zkSync · 773

Data: The crypto sector had mixed ups and downs, BTC surpassed $65,000, and the GameFi sector fell nearly 4%

Comparative news, according to SosoValue data, the overall crypto market sector showed a slight upward trend. Bitcoin (BTC) rose 0.57% to break through $65,000; Ethereum (ETH) rose 0.48% to break through $1,900. The Meme sector showed outstanding performance, rising 0.36% in 24 hours. Among them, Tutorial (TUT) rose 52.38%, Pump.fun (PUMP) rose 11.39%, and Pepe (PEPE) and FLOKI rose 2.47% and 2.81% respectively. In other sectors, the Layer1 sector rose 0.27% in 24 hours, with Solana (SOL) up 1.44%; PayFi up 0.25%, Monero (XMR) up 3.8%; CeFi up 0.14% and Aster (ASTER) up 1.59%; Layer2 sector down 0.23%, zkSync (ZK) up 2.41%; DeFi sector down 0.91%, Curve DAO (XMR) CRV) rose 6.39%; furthermore, the AI sector fell 1.76%, but Worldcoin (WLD) rose 6.61%; GameFi fell 3.97%; within the sector, Audiera (BEAT) fell 6.65%, and WEMIX fell 3.08%. The crypto sector index, which reflects the historical market of the sector, shows that the ssINFT, SSImeme, and SSIAI indices rose by 2.85%, 0.63%, and 0.6%, respectively.

12d ago

Aave will phase out low-adoption assets and some on-chain deployments, involving nearly $100 million in supply assets

According to Aave founder Stani Kulechov, Aave's founder, said that after completing a comprehensive review, Aave will gradually eliminate 50 low adoption asset reserves in multiple deployment environments and stop deployments on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos in an orderly manner, involving another 25 asset reserves. Additionally, 21 Pendle PT assets that have expired will also be phased out and replaced with new maturing assets. The adjustments involved a total of approximately $98.1 million in supply assets and $15.6 million in debt. Stani said the move is aimed at reducing the economic and technical risks of the agreement based on the new Aave risk framework and technology asset listing framework, and Aave will continue to conduct risk assessments of assets in various deployment environments in the future.

23d ago

Data: The crypto market generally rose, the NFT sector led a rise of more than 7%, and BTC surpassed $61,000

Comparative news, according to SosoValue data, the overall crypto market showed an upward trend, with the NFT sector leading 7.57% 24 hours. Within the sector, Audiera (BEAT) rose 14.91%, and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) rose 4.18%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 2.4% to surpass $61,000; Ethereum (ETH) rose 5.89% to surpass $1,700. Notably, Mag7.ssi is up 3.81%, Defi.ssi is up 6%, and Meme.ssi is up 2.93%. In terms of other sectors, the Meme sector rose 5.11% in 24 hours, MemeCore (M) rose 31.41%; the DeFi sector rose 4.87%, and LAB (LAB) rose 30.99%; the PayFi sector rose 3.41% and Ultima (ULTIMA) rose 12.49%; the Layer 1 sector rose 2.84%, Cardano (ADA) rose 7.04%; the CeFi sector rose 1.71%, Bitget Token (BGB) rose 4.58%; the Layer 2 sector rose 0.78%, and zkSync (ZK) rose 6.42%. The crypto sector index, which reflects the historical market of the sector, shows that the SSIRWA, SSIAI, and SSiDeFi indices rose 7.15%, 6.81%, and 5.84%, respectively.

