Blockchains have always competed on confirmation speed — how quickly users can be confident that a transaction has been accepted and is unlikely to be reverted. Layer 2 networks have made huge progress, bringing transaction confirmations down to under a second.

But even at sub-second latency, blockchain confirmation times still break real-time experiences in DeFi, payments, and gaming. For example, imagine a trading app where a market maker is offering to buy and sell tez at a given price. If the market price of tez changes suddenly, but it takes 500ms+ for their last trade to be confirmed, the market maker does not yet know whether their old price is still active. During that short delay, traders can trade against an outdated price, causing losses. To avoid this, market makers protect themselves by quoting wider spreads on the buy and sell prices. This makes trades more expensive and reduces liquidity for everyone.

When inclusion latency drops, that risk window also reduces drastically, allowing spreads to stay tight and markets to stay efficient.

Now with Instant Confirmations on Etherlink instead of waiting for the next block to be produced, users receive a transaction receipt as soon as the sequencer commits to including their transactions in the next block. This reduces confirmation latency by 10x, from ~500ms to under 50ms. This helps on-chain interactions feel instant and enables truly real-time experiences for both users and developers.

How Instant Confirmations Work on Etherlink

Instant Confirmations on Etherlink allow users to receive assurance that their transactions will be included in the next block — in under 50 milliseconds. Instead of waiting for a block to be produced, Etherlink nodes notify users as soon as the sequencer commits to including the transaction in the next block.

Once the sequencer commits to including a transaction in the next block (within 50ms), Etherlink nodes execute the transaction and return a full transaction receipt (including gas used, logs, status, and transaction hash). Because the block has not yet been created, the block hash is not available. This is fine for most applications where inclusion confirmation is sufficient, while full block confirmation and finality can follow shortly after.

These transaction receipts can also be streamed (in near-real time), using new WebSocket subscriptions allowing applications to observe and react to Instant Confirmations across the chain as they happen.

Who are Instant Confirmations Built For?

We built Instant Confirmations to expand what’s possible on-chain when the latency between execution and confirmation time is removed. They open new possibilities for applications where every millisecond matters.

DeFi Traders and Market Makers

For market makers, sub-50ms confirmations enable tighter spreads and faster reactions to market movements. Beyond faster trade executions, Instant Confirmations also make it possible to observe transactions executing across the chain in near real time. This allows for increased arbitrage opportunities, quicker response to liquidity shifts and real-time changes to trading strategies — like adjusting off-chain limit orders based on live on-chain price action.

Real-Time Gaming & Application Developers

Games and interactive applications need immediate feedback to feel responsive. When a player makes a move, trades an item, or completes an action, waiting 500ms+ for confirmation breaks immersion. Sub-50ms Instant Confirmations enable:

• True real-time gameplay with on-chain state
• Immediate inventory updates and item transfers
• Responsive UIs that react as fast as Web2 apps
• Multiplayer experiences that don’t feel “laggy”

Agentic Payment Systems

Instant Confirmations are a strong use case for agent-to-agent payments in modern payment systems. Sequencer commitments to include a transaction allow agentic and programmable payment flows to react immediately, without waiting for block-level confirmations.

This unlocks payment models like:

• Machine-to-machine payments, where agents coordinate the movement of value in real time. For example, products can offer dynamic pricing based on real-time on-chain transaction streams, with agents continuously adjusting prices in response execution events.
• Usage-based payments that depend on fast feedback loops. For example, infrastructure services or APIs can charge per request, adjusting access and rate limits immediately based on on-chain payment execution.
• Cross-border payment flows that trigger further actions as soon as transactions are executed on-chain.

Developers and Blockchain Engineers

Beyond end-users, Instant Confirmations dramatically improve the developer experience. You can now:

• Build UIs that respond immediately by subscribing to Instant Confirmation data using WebSockets, without polling or optimistic updates
• Chain dependent transactions without waiting for block confirmations
• **Debug faster **with immediate feedback on transaction results
• Create real-time dashboards that update as transactions execute

Instant Confirmations vs Base Flashblocks vs Other L2s

Instant Confirmations on Etherlink differ fundamentally from fast confirmation approaches on other L2s. On OP Stack based L2s such as Base or Unichain, Flashblocks introduce pre-confirmation blocks that stream partial block execution every ~200ms based on the outcome of a gas auction (i.e. ordered following a gas auction based on the priority fee proposed by each transaction within the Flashblock). These pre-confirmed receipts give applications early visibility into transactions, but they are optimistic and derived from an in-progress block, meaning transactions can still be reordered within the Flashblock or changed before the final block is produced.

Etherlink’s Instant Confirmations take a different approach. Instead of creating a sub-block every X milliseconds, transactions are set for inclusion as soon as they arrive, on a strict first-come-first-served basis, subject to block capacity. Once included, a transaction is streamed to anyone interested in computing its receipt ahead of the block creation.

Unlike Flashblocks, Instant Confirmations don’t require the sequencer to compute additional metadata partway through creating a block, making them more efficient and allowing the sequencer to focus solely on ordering and inclusion commitment, while execution is handled by Etherlink nodes.

Comparison of Etherlink’s Instant Confirmations vs Confirmation approaches on other L2s

Instant Confirmations provide a sequencer commitment, with transaction receipts available once execution has completed. For strict finality, applications can wait for Etherlink block confirmation (~500ms).

On traditional L2 networks today, developers must wait for block inclusion before receiving a transaction receipt. This introduces latency, forces polling, and complicates application logic for real-time use cases.

Security, Trust and Finality with Instant Confirmations

While Instant Confirmations drastically reduce latency, they do not change the underlying finality model of Etherlink. As a rollup, finality on Etherlink happens when blocks are published and confirmed on Tezos L1.

In practice, users can treat transactions as irreversible much earlier than full L1 finality. When a transaction is submitted to an RPC node via eth_sendRawTransactionSync (with “pending”), Etherlink returns a transaction receipt (eth_getTransactionReceipt) as soon as the sequencer commits to including the transaction in the next block and the RPC node executes the transaction.

This makes transaction submission synchronous from the application’s perspective. Users wait and are notified immediately when the transaction has been executed. This is the fastest mode of confirmation and is enough for most real-time UX, but it assumes trust in the sequencer’s commitment.

Alternatively, users can wait for the sequencer to produce a block — which takes around 500ms on Etherlink, providing stronger assurance than execution confirmation while still staying sub-second.

If the sequencer is stopped after your transaction has been executed but before the block is finalised, your transaction will not be settled when the sequencer reboots and you will need to resubmit the transaction.

Getting Started With Instant Confirmations

Instant Confirmations are currently an experimental feature, and we’re actively monitoring performance and reliability as we gather feedback from early adopters

Starting today, January 20th, you can opt in to use Instant Confirmations in your application by calling the eth_sendRawTransactionSync method from an RPC node. This method returns an instant confirmation from the sequencer which includes a transaction receipt that provides information about the completed transaction, such as the status, hash, gas used, and index of the transaction in the next block. The only information missing from the receipt is the hash of the next block, because it has not been created yet.

You can also send the transaction using the eth_sendRawTransactionSync method and pass the pending value like below

curl --request POST \
    --url https://node.shadownet.etherlink.com \
    --header 'accept: application/json' \
    --header 'content-type: application/json' \
    --data '
{
 "id": 1,
 "jsonrpc": "2.0",
 "params": [
   "0x88a747dbc7f84e8416dc4be31ddef0",
   "pending"
 ],
 "method": "eth_sendRawTransactionSync"
}

If you pass latest instead of pending, the sequencer waits until the transaction is in a block to send the confirmation.

Once the sequencer queues the transaction and commits to including the transaction in the next block, Etherlink nodes execute the transaction and return a full receipt for the transaction that includes information such as its gas price and gas cost. This receipt matches the specification for eth_getTransactionReceipt except that the blockHash field is always 0x000… because the block has not been created yet. You can take this response as a confirmation that the sequencer will put the transaction in the next block.

Read the Etherlink Instant Confirmation docs for more on using Instant Confirmations within your application.

Subscribing to Instant Confirmations

You can also subscribe to WebSockets to receive Instant Confirmations, which are notices that a transaction will appear in the next block. Etherlink nodes provide two custom WebSocket events that you can subscribe to for notice of upcoming transactions: tez_newIncludedTransactions & tez_newPreconfirmedReceipts.

Read more detail on these new methods in the developer documentation.

Network Latency and Sequencer Co-location

While the introduction of Instant Confirmations reduces the protocol-level latency on Etherlink, total end-to-end latency still depends on network distance to the sequencer. With the Etherlink sequencer now operating from Tokyo, co-locating application infrastructure closer to the sequencer can further reduce round-trip latency.

Latency-sensitive applications like trading bots, market makers, games or agentic payment systems, can benefit from this, achieving a lower end-to-end latency overall.

In practice, applications running in the same region as the sequencer can achieve near execution-time responsiveness, while applications running in infrastructure further away may experience additional network latency despite instant execution.

Wrapping Up

Instant Confirmations mark a major shift in what’s possible on-chain. By cutting confirmation latency from ~500ms to under 50ms, Etherlink allows an entirely new category of applications to be built that were previously not feasible.

Whether you’re building high-frequency trading systems, real-time games, or next-generation payment infrastructure, we’re excited to see what you build with sub-50ms confirmations.

To see Instant Confirmations in action, Watch a Live Demo.

Learn more about Instant Confirmations.

Late December tends to quiet things down. Fewer announcements land, fewer threads get pulled, but the work underneath doesn’t stop. This window caught Etherlink in that in-between space, with maintenance, migrations, and steady usage carrying on while attention drifted elsewhere.

DeFi & Protocol Updates

This section covers changes that affect how Etherlink operates at the network or protocol level, including upgrades, fixes, and incidents that impacted users directly.

December 18–20, 2025: Etherlink 6.1 Kernel Upgrade

Etherlink completed a FAST governance upgrade to resolve an issue affecting FA token deposits.

After the Farfadet (6.0) upgrade went live, a bug in the FA bridge logic prevented some deposited FA tokens from being delivered to recipients on Etherlink. Withdrawals remained functional, but those deposits never finalized on Etherlink. The bridge frontend was temporarily disabled to stop new deposits from getting stuck while the team worked on a fix.

Etherlink proposed 6.1 as a targeted kernel update to address the issue. The upgrade restored FA deposit delivery and included a one-time migration step that reprocessed the stuck deposits.

The proposal reached quorum, entered promotion, and was activated within the same window. With 6.1 active, FA token deposits resumed normally, and previously affected transfers were delivered on chain.

Ecosystem Integrations

This section highlights projects that changed how or where they run by integrating more deeply with Etherlink, shifting execution, or routing activity onto the network.

December 15, 2025: Sogni.ai Staking Migration

Sogni.ai migrated execution of its own Season 5 staking program fully to Etherlink when the season went live. For the first time, staking activity for the program runs natively on Etherlink rather than across multiple chains.

Users stake through Sogni’s existing dashboard, with staking transactions executed on Etherlink in the background. Tokens held on other networks are bridged automatically as part of the process, without requiring manual steps from the user.

Community & Events

This section tracks notable participation, coordination, and visibility around Etherlink during the reporting window, including governance activity and community-level milestones.

December 19, 2025: Record Baker Participation for Etherlink 6.1

Baker participation reached a new high during the 6.1 promotion vote, with 29 bakers participating and 27.24% of total voting power represented. Etherlink flagged both figures as new records for a FAST upgrade, putting concrete numbers behind how many bakers showed up for an urgent fix.

Projects in Focus

A closer look at a few projects in active use on Etherlink.

Sogni.ai

Sogni.ai is a place people go to make images and short videos. You open it, pick a style or model, and start generating. It feels closer to a creative playground than a technical tool, with an emphasis on quick iteration and visual output rather than configuration.

Most users never see the machinery underneath that experience. Rendering happens across shared compute, results come back quickly, and the interface stays focused on prompts, previews, and experimenting with different looks. You don’t need your own powerful machine to get usable results.

Hanji Protocol

Hanji.io is a trading interface that behaves the way experienced traders expect. Instead of swapping against pools, users place limit orders directly into an on-chain order book and trade against other participants at visible prices.

The interface shows a live book, depth, and recent fills, and supports common spot pairs like XTZ, USDC, WETH, and WBTC. Users place limit orders, adjust them as prices shift, or cancel them outright when conditions change. For users accustomed to centralized exchanges, the experience feels familiar, just without a custodial layer.

All of this runs directly on Etherlink. Low transaction costs and fast finality make frequent order placement practical, which is what allows an on-chain order book to function without workarounds or off-chain matching. As a result, Hanji has accumulated meaningful spot volume and steady usage rather than relying on short-term incentives to appear active.

Superlend

Superlend is where people on Etherlink supply assets or borrow against them. Users deposit assets like USDC, XTZ, BTC wrappers, or tokenized T-Bills, see live rates, and manage positions from a single dashboard. The core actions are direct: supply, borrow, repay, and adjust.

Some users keep things simple. Others use Superlend’s vaults to manage more involved positions, such as looping BTC or XTZ to increase exposure. Those vaults bundle multiple steps into a single position, with collateral levels and health factors visible while the position is open.

Positions can be adjusted or unwound as conditions change, without locking users into a fixed strategy. Whether someone is supplying one asset or running a vault, the interface stays focused on the current state of the position and the actions available at that moment.

Two weeks still pass quickly, even when things slow down. Small fixes, migrations, and day-to-day use are easy to miss when they don’t arrive as headlines. The next wrap will pick up from there.

Over the last two weeks, Etherlink kept moving, just not loudly. Fewer launches. More pieces are settling into place.

At the protocol layer, work continued on the parts that keep the network steady as activity picks up. Progress on Farfadet and broader asset support didn’t draw much attention on their own, but they shape how everything else behaves once traffic starts to stack up.

Access widened at the same time. New on-ramps, clearer analytics, and wider exchange support made it easier to move in and out of Etherlink without friction.

There wasn’t a single moment to point to. Just steady signs that the network is becoming easier to use, easier to read, and easier to move through day by day.

DeFi and Protocol Updates

These updates focus on changes at the protocol and infrastructure level that shape how Etherlink runs.

December 8, 2025: Farfadet Enters the Promotion Phase

After five successful upgrades, Farfadet has reached quorum with strong baker participation as it moved into the promotion phase. The changes focus on keeping Etherlink responsive as activity increases, with faster confirmations and additional gas capacity. The upgrade also brings parity improvements to EVM support, aligning Etherlink more closely with upstream EVM changes.

Ecosystem Integrations

This section covers services and tools related to accessing, tracking, and building on Etherlink.

December 2, 2025: Shadownet Testnet Migration Announced

Etherlink announced a migration of its testnet environment from Ghostnet to Shadownet. The change affects where developers run tests and experiments, without altering mainnet behavior.

As Ghostnet approaches its planned sunset, Shadownet becomes the default testnet moving forward. Projects building on Etherlink will need to account for this shift as part of their testing setups.

December 6, 2025: CoinMarketCap Launches Etherlink Ecosystem Page

CoinMarketCap published a dedicated Etherlink ecosystem page featuring real-time updates, price feeds, and charts. The page pulls together tokens, metrics, and project listings into a single view.

It sits alongside CoinMarketCap’s other ecosystem pages, grouping Etherlink projects under one listing rather than scattering them across individual token pages. This positions Etherlink as a distinct ecosystem within CoinMarketCap’s broader network views and provides a familiar way to browse what is live on the network.

December 7, 2025: Rampnow Adds Support for Etherlink

Rampnow, a payments service, added support for Etherlink. The integration allows fiat purchases to go directly to Etherlink rather than landing on another network first.

It sits alongside existing bridges and wallets as another entry point into the network, bringing an additional payment provider into the first step of accessing Etherlink.

December 11, 2025: xU3O8 Listed on Bitrue, LBank, and BingX

Bitrue, LBank, and BingX listed xU3O8 on their exchanges. Each listing includes native Etherlink deposits and withdrawals, allowing the asset to move directly between exchanges and the network.

These additions bring the total number of centralized exchanges supporting xU3O8 to six.

Projects In Focus

This section highlights projects running on Etherlink, from active applications to platforms that support the network’s broader use.

Apple Farm

Apple Farm runs as a liquidity incentive program on Etherlink, directing rewards toward activity across the network’s DeFi protocols. Users participate through recurring seasons, earning incentives by providing liquidity and trading rather than through fixed pools or permanent reward programs.

The program adjusts reward allocation over time, responding to how activity unfolds across the network.

Sogni AI

Sogni is a decentralized image generation platform that runs on Etherlink alongside other supported networks. It relies on a distributed GPU network, the Sogni Supernet, which aggregates compute from contributed hardware rather than centralized providers.

Creators generate images using a mix of prepaid credits and on-chain actions, which keeps the platform accessible to both crypto-native and non-crypto users. Image generation itself runs off-chain for speed, while payments, rewards, provenance, and minting settle on-chain across a multi-chain setup.

Uranium.io

Uranium.io lets people get exposure to physical uranium through tokens that live and settle on Etherlink. Each token maps to real uranium held in custody, so ownership moves on-chain while the material stays put.

Because issuance and settlement both happen on Etherlink, the asset behaves like any other token on the network. It can move between wallets, plug into applications, and trade across exchanges without being wrapped or bