Weekly Recommendations | From Celsius to Three Arrows, the Epic Depletion of Liquidity; Where Will Miners Go After the Ethereum Merge?

Organizer: Gu Yu, Chain Catcher

1. “Analyzing the Architecture and Ecosystem of StarkWare: The Scaling Potential Valued at $8 Billion”

ZK Rollups have two leading projects: StarkWare and ZKSync. Both have strong technical capabilities and numerous ecosystem projects on their testnets, but they use different ZK Rollup technologies, resulting in varying product capabilities and progress. StarkWare boasts a more impressive capital background: it recently completed a $100 million Series D funding round at an $8 billion valuation, ranking first among the four major mainstream Rollup projects. Why is StarkWare so favored by capital, and what scaling effects can its technology achieve? This article will attempt to analyze StarkWare's architecture and ecosystem to understand its future prospects.

2. “The Fatal Lesson of Liquidity: The Rise and Fall of Crypto Unicorn Celsius Amidst a Bank Run Crisis”

In the recent crypto market crash, the crypto lending platform Celsius is recognized as one of the most significant triggers and is now widely considered insolvent and on the brink of bankruptcy. How could a crypto company that raised over $700 million just 8 months ago and managed assets worth over $20 billion suddenly face such a disaster?

On the surface, the immediate cause is a massive bank run by users amid market panic, leading the company to struggle due to insufficient liquidity. The deeper issues lie in the company's operational mechanisms and risk control strategies, which have long been problematic, intertwined with the inherent high-risk issues of the DeFi market, ultimately resulting in this collapse.

3. “From Celsius to Three Arrows: The Domino Effect of Crypto Giants and the Epic Drain of Liquidity”

Since May of this year, the crypto market has been in turmoil. In just one month, we witnessed the overnight collapse of the $40 billion financial empire Luna, the decoupling of ETH 2.0's largest decentralized node Lido's derivatives, the suspension of withdrawals by the largest crypto bank Celsius, followed by the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital, which reportedly held $18 billion in crypto assets at one point. This article connects these events, revealing the subtle relationships between Luna, stETH, Celsius, and Three Arrows, along with the developmental clues interspersed among them.

4. “Messari: Overview of the Synthetix Ecosystem”

Liquidity is a crucial factor in assessing whether a crypto asset is of high quality. If we don't want to ask on Twitter, "Which cryptocurrency should I buy?", we usually look for answers on exchanges. However, what if a crypto asset lacks on-chain liquidity or doesn't exist on-chain at all? To meet this demand, Synthetix provides on-chain liquidity solutions for almost all crypto assets through the minting and exchanging of synthetic assets.

5. “Bankless: 8 Promising Projects to Watch in a Bear Market”

Recently, we've all been focused on the plummeting price trends, but let's not forget that Web3 is still in the construction phase.

The bear market allows CEOs to think from fundamental principles, spending more time building meaningful technologies. With a large influx of new crypto users, there are many new areas to develop. In 2021, the Web3 space evolved from 0 to 1. Now, we need clear-headed and well-funded companies to grow and strengthen according to the blueprint. Bankless introduces 8 projects at the forefront of the crypto world, including Obol Network.

6. “Foresight Ventures: The Present, Obstacles, Competition, and Future of Rollups”

This article focuses on the Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup universe (including only Secured rollups), starting from simple and understandable core concepts and mechanism designs to explore the pros and cons of current Rollups, envisioning their potential routes and solutions for decentralization, further scaling, composability, and privacy features.

7. “StepN: The Temptation of Wrestling with the Death Spiral”

For games that rely on "game mechanics" and economic models for explosive growth (which I believe is the most promising type of game in the current Gamefi landscape), the death spiral hangs over like a sword of Damocles, always looming. Many projects are determined to hold it up, but for most, the sword eventually falls; the difference lies in how long they managed to hold it. However, the ongoing struggle, wrestling, and dance with the gravitational pull of the death spiral is the true process and intrigue of project management.

8. “What Will Happen to Miners After the Ethereum Merge?”

The long-awaited merge will transition Ethereum from a Proof of Work (PoW) to a Proof of Stake (PoS) network. Due to its early reliance on GPU computing power for the PoW mechanism, Ethereum created a globally distributed mining industry that generated nearly $19 billion in revenue in 2021. The PoS mechanism does not use computational power to determine which miner should create a new block; instead, it relies on the collateral staked by nodes to determine the creator of the new block. Therefore, if Ethereum successfully transitions to PoS, Ethereum miners will be eliminated. What impact will the merge have on miners and mining hardware?