50d ago

Financing and collapse coexist: zkSync's real gap

Author: Claude, Shenchao TechFlow Original title: Raising 450 million dollars but layoffs again: zkSync abandons retail investors to invest in banks, $ZK plummets 93%, who will pay? In-depth explanation: Alex Gluchowski, founder of zkSync's parent company Matter Labs, announced another layoff on June 17. The company is fully betting on a “permissioned” privacy chain called Prividium, which specializes in serving regulated financial institutions. This is the company's second layoff in two years. A self-proclaimed “liberal maximalist” founder eventually took the project to compliance, licensing, and banking. The community's reaction was divided, and the most acute question was: after disbursing $458 million, where did the money go? The current price of the $ZK token is around $0.019, down about 93% from its all-time high. The zkSync story is going in the opposite direction of what it originally promised. On June 17, Alex Gluchowski, founder and CEO of Matter Labs, posted an article on the X platform announcing the company's team size reduction. “Today we've downsized the Matter Labs team. It was my decision and I want to explain it.” He wrote at the beginning of the post. Those laid off include senior engineers, designers, and operators, who Gluchowski described as “the strongest group of people I've ever worked with.” This is Matter Labs' second layoff since September 2024, and the ratio of this layoff was not officially disclosed. What's really worth watching is not how many people were laid off, but what the company decided to become. From “serving everyone” to “serving banks,” Gluchowski explained the logic of this layoff very clearly in his post: the company began building products for regulated financial institutions in 2024, and this work later became Prividium. “The entire company is now invested in a goal: building infrastructure that brings businesses and regulated financial institutions to the chain, with privacy at its core.” What is Prividium? Simply put, it's a “permissioned” blockchain, the opposite of the open, permissionless, and usable chain zkSync has always touted. The licensing system means that only approved institutions can access, and ordinary users cannot get in. Matter Labs' official website describes Prividium as an Ethereum platform for financial institutions and fintech companies, and is currently being piloted with Deutsche Bank and UBS (UBS). The contrast of this shift is Gluchowski himself. His X profile says “Freedom Maximalist” (Freedom Maximalist) and believes in “freedom → progress → prosperity.” ZkSync technology has been treated as a public good by the crypto community in the past. Matter Labs wanted to register the “ZK” trademark in 2024 and was withdrawn after being collectively opposed by zero-knowledge researchers, on the grounds that such technology should not be monopolized by any single entity. Today, the company has taken the initiative to shift its focus from a public chain for retail investors and developers to a licensing chain that serves licensed banks. After the $458 million torture, the community turned its face on the spot Gluchowski probably anticipated the reaction below the post. Matter Labs has raised approximately $458 million, and is backed by well-known institutions such as Dragonfly and Blockchain Capital. The 2022 Series C took $200 million. The community's reaction split into two factions. One party expressed anticipation in the direction of Prividium, and the other directly questioned where the money was going. A widely retweeted comment wrote, “Can you explain? You raised $450 million to develop the product. Where's the money? Why are you still asking for money and laying off people?” This isn't the first time Matter Labs has been questioned over layoffs. In September 2024, the company laid off 16% of its employees, a total of 24 employees, reducing the total number to 126. At the time, the government repeatedly emphasized that “the financial situation is still stable,” and that the layoffs were to “maintain streamlining,” not lack of money. The terms of the two layoffs were highly similar, and both were “a mismatch between the team structure and current needs.” The problem is that when a company that has raised nearly 500 million dollars and continues to raise capital makes two rounds of layoffs in two years, the persuasive power of the statement “not lacking in money” will be exhausted over and over again...

65d agoLuxurytracy

Matter Labs cuts staff and fully switches to institutional privacy platform Prividium, zkSync's next direction is yet to be determined

According to the news, Matter Labs, the development company behind zkSync, announced layoffs on Tuesday and completely switched the entire organization to Prividium, an institutional-grade on-chain privacy infrastructure platform. CEO Alex Gluchowski defined this move on X as a skill restructuring rather than cost reduction, saying that the products the company has built for regulated financial institutions since 2024 have evolved into Prividium, with the goal of providing regulated entities such as banks and asset management companies with on-chain infrastructure that combines transaction confidentiality and compliance auditing capabilities. Gluchowski said the transformation stemmed from specific product feedback from institutional customers, but did not disclose the number of layoffs. According to CoinGecko data, the zkSync token has a market capitalization of around $115 million and is up 4.3% over the past 24 hours. This transformation reflects a broader trend in the Layer 2 market. Previously, ZK and L2 projects such as Hyli and Botanix had been shut down one after another, and general-purpose horizontal platforms were under pressure to find defensible vertical fields. As of press time, Matter Labs has not made any statement on the future of the zkSync network and the ZK token.

