CORE (CORE) Plunge

zkSync founder Alex Gluchowski announced significant layoffs at Matter Labs, the company behind the Ethereum scaling solution, on June 17. This marks the second round of cuts in two years. The core strategic shift is the company's full focus on Prividium, a "permissioned" privacy blockchain designed specifically for regulated financial institutions like Deutsche Bank and UBS. This move represents a stark pivot from zkSync's original ethos of a public, permissionless network. Gluchowski, a self-described "freedom maximalist," is now steering the project toward a compliant, enterprise-focused model. The community reaction is divided, with many sharply questioning the use of the $458 million in total raised funds, given the ongoing layoffs. The native $ZK token has suffered heavily, trading around $0.019, down approximately 93% from its all-time high. Its value-capture mechanism appears disconnected from Matter Labs' new B2B licensing direction. This strategic turnaround is seen by some as a survival tactic in the highly competitive L2 landscape, where zkSync has faced significant user decline post its 2024 airdrop. The company is now betting on a niche, potentially more profitable market, but at the cost of alienating early supporters who believed in its decentralized promises.

Nobel laureate and AlphaFold lead John Jumper has left Google DeepMind after nearly nine years to join AI company Anthropic. Jumper, who co-won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the protein-structure-predicting AI, led the AlphaFold project from its early stages, revolutionizing structural biology by predicting hundreds of millions of protein structures. His departure follows closely that of Transformer co-inventor Noam Shazeer, who recently left Google for OpenAI, marking a significant talent drain for the tech giant. Analysts suggest top AI researchers are seeking environments where individual impact can more directly shape a company's trajectory. Anthropic's hiring of Jumper signals a major push into AI for life sciences. The company recently acquired biotech firm Coefficient Bio and is building wet labs, aiming to drastically accelerate drug discovery and biomedical research. This move aligns with a broader trend, as OpenAI and Google DeepMind (via Isomorphic Labs) are also heavily investing in AI-driven biology and healthcare. The stage is now set for intensified competition among AI leaders to redefine life sciences through artificial intelligence.

The Glamsterdam upgrade, scheduled for late 2026, is a major Ethereum hard fork combining the Amsterdam execution layer and Glasgow consensus layer updates. Its primary goal is not simply increasing throughput but restructuring Ethereum's block production, validation, and resource pricing to enable future scaling. Key technical changes include **EIP-7732 (ePBS)**, which formally enshrines proposer-builder separation into the protocol. This decouples consensus and execution tasks, extending the execution payload propagation window to ~9 seconds. This provides more time for node verification, allowing for safer increases in block capacity (Gas limit) in the future. Another core component is **EIP-7928 (Block-Level Access Lists - BAL)**. It mandates a list of all state accessed within a block, moving this feature from an optional transaction-level (EIP-2930) to a mandatory block-level requirement. This explicit access list enables client optimizations like parallel disk reads and state root computations, paving the way for parallel execution. To manage long-term state growth, **EIP-8037** increases the cost of creating new state (e.g., accounts, storage slots), separating the pricing of permanent database bloat from temporary computation. This allows execution capacity to scale more aggressively without causing state size to explode proportionally. The planned upgrade bundle includes around 10 EIPs categorized into: 1) Core protocol restructuring (ePBS, BAL), 2) Resource pricing adjustments (state costs, calldata costs), and 3) EVM/developer improvements. Several other EIPs, including those potentially improving staker exit liquidity (EIP-8061, EIP-8080), are under consideration. The technical development coincides with significant personnel changes within the Ethereum Foundation's Protocol team. The Foundation's official communications frame this as part of a broader shift towards a "coalition of organizations" working on the Ethereum roadmap, citing new entities like ethlabs and the Ethereum Economic Zone. In summary, Glamsterdam represents a foundational re-engineering of Ethereum's block pipeline and economic model—focusing on ePBS, BAL, and multi-dimensional resource pricing—to prepare the network for sustainable, high-throughput scaling in the years ahead.

### Summary HyperEVM, positioned as a smart contract layer, enables applications to directly access and utilize HyperCore's trading, collateral, positions, and risk data. Its core value lies in making the exchange programmable, distinguishing it from typical "chain-first" approaches. Valuable HyperEVM-native applications must leverage EVM flexibility, rely on HyperCore's unique state, and enhance Hyperliquid's utility as a financial venue. Applications can be categorized within a 2x2 matrix based on their need for general EVM logic and integration with HyperCore. Key categories include: - **Local EVM Finance:** Portable DeFi primitives (e.g., AMMs, lending markets) that form the essential base layer. - **Core-Native Extensions:** Applications that tokenize or wrap Hyperliquid-native assets to enhance their utility. - **Programmable HyperCore:** The most promising category, where applications deeply integrate EVM logic with HyperCore's state and execution to create novel products. The ultimate vision is a unified financial account where a single user balance can seamlessly power trading, lending, yield generation, hedging, and payments, all built on HyperCore's robust infrastructure and controlled by the user via HyperEVM's open application layer.

Recent market rumors suggest Kraken is planning a strategic investment in Aave, sparking widespread interest. Although Aave's co-founder clarified some inaccurate details in the reports, this event highlights a significant trend: centralized exchanges are accelerating their entry into the core areas of on-chain finance. Kraken's interest in Aave reflects its strategic expansion beyond simple trading into more profitable, higher-barrier financial services like DeFi asset management. Aave, a leading DeFi lending protocol, offers a mature lending model, deep liquidity, and a growing ecosystem, making it a key gateway to future on-chain finance. Despite a major security incident in April that caused significant withdrawals, Aave's core architecture, governance, and market trust remained intact. The protocol's strong fundamentals are underscored by its $134 million in annual revenue, suggesting its valuation may be undervalued. Aave is also designing a new tokenomics model (Aavenomics 3.0) featuring an automated token buyback mechanism to better capture value for token holders, signaling DeFi's evolution towards sustainable value models. Ultimately, this potential move signals accelerated convergence between CeFi and DeFi. Kraken's target is not just an asset but a strategic position in the future of on-chain financial infrastructure, while Aave aims to prove DeFi can evolve into a cash-flow-generating, global financial system.