvium), where players can improve their rankings on the leaderboard by obtaining rare Illuvitar NFT collectibles, thus earning more in-game rewards in the Illuvium universe (including three main games: Illuvium: Overworld, Arena, and Zero). Beyond is currently open for registration, and its launch may further enrich the gameplay and social attributes of the Illuvium universe.

LooksRare ($LOOKS) ------ Approximately 12,500,000 $LOOKS will be unlocked on March 25 (valued at $2.4 million based on the current price of $0.19), accounting for 1.25% of the total supply. All tokens unlocked this time come from the treasury.

Others

Stargate Finance ($STG) ------ Stargate will execute a 1:1 replacement plan for the $STG token on March 15, aiming to replace the existing $STG token 1:1 with the newly issued $STG token to "eliminate the risk of illegal transfer of STG from Alameda addresses." Previously, Alameda purchased 10% of the total supply of STG tokens during the Stargate community sale on March 17, 2023, and verbally promised to lock them until March 2025. However, recent on-chain transfer data from Alameda's wallet indicates that Alameda does not have complete control over its wallet, and someone is illegally transferring funds.

Helium ($HNT) ------ Helium Network will begin migrating to the Solana chain on March 27. This upgrade will affect all wallets, hotspot devices, and the status of the Helium network, and will take place during a 24-hour transition period. The existing Helium blockchain will cease operations during the 24-hour transition period on March 27. Data transmission and Proof-of-Coverage activities will not be affected.

Umee ($UMEE) ------ The Cosmos ecosystem cross-chain DeFi protocol Umee announced the launch of the first phase of closing the Umee Gravity Bridge before the end of March. In the future, it will cooperate with Axelar, and the Axelar Bridge will become the official bridge connecting Ethereum and Cosmos. The Gravity Bridge can still be used to transfer tokens back to Umee, but the official does not recommend using the Gravity Bridge to transfer any tokens from Umee to Ethereum. On April 1, the asset transfer function from Gravity Bridge Umee to Ethereum will be disabled. There are also plans to completely shut down the Gravity Bridge by the end of May.