65d ago

The RWA tokenization market surpassed $43 billion, and institutions accelerated the migration of on-chain assets

Comparatively, the global real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market has surpassed US$43 billion and has grown by about 37% over the past 180 days, indicating that institutional capital is continuing to accelerate its migration to blockchain infrastructure. The report points out that this growth occurred against the backdrop of the relative weakness of the overall crypto market. The expansion of on-chain financial assets was mainly driven by traditional financial products on the chain, covering various types of assets such as funds, private equity, commodities, and stocks. In the current market structure, tokenized funds dominate, accounting for about 80% of the total market value; commodity assets account for 16.6%, and tokenized stocks account for about 3.8%. In terms of chain distribution, Ethereum is still the core bearer network, accounting for 57.8%. Networks such as BNB Chain, ZkSync Era, XRP Ledger, and Stellar are gradually increasing their share. On the issuer side, Sky ranked first with around $6.1 billion, followed by Securitize and Ondo Finance with around $3.6 billion each. At the institutional level, investment banks such as Standard Chartered and Citi have recently released reports, which are optimistic about the long-term growth path of tokenized assets. Citi expects the market to reach $5.5 trillion by 2030 under the benchmark scenario and $8.2 trillion under optimistic conditions, and believes that regulatory clarification and participation in infrastructure such as DTCC and NASDAQ will be key drivers. Analysts believe that RWA tokenization is gradually evolving from an early structure dominated by treasury bonds to a diversified income asset system.

66d ago

Sharplink CEO's opinion: Technology is only an image; people are the core asset

Author: Joseph Chalom, Sharplink CEO Compiled by: Yuliya, PanNews Original title: Sharplink CEO: Ethereum's real moat is not a performance parameter, but a “human” Editor's note: In the competition where many new public chains claim to be “faster,” Ethereum still ranks first. Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom pointed out after visiting Asia that Ethereum has 1 million developers, which is where its core competitiveness lies. He emphasized that competition in the crypto world is not only about internet speed, but also about “where the top brains build houses.” With its deep cultural heritage, seamless “financial LEGO”, and forward-looking layout to resist technical challenges such as quantum computing, Ethereum has gone beyond simple parameter comparisons and built a truly insurmountable moat. Here's a compilation of the original text: I just came back from Asia, and during that time I had in-depth conversations with Ethereum developers and ecosystem leaders. Special thanks to Seoul's Nonce Classic, Four Pillars, and DSRV, as well as our Hong Kong friend SNZ and the recently launched Ethereum Community Center. This hub is Asia's first permanent physical Ethereum community space, supported by the Ethereum Foundation. What impressed me the most was not only the enthusiasm of the people, but also the rigorous attitude and ambition shown by the builders. I am inspired and truly admire the projects, experiments, and long-term thinking that have emerged in the Ethereum ecosystem. This also brought an originally abstract figure to life: According to Electric Capital, the number of lifetime developers on Ethereum has now crossed the 1 million mark, or 10,12824 independent developers who have contributed to the ecosystem to be exact. No other ecosystem comes close to this level in the crypto space. One milestone worth stopping and reviewing is a million is a whole number, and integers can sometimes seem empty. But that number is by no means empty. Behind it is the largest technical talent pool ever assembled around an open, permissionless blockchain network. More importantly, this talent pool continues to deepen and expand. Of these 1 million developers, around 232,000 developers have been active in the past 12 months. Why Ethereum: The real core question For years, discussions in the crypto space have always revolved around speed, fees, and throughput. Each new chain claims to be “faster than Ethereum.” However, the most important question in the field of Crypto has never been which chain is the fastest, but rather a very different question: “Where will the best builders choose for long-term development?” Ethereum is still unique on this issue. This advantage is not only technical; it is also reflected in institutions, culture, economy, and composition. It is the result of a decade of continuous accumulation in terms of developers, infrastructure, standards, tools, mobility, research, application, and social coordination, which no other ecosystem can replicate. Ethereum has become the default operating system for programmable finance and the formation of native capital on the internet. What is this army of millions building today? And why it deepens the moat, and the reason why it's important for the 1 million developers is, to a large extent, because of the challenges they are currently overcoming. Today's focus is on the most difficult and risky issues in the industry: scalability of core protocols, privacy protection, resistance to quantum computing, and intelligent systems that will run on them in the future. Glamsterdam Upgrades — Innovate without breaking core principles. The Glamsterdam upgrade, which is scheduled to be launched in 2026, shows how Ethereum can achieve a technological leap while protecting its core values. Its core changes — including the proponent and builder separation mechanism (EPBs) and block-level access lists (BARs) included in the protocol, will unlock parallel execution capabilities and significantly increase throughput, while also potentially increasing the gas limit — which will significantly increase the capacity of Layer 1. While expanding capacity for future needs, we are resolutely defending reliable neutrality, safety, and MEV fairness. This is a moat that is working. Simultaneous composability — making many Rollup experiences feel like a single network. Composability has always been Ethereum's super strength; the next huge leap forward is expanding it to all Layer 2. Native and “based on the base layer (base)” Rollup, with simultaneous composability,...

67d agoLuxurytracy

Data: The crypto market generally declined, with only the NFT, GameFi, and SocialFi sectors rising

Comparative news, according to SosoValue data, the overall crypto market sector showed a downward trend, with the DeFi sector falling 5.08% in 24 hours. Among them, Hyperliquid (HYPE) fell 8.86% and LAB (LAB) fell 25.19%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 1.50%, falling below $62,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.65%, falling below $1,700. Furthermore, the NFT sector reversed the market and rose 4.57%, with Audiera (BEAT) rising 9.51%. In terms of other sectors, the CeFi sector fell 0.20% in 24 hours. Within the sector, Gate (GT) was relatively strong, up 1.10%; the Layer 2 sector fell 0.36%, but zkSync (ZK) rose 5.66%. The Layer 1 sector fell 1.45%, and NEAR Protocol (NEAR) pulled up 5.09% intraday; the Meme sector fell 2.05%, and Cheems Token (CHEEMS) reversed the market and rose 6.47%; the PayFi sector fell 2.10%, but Litecoin (LTC) rose 1.27%. The crypto sector index, which reflects the sector's historical market, shows that SSIsocialFi, SSIDeFi, and SSIai indices rose 0.20%, fell 5.23%, and fell 3.76%, respectively.

73d ago

Data: The crypto market generally pulled back, with the NFT sector leading a decline of nearly 4%, and BTC falling below $80,000

Comparative news, according to SosoValue data, the crypto market generally recovered, with the NFT sector leading a 24-hour decline of 3.95%. Within the sector, Audiera (BEAT) rose 6.27% and ApeCoin (APE) fell 4.64%. Additionally, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 1.93% to below $80,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.23% below $2,300. In terms of other sectors, the Meme sector fell 0.25% in 24 hours. Among them, TROLL (TROLL) was relatively strong, up 24.93%; the CeFi sector fell 0.6%, and within the sector, Cronos (CRO) fell 5.54%; the PayFi sector fell 1.69%, Dash (DASH) fell 6.84%; the Layer 1 sector fell 2.15%, but Canton Network (CC) rose 1.45%; the DeFi sector fell 1.45%; the DeFi sector fell 3.16%, LAB (LAB) surged 22.84%; AI sector fell 3.57%, Unibase (UB) surged 32.63% intraday; Layer 2 sector fell 3.6%, and zkSync (ZK) fell 8.37%. The crypto sector index, which reflects the sector's historical market, shows that the SSIRWA, SSIAI, and ssIsocialFi indices fell 9.26%, 9.25%, and 8.42%, respectively.

