GM Legends,

The Bitcoin and Arbitrum bears are in complete disbelief as BTC touches $29,000 and Arb makes a run back to $1.50.

The Ethereum Shanghai upgrade goes live on April 12th which has seen the Eth bulls turn to LSD (Liquid Staking Derivatives). Today we look at what the upgrade means plus tokens with upcoming catalysts.

But first, a shoutout to this blocmates discord legend 👇🫡

🧑‍💻 Join the Discord | 🐥 Follow Twitter | 📊 Sub to YouTube & Spotify

Here's what's inside today.

The big topic. 

🔥 Ethereum Bulls Turn to LSD!

DeFi insights & project updates.

🖼 Kanpai Pandas head to UFC 287.
📅 Radiant Finance lists on the Binance Innovation Zone.
🦧 Chart of the day: Will $LDO hit $3 during LSD season?

Hot off the press.

🐮 Trader Joe Booms on Arbitrum 
🐻 Sen. Elizabeth Warrens Anti-Crypto Army
👨🏻‍💼 What the FED?! Mark these dates off!

Plus Twitter reads from @Crypto_Linn, @CryptoDonAlt and @Arndxt_xo!

🔥 The big topic.

Ethereum Bulls Turn to LSD

Pack your bags we are off to Shanghai with the Ethereum bulls as LSD is back on the menu.

PS. Shappella is the name given to the combination of names of the execution layer upgrade (Shanghai) and the consensus layer upgrade (Capella).

A Quick TLDR

Shappella lets Eth stakers who staked on the beacon chain finally be able to unstake, reclaim and reuse their Eth.

Almost 18M Eth is currently staked, worth over $32BN ready to nuke the markets.

Just kidding! Don't worry, devs thought of this by limiting the number of daily withdrawals to 57,600 (source).

But wait, what will people do?

1. Sell some Eth

2. Continue staking it as is

3. Move it into Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSD) for DeFi gains

Given that over 72% of diamond-handed stakers are still underwater, we’d like to think they’ll continue to hodl. Aaaand we salute the brave few who staked at the all-time high.

What are Liquid Staking Derivatives?

Simply put LSD’s let you unlock the liquidity in your staked assets.

Yea, it’s as simple as that.

Buy the rumour sell the news? Probably, yeah. It’s crypto after all and we all have the attention span of…. Ooooo shiny object.

Thanks to the CFTC’s Binance FUD the zkSYNC narrative was a nothing burger and with less than 2 weeks to go, let’s dive into a couple of tabs (Google Chrome duhhhh) of LSD.

PS. None of the below is advice, it’s just a look at some LSD coins for you to DYOR into.

LSD’s Big 3

The big 3 are the big 3 for a reason and where there’s deep liquidity there are whales.

Lido ($LDO) controls over 90% of staked Ethereum whilst Rocketpool ($RPL) is a popular Eth staking pool with >500k Eth and Frax Finance ($FXS) is fractional-algorithmic stablecoin protocol ($FRAX) with its own LSD called $fxETH to maximise gains in it its own ecosystem.

It looks like something special might be happening over at Frax soon.

MOOOOAR COINS!

The season for LSD is definitely here with fresh launches, new innovations and the classics timing their updates perfectly (with some added speculation of course)!

Redacted Cartels’ $BTRFLY could quite possibly launch its decentralised stablecoin, $DINERO, which is backed by staked Eth and supplied by its own validators. $DINERO will fit into Redacted’s yield-generating flywheel which Zoomer Oracle wrote about here.

PS check out our previous article here.

Yearn Finance ($YFI) gave us a teaser in February that they’ll be dropping some LSD in the form of $yETH.

Pendle Fi ($PENDLE) is a place to buy discounted assets and a different take on an LSD play. They host a number of staked Eth pools that you can provide liquidity too and earn $$. They’re currently having a vote to add $LDO and $STG pools to Ethereum and an $STG pool on Arbitrum.

This list can go on but these were the ones that looked interesting. Other popular ones include $SWISE, $SD, $SSV, Ether_Fi and Indexcoops $dsETH to name a few.

Depending on your risk appetite for lower cap projects you could DYOR into projects such as $USH, $ZERO, $LSD and $ACID.

Divalabs will be launching after the Shanghai upgrade and looks like one to keep an eye on.

In the meantime, let the battle for liquidity in the great LSD wars BEGIN!

👀 DeFi insights & project updates.

Updates from around the bloc. Click on the links at the end for more info.

The World of DeFi

• Radiant Finance lists in the Binance Innovation Zone. (Twitter)

• Yama Finance launched on Arbitrum with 17x leverage on GLP. (Twitter)

• Perpy Finance hit $10m total volume and will add Gains Network and Levels soon (plus NFT drop in April). (Twitter)

• Flashstake’s upfront GLP yield vault went live. Claim up to 6 months’ worth of yield upfront. (Twitter)

• ThenaFi releases details on “Fusion” which brings concentrated liquidity to the average user on BNB chain. (Twitter)

The Land of NFTs

• Magic Eden will launch its Ethereum Genesis, NFT beta platform on April 6. (Twitter)

• Blur farmers can enjoy 2x bonus bids & listing points until the end of April. (Twitter)

• End of Sartoshi pass holders is eligible for the next Life Death & Cryptoart artwork by @pixelord. (Twitter)

• Degenerate Ape Academy’s V2 is coming sooner than we think. Sea_Eoh reveals details on Twitter Spaces. (Twitter)

• Kanpai Pandas head to UFC 287, Alex Pereira vs Isreal Adesanya, in Miami and we MIGHT see them feature on UFC superstars. (Twitter)

Governance Updates

• Timeless Fi proposal to add Frax gauges for the Bunni FRAX/USDC & frxETH/WETH pools. (Twitter)

• Ribbon Finance’s “RGP-32: Seeding Aevo Insurance Fund” proposal has passed. $1m of assets will be lent to Aveo for bootstrapping. (Snapshot)

• Plutus DAO has the 3rd largest say on Arbitrum and is requesting the community to delegate their ARB for additional voting power. (Tally)

📊 Chart of the day.

Will $LDO hit $3 during LSD season?

Can $LDO ride the LSD narrative as we draw closer to the big day?

Bull case. Break the $2.47 resistance and a $3 - $3.20 could be on the card

Bear case. A failure to break $2.47 moving down to the bottom of the range at $2 - $2.1

🗞 Hot off the press.

🐮 Bullish News

• Crypto Had No ‘Direct Role’ in the bank failures according to Top US Treasury Officials. (Coindesk)

• Trader Joe Booms on Arbitrum as liquidity providers take advantage of incentives and $JOE’s V2 liquidity book. (Coindesk)

• Hong Kong Crypto Fund sets to raise $100m as ProDigital Future looks to invest in early-stage web3 companies in the region. (Cointelegraph)

• OKX Exchange to takeover Australia as Aussies are “above the curve” and have a “huge appetite” for crypto. (Cointelegraph)

• Kraken Teams up with F1’s Williams Racing to offer fans unique experiences including seeing their NFT’s on the rear wing. (The Block)

🐻 Bearish News

• SEC’s Genslers $2.4bn request to continue funding the efforts to crack down on “crypto crimes” and “misconduct” to keep up with cryptos pace of innovation. (Cointelegraph)

• Sen. Elizabeth Warrens Anti-Crypto Army is part of her re-election campaign to “curb the spread of cryptocurrencies.” (Cryptoslate)

• SBF’s insurance plea as the former FTX CEO looks to use his $10m insurance fund to pay for his lawyers. The committee of creditors claim this is “unfair.” (The Block)

• SEC goes after Beaxy a crypto platform for allegedly failing to register as a crypto exchange. (The Block)

• USDT pumps, USDC dumps seeing $10bn in outflows. Tether dominance reaches a 22-month high. (Coindesk)

👨🏻‍💼 What the FED?!

Here’s what’s coming next week:

A big focus on Job Openings and Unemployment will give us an indication of how strong the market is. The FED, ironically, wants a higher rate of unemployment.

🐥 Twitter reads.

@Crypto_Linn dives in and goes brrrrr over New Orders’ latest incubation, Sector Finance.

@CryptoDonAlt makes a good point. No matter the level of FUD, or capitulation and crimes against crypto, we are holding STRONG… now send it with haste!

@arndxt_xo shares his view on the macro environment.

And on that note, thanks for reading, catcha apes in the next edition!

blocmates team 🫡

🤝 A final word.

A quick word from our super awesome sponsors who help us make this all possible...

Discover how your skills could power the next generation of web3 and blockchain technology. Your next career move could be one you never imagined. Start your search today at Web3nomads.jobs.