Weekly Project Updates: Opensea to Launch Solana, etc

1. The Sixth Phase of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) Is Now Open for Applications link

The Ethereum blog has announced that applications for the sixth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) are now open. The application deadline is April 30.

For this cohort, the plan is to invite more seasoned software engineers to participate in the projects designated by the client — side teams. Meanwhile, participants who don’t meet the EPF criteria are encouraged to join the protocol research group to enhance their skills, and they will be provided with mentorship and stipend support.

This year’s EPF will be held from June to November 2025, during which two offline events will be held at EthCC in France and Devconnect in Argentina.

2. Base Officially Clarifies That the Meme Coin It Promoted Is Not an Official Brand Token link

At 3:13 a.m. on Thursday, Base’s official Twitter account posted a promotion link for the MEME coin “Base is for everyone”. By 4:17 a.m. on the same day, the market capitalization of this MEME coin rose to a high, exceeding $17 million. Then, at 4:30 a.m., the market capitalization of this MEME coin plummeted by more than 95% in a short time, dropping to $623,000 at one point.

During the issuance of this token, the top three wallets held a total of 47%, and one wallet alone held 25.6%. Base clarified that Base will not sell these tokens in its possession, and these are not the official network tokens of Base, Coinbase, or any other related products. The official statement said that this is a public experiment to continuously explore how cultural content can be expressed on the chain.

3. Synthetix Stablecoin sUSD Once Dropped to $0.66, Hitting an All — Time Low link

The stablecoin sUSD of Synthetix continues its trend of de — pegging. At 11:26 (UTC+8) on Friday, it once dropped to $0.66, reaching an all — time low. As of press time, the price has recovered to $0.827. Analyses indicate that the de — pegging of sUSD is not due to bad debts or mechanism failures but a side — effect of the SIP — 420 upgrade.

4. Snapchain, the Underlying Technology of the Farcaster Social Network, Has Been Officially Launched link

Varun Srinivasan, the person in charge of Snapchain, tweeted that Snapchain is now live and is providing support for the Farcaster network. Previously, Snapchain was planned to be fully launched in the first quarter of 2025.

5. Data: Gauntlet Incentives Propel Unichain’s Total Value Locked (TVL) to Soar to $71 Million link

According to the data panel of @UniswapFND, since Gauntlet recently provided two weeks of UNI incentives to the 12 pools of Unichain, the total value locked (TVL) of Unichain has soared to over $71 million. Before that, the TVL of Unichain was less than $1 million, among which the USDC/USDT0 Pool reached $44 million. Currently, the daily rewards of the 12 Unichain Pools are approximately equivalent to $330,000 worth of UNI. Among them, the daily reward of the USDC/USDT0 Pool is 7,784 UNI (valued at about $40,600).

6. The Private Key of the ZKsync Administrator Account Is Leaked, and $5 Million Worth of ZK Tokens Are Stolen link

The security team of ZKsync discovered that an administrator account had been breached, involving approximately $5 million worth of ZK tokens, all of which were unclaimed airdrop tokens. The team has taken necessary security measures, and the users’ funds are not affected. The official of ZKsync stated that the protocol and the ZK token contract remain secure. This is an isolated case caused by the leakage of private keys and is limited to the airdrop contract. The investigation is still ongoing, and a detailed update will be released later today.

The ZKsync team posted on X that the administrator account addresses of three airdrop distribution contracts had been breached. The attacker minted about 111 million unclaimed ZK tokens through the sweepUnclaimed() function. This incident is limited to the airdrop contract, and this transaction has inflated the number of tokens in circulation by approximately 0.45% of the total token supply. The ZKsync protocol and the token contract have not been affected, and the attacker still holds most of the funds. Currently, the team is collaborating with the Security Alliance and exchanges to recover the funds and is calling on the attacker to contact the ZKsync team for negotiation on the return to avoid legal liability.

7. OpenSea Announces That It Will Launch NFT Trading on the Solana Chain link

OpenSea has announced that Solana token trading is now live on OS2 for some closed — beta users and will be rolled out to more users in the coming weeks. Currently, only tokens are available for trading, and NFT trading will be launched later.

8. Raydium Announces the Launch of the Token Launch Tool LaunchLab link

Raydium, the largest DEX on Solana, has announced the launch of a token — launching tool called LaunchLab to cope with the impact of Pump Fun and PumpSwap. The Bonding Curve of LaunchLab requires a full 85 SOL to be transferred to Raydium, which is higher than that of Pump Fun. In addition, 25% of the transaction fees generated by LaunchLab will be used to buy back RAY. Previously, Pump Fun launched its own DEX, PumpSwap, and tokens that graduate from the Pump Fun Bonding Curve will directly transfer their liquidity to PumpSwap instead of using Raydium. On Tuesday, the trading volume of PumpSwap reached $478 million, reaching a new all — time high.

9. The KiloEx Perpetual Contract Platform Is Attacked on Multiple Chains link

The KiloEx perpetual contract platform was attacked on multiple blockchains. The attacker initiated transactions on the contracts of the BNB, Base, and Taiko blockchains through the funding address of Tornado Cash, and accumulated approximately $7 million in profits. Preliminary analysis suggests that the vulnerability may be due to the access control issues of the price oracle.

The KiloEx team issued an announcement confirming that the platform had been hacked. Currently, it has joined forces with law enforcement agencies, cybersecurity experts, and several exchanges to conduct an investigation and has traced the hacker’s wallet address. The team proposed a settlement plan to the hacker: return 90% of the stolen funds within 72 hours and keep 10% as a “white hat reward”; if the hacker refuses to cooperate, they will face legal liability and have their identity disclosed.

10. Binance Announces That Binance Launchpool Will Launch the 68th Project, Initia (INIT) link

Binance has announced that Binance Launchpool will launch the 68th project, Initia (INIT). Starting from 08:00 UTC+8 on April 18, 2025, users can obtain INIT tokens by staking BNB, FDUSD, and USDC. Initia is an all-chain Rollup network that unites application chains through interwoven infrastructure and coordinated economic mechanisms.

Zon, the co-founder of Initia, posted that in the early days of 2023, Binance Labs (now known as Yzi Labs) became Initia’s first and so far largest investor. At that time, Initia had a difficult start relying only on its vision and Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Zon expressed pride in the team and all participants in the interconnected economy, and also thanked the investors who supported them during the trough of the bear market.