Argent Newsletter - Issue #21

gm everyone - this Issue is shorter than usual as it’s been a quiet week with everyone preparing for the Merge. If you have any feedback or suggestions to help improve this newsletter, please email edward@argent.xyz.

TLDR: 

1. Layer 2 wars are kicking off
2. Instagram integrated NFTs
3. Vitalik wrote a book!

Now, let’s get into it all! 🚀

⚔️ The Layer 2 wars are heating up!

Arbitrum had a huge update that increased throughput and lowered fees which sparked conversations across Twitter about how cheap it’s getting to use Layer 2s.

Slowly then suddenly. More and more people are using Layer 2s instead of Layer 1, as the ecosystems are making huge developments. Transactions are cheaper and faster, which is seeing many new use cases emerge, and the ability to use the Dapps we love at a fraction of the price.

We’re building on zkSync and StarkNet as we believe that ZK rollups with account abstraction will provide the scalability to bring crypto to the masses. StarkNet has seen incredible growth since its launch, and zkSync 2.0 is launching later this year with over 250 Dapps building in stealth.

Let the Layer 2 wars commence!

🖼 Web2 is adopting Web3

In an attempt to ride the trends in Web3, Instagram launched support for NFTs.

“NFTs have opened the doors to new opportunities for me and other artists around the world. This new technology provides us with another outlet to make a living and to connect with our fans and collectors. Instagram has helped build careers for so many creatives, including myself, and now our communities can support us further by sharing our work on the platform.” - Instagram

Argent isn’t supported with Instagram yet, but this may change in the future as Argent is the most secure place to store your NFTs.

📖 A collection of works by Vitalik

Vitalik has written a book which is a collection of his works over the past 10 years. This book will peel back the many layers of Vitalik’s thinking, revealing his curiosity and thoughts on various social, economic, and political issues. It’ll be a must-read and will be available to read at the end of this month!

📚 What we’re reading

Interview: Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum - Noah Smith

On Royalties - 0xfoobar

Who will control crypto? - Saffron Huang & Josh Stark

💭 What’s happening at Argent 

Next Tuesday, 2PM UTC we’re hosting an exciting Twitter Space that will go in detail about the Merge, why it matters, Merge misconceptions and we’ll have a fun quickfire round at the end. You won’t want to miss it!

🤔 Smaller but interesting news

Here are a few smaller things we’ve found interesting this week:

A case study on Rarible: Sometimes you can be “too early”

Compound III recently launched and it’s full of interesting changes. Learn all about it in this great thread

More MakerDAO Drama

Why smart contract wallets are significantly better than externally owned accounts (EOAs)

There’s demand for crypto ETFs across Europe

DeFi Dapp Babylon Finance is shutting down with their founder sharing how they failed and some lessons they learned

Yearn has cut management fees on key Vaults, like ETH, USDC, DAI, and more

On-chain sleuthing helps uncover who’s behind recent Discord exploits