Welcome to Weekly Roundup, where our team of experts selects buzzworthy pools, news, and announcements for you to have on your radar.

Weekly Roundup – 3.10

Greetings, faithful readers. I must confess I tried writing this intro but am experiencing writer's blockchain. No puns this week. ✍️ 😿

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Degen Responsibly is back with a bag full of LSD (liquid staking derivatives)

Don’t miss our chat with Rocket Pool, the decentralized ETH staking protocol, on 3/15 @ 5 pm ET. We’ll be discussing liquid staking and how they are helping decentralize Ethereum.

 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Rocket Pool plans its next major protocol upgrade.

The most decentralized liquid staking protocol is launching its Atlas upgrade in early April, which will allow its node operators to run their own Ethereum validators, or "minipools," with only 8 ETH, a halving of the current requirement of 16 ETH. This would make it easier for users to become Ethereum validators and increase the protocol's capacity and yield. The Atlas upgrade is set to launch just before the Ethereum upgrade "Shanghai," which will allow for the withdrawal of staked ETH. Rocket Pool and other liquid staking protocols have seen a surge in interest this year.

MakerDAO continues to pivot to real-world assets for yield.

 The decentralized stablecoin lender is considering investing up to $1.25B in US Treasury and bonds, according to a proposal by Allan Pedersen, CEO of Monetalis. The latest move will increase the debt ceiling of US treasury bonds by $750 million, allowing Maker to take advantage of the current yield environment and increase revenue on existing assets. The strategy is expected to deliver an annualized yield of approximately 4.5% after custody and expected trading cost. If approved, the asset strategy will be implemented by Sygnum Bank, and the debt ceiling increase must move to a governance poll ahead of a one-week vote. Maker governance recently rejected a proposal from Cogent Bank to add $100M of loans to MakerDAO’s existing RWA Master Participation Trust.

The decentralized wallet space is heating up.

Ethereum developers have deployed a new ERC token standard (ERC-4337), which allows wallets to operate as programmable smart contracts, enabling "account abstraction". This feature paves the way for users to recover lost private keys, which could help those who have lost access to their funds. Transactions involving ERC-4337 require specialized validators and are processed by an alternative mempool to other Ethereum transactions. This development could allow users to program different mechanisms for managing their private keys, including two-factor authentication and multi-signature wallets, as well as enables an entirely new fee market for smart contract wallet operations.

Accredited investors will soon be able to invest in DeFi liquidity pools across major chains directly on our custodial platform.