Argent newsletter - Issue #7

gm - the past 2 weeks have been explosive. Amazing growth across Layer 2s; NFTs continue to be up only and much more. Now, let’s go through it all. 

📆 Staying updated on Layer 2

Struggling to keep up with all the news on the Layer 2 ecosystem? L2.news has you covered. It features the most important stories from across the landscape, from zkSync to StarkNet and more.

Our L2 partner, zkSync shared their first community update. Notably: BitDAO is creating a $200m fund to expand the zkSync ecosystem; and there are over 400 projects lined up to build on zkSync 2.0. Those of you already using our zkSync wallet are still so early! And if you want to dive deeper into zkSync, then check out this list of videos and blogs.

StarkNet, our other L2 partner is also booming! Argent X now has over 10,000 downloads with new dapps being built every day. If you have some spare time this weekend, read our guide on how to get started with StarkNet and let us know what you get up to. 

🖼️ NFTs give creators control

NFTs are continuing to innovate, and we’re now seeing them permeate other industries like music that criminally underpays talent. One of the first music artists to take the plunge was RAC, who launched a cassette tape that sold for $13,000. That one NFT is the equivalent of just under 4 million Spotify plays 🤯

Other artists have since followed in the footsteps of RAC and are learning how they can take control. Music NFTs are still very early, and they’re primed to explode over the next year, empowering musicians across the globe. To learn more about them and get ahead of the curve, read Coopahtroopah’s thread that dives deep into music NFTs.

🔐Funds are Sifu

Crypto has been shocked by 2 explosive stories. Wormhole, a Solana bridge, got exploited in one of the biggest hacks in history with $325 million worth of ETH stolen. This unfortunate event shows that bugs can happen to any smart contract and is a reminder that secruity should always be the first priority.

The other story, discovered by Zachxbt uncovered that 0xsifu, an anonymous CFO working on the Wonderland project, was the co-founder of QuadrigaCX, a fraudulent Canadian crypto exchange that went bust in 2019. 0xsifu was entrusted with managing a multi-million dollar treasury and has since left the project. 

If you’ve never heard about Quadriga, or want to learn more about its collapse, listen to the Exit Scam podcast. Over 8 episodes, Exit Scam captures everything, from how Quadriga got started, the murky past of the founders and more. 

🎧 Our favorite podcasts & reads

This week's podcast recommendation is an episode of Bankless with Santiago Siri who discusses crypto adoption in Argentina, a country plagued by inflation and corruption but is now undergoing a crypto revolution.

We know first-hand how crypto is changing lives in Argentina after Leonel, an Argent user reached out to us to tell us how the Uniswap and PoolTogther airdrop transformed his and his family's life.

Then we have 2 articles on NFTs. The first is Vitalik’s essay, Soulbound which explores the idea of non transferrable NFTs, inspired by the World of Warcraft concept of soulbound items. These are items that can’t be transferred to others and Vitalik explores whether this could be applied to specific NFTs. The other article is an essay on crypto art and NFTs which is a fantastic overview of the space. If you want to learn more about NFTs, this is the article for you.

Our last article is a lengthy overview of Ethereum’s upcoming milestones for the next 18 months. Bridges, institutional investment, scaling, Ethereum’s merge and more.

💥Argent update 

We have two exciting updates this week. The first is that OpenSea announced last night that they will properly support Argent in the next 2 weeks. You’ll soon be able to use your Argent Vault to buy, sell and bid on NFTs with Ethereum's most used dapp. And you'll be able to sleep easy knowing your NFTs are safe. 

Our second update is that we’re integrating Index Coop and plan to support all their indexes on zkSync. Soon, you’ll be able to get one-tap exposure to DeFi, NFTs and the metaverse. We’ll be sharing more about this next week. 

We've added COMP, MKR & KEEP to trade on zkSync. And we'll be adding more pairs next week.