DeFI News by Thebittimes.Com

Ethereum (ETH) has grown to be the most competitive Bitcoin (BTC) rival, allowing for programmable money and smart contracts. After that, other cryptocurrencies surged as Ethereum rivals, challenging its dominance with advanced technologies fostering innovation, scalability, decentralization, and security. Some of these competitors have already escalated the crypto market cap ranks, achieving remarkable gains in the past few years. Namely, Solana (SOL), Toncoin (TON), Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Near Protocol (NEAR), Sui (SUI), and Aptos (APT). So, while they can still perform well in the next year, these Ethereum rivals have limited growth potential compared to the ones with a smaller capitalization. Moreover, Solana, Sui, Toncoin, Near, and Aptos suffer from high supply inflation and unlocks, which dilute their value and potential. Picks for you ...

The team behind zkSync Era, an Ethereum-compatible layer-2 zk-rollup, is launching an open-source framework for building zk-rollups and layer-3s, which they call “hyperchains,” based on its code. The concept — called ZK Stack — is meant to address a subset of developers for whom sovereignty is paramount. In addition to being free and open source, resulting chains remain customizable while maintaining the security of an Ethereum zk-rollup. Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski told Blockworks that no other current solution for builders provides the combination of permissive open-source license — MIT/Apache — and scalability afforded by zero-knowledge proof technology. “The creator (you) possesses full rights to the code and enjoys unrestricted autonomy to customize and shape every aspect of the chain,” zkSync said in a blog post. “Hyperchains operate independently, relying solely on Ethereum [mainnet] for their liveness and security.” A platform to rival the Optimism “superchain” concep...