100d ago

Everyone is watching Bitcoin, but Zcash used a market capitalization of $6.9 billion to complete a counterattack

Author: Camille Meulien Compiled by: AidiDiaoJP, Foresight News Original title: While everyone is watching Bitcoin, Zcash is quietly surging beneath the surface of the 2026 cryptocurrency rally, a trend is quietly building up, and most market commentators have overlooked it. As Bitcoin (BTC) dominates the headlines and Ethereum Layer-2 projects compete for throughput records, the privacy coin sector is preparing for a quieter and possibly more important trend in a structural sense. As of May 4, 2026, Zcash (ZEC) traded at $413, a 24-hour increase of more than 7%, and its market capitalization has surpassed $6.9 billion. This makes ZEC the 18th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in the world, a ranking that seemed almost impossible to achieve in 2023 and 2024 when regulatory pressure caused multiple exchanges to completely remove privacy assets. Note: At the time of publication, the ZEC price hit a maximum of $606 and is now reported at $572. Abstract As of May 4, 2026, Zcash traded at $413 with a market capitalization of $6.9 billion and ranked 18th globally, mainly driven by institutions' interest in privacy protection infrastructure. Zcash's first zero-knowledge proof technology has become the backbone of major Ethereum Layer-2 networks, verifying the value of the protocol's ten-year research investment. Regulatory headwinds remain a core risk in this area, but compliance-oriented blocking transaction features and institutional escrow adoption are reshaping the way regulators view privacy coins. Zcash's price movement is not random noise. The 7% single-day increase recorded by ZEC on May 4, 2026 did not come out of thin air. The asset has been steadily rising against the BTC and USD benchmarks for several weeks, reaching $771 million in 24-hour trading volume on May 4. This trading volume figure is remarkable because it is equivalent to more than 11% of ZEC's total market value changing hands in a single day. This liquidity ratio indicates real speculative interest rather than weak market manipulation. The broader basket of privacy coins also rose at the same time. Monero (XMR), a long-term volume leader in the sector, continued to flow in the first and second quarters of 2026. Academic research on the price behavior of privacy coins has consistently found that when macroeconomic uncertainty rises or regulatory clarity appears (in either direction), ZEC and XMR tend to see a surge in correlation, as both catalysts force market participants to reprice the value of financial privacy options. On May 4, 2026, ZEC's 24-hour trading volume was $771 million, accounting for more than 11% of its total market capitalization. This liquidity ratio is in line with the characteristics of institutional repositioning rather than retail trading alone. Unlike previous ZEC spikes (particularly the 2021 bull market), this rise occurred against the backdrop of substantial improvements to the protocol and a fundamental shift in the zero-knowledge cryptography narrative. The Electric Coin Company, which developed Zcash, has introduced several upgrades over the past few years to make shielded transactions faster, cheaper, and more compatible with the broader DeFi ecosystem. This technological maturity is being priced by the market. Zero-knowledge proof is going mainstream, and the most important background for Zcash's pioneers to understand Zcash's 2026 positioning is that zero-knowledge proof — the cryptographic primitive that supports ZEC's blocking transactions — has become the defining technology for blockchain expansion and privacy as a whole. This is not a fringe observation, but the consensus view of all major crypto research institutions today. a16z Crypto's 2025 “State of Cryptocurrency Report” indicates that zk-rollup has taken up most of Ethereum's new Layer-2 developer activity, and projects such as zkSync, StarkNet, and Polygon zkEVM have jointly processed hundreds of millions of transactions. These systems all rely on zk-SNARK and zk-Stark proof system variants developed and promoted by Zooko Wilcox and Electric Coin Company through the launch of Zcash in 2016. Zcash's 2018 Sapling upgrade will block transfers...

108d agoburnking#Zcash #Bitcoin