0/ In today’s Delphi Daily, we dove deep into @arbitrum
We looked at Arbitrum’s bridge activity, its correlation with Ethereum gas, and it's spectacular past two weeks.
For a more detailed look 🧵👇
1/ Market Update-
🔹The market is bouncing for a second consecutive day, and every session (Asia, Europe, North America) opened up with strength.
🔹CRV is on an absolute tear today, but other top DeFi tokens are in the green as well.
2/ Less than a week after launching, the value locked in @Arbitrum’s bridge is closing in @0xPolygon.
There were a flurry of liquidity mining announcements across @Avalancheavax, @FantomFDN, and Harmony.
Arbitrum has been able to outshine it’s EVM-compatible competitors.
3/ Arbitrum’s bridge had a mere $22M locked in it on Sep. 1, which meant the bridge represented just 0.047% of total TVL in Ethereum bridges.
In the past two weeks, a few speculative farms have pushed this share up to 32%, a 640x increase.
4/ It’s no surprise that WETH/ETH, USDC, USDT, DAI, and WBTC account for nearly 90% of asset value being bridged on Ethereum.
The reason for this is pretty obvious: liquidity for these assets on Ethereum’s DeFi layer is extremely deep, in part due to their large market caps.
5/ Arbitrum’s take-off in early Sept. coincides with a sharp decrease in the median gas price on Ethereum mainnet.
Theoretically L2s like Arbitrum scale Ethereum’s throughput to a great degree.
6/ The future of L2s looks extremely promising.
The market may be looking favorably towards DeFi assets, which have had a rough past six months. Blue chips are leading the bounce, followed by derivative protocol tokens.
7/ Tweets of the day!
@OpenSea acknowledges accusations of employee front-running users.
Correction: The bridge TVL share chart above understated Polygon and Optimism's bridge TVL. The updated figures show Arbitrum's bridge share at 23%, which is still impressive.
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Crypto x AI Month - Decentralized AI Training: Can It Dismantle Centralized Powerhouses?
Top experts @IridiumEagle, @DillonRolnick, @fenbielding, @johannes_hage debate how open-source and DeAI can rival tech giants, a panel hosted by @Shaughnessy119.
🗣 “What decentralization really gives us is the opportunity for a properly modular infrastructure where you could actually compose those models together.” - @fenbielding (@gensynai)
Timeboost, @arbitrum's new transaction sequencing policy, replaces first-come-first-serve with an auction for transaction priority.
Winners access an "express lane" with a 200ms advantage for transaction inclusion. This shifts competition from latency to strategic bidding and prediction.
Arbitrum uses first-come-first-serve (FCFS) transaction ordering based on sequencer arrival.
This enables fast blocks and reduces frontrunning, but it has drawbacks:
In the other hand, Timeboost auctions are held every minute for next-minute express lane control:
Auctioneer accepts bids for 45 seconds, with 15 seconds for resolution. Minimum bid: 3 $ARB or 0.001 $ETH (DAO decision). Limit: 5 bids per address per round. 👇
4 Potential Express lane strategies:
1️⃣ Predict MEV opportunities using price models for arbitrage and liquidations.
2️⃣ Capture real-time MEV during control period.
3️⃣ Establish secondary market by winning auctions and reselling rights.
4️⃣ Collaborate with others, sharing access when collective MEV exceeds individual extraction.
Timeboost shifts Arbitrum's MEV from speed to strategy via time-based auctions.
It generates DAO revenue, reduces spam, and allows flexible allocation.
This approach encourages strategic bidding, benefiting the ecosystem while enabling community-driven distribution.
In last year’s Infrastructure Year Ahead report, we outlined the evolving landscape of rollups in the section "The L2 Wars."
This year, we reflect on these past predictions in this new unlocked Alpha Feed 🔓
Key insights included 👇
🔹Blast Rollup: A complete distortion of rollup architecture, signaling the end of the “kumbaya” phase.
🔹Fragmented L2 Ecosystems: Increasing isolation with unique bridging, interoperability standards, and SDKs for new chains/L3s (e.g., Superchain, Orbit).
🔹Alt-DA for Scaling: Rollups rely on alternative DA to achieve scalability.
🔹Disruption of DA Value: Premium charges on DA would no longer be sustainable, as DA faces innovation.
🔹ETH’s New Bull Case: Ethereum's future as the global proof verification layer and money.
🔹Limited Value for DA Layers: DA layers would see restricted value accrual.
🔹Positive Outlook for L2 Tokens: Sequencing value could drive positive outcomes for L2 tokens.
These predictions have largely played out, with Ethereum's focus shifting back to scaling L1 to avoid losing value to rollups.
ETH has been going through somewhat of a social crisis, and these talking points above are now brought up ad nauseam. ⤵️
Reflecting on our report a year ago, "Solana The Monolith", @solana's modular components continue gaining value across platforms, affecting ETH & BTC.
As rollups promote modularity, Solana is at the forefront.👇
In the report, we explore how Solana is contributing to the growing landscape of modular blockchain components while also developing its internal demand through the creation of L2 solutions.
Previously, the SVM and Validator Client were closely integrated, which constrained innovation by requiring any changes to consider the entire system as a whole.
The 21st century is primed for a continued struggle: the state, the corporation, the elites vs. the network. The hierarchy and the hivemind. The Tower and the Square.
With the rapid advances in AI, perhaps the stakes have never been higher.
Of history's countless concentrations and diffusions of power, the next chapter is perhaps its most consequential.
Don’t miss out on @PonderingDurian lastest report ! Probably the best current read on Centralized AI, Crypto, and Open Source AI 👀👇 delphi.link/TheTowerAndSqu…
Your Size is Not Size
Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple have over $400B in cash-like assets and generate >1.5% of GDP in annual operating income. The race for AI supremacy is only heating up.
The 4 hyperscalers (Excl. Apple) spent $467B in capex the last 3 years👇
Following unprecedented news, the odds for an ETH ETF approval surged to ~70% after hovering below 25%. Subsequently, ETH’s market cap rose by $71B in one day - the largest daily surge ever recorded.
Here's our developing Ethereum Spot ETF Thread🧵
As @NateGeraci notes, recent shifts suggest a possible approval. However, for a launch of ETH ETFs both the 19b-4 and S-1 filings must be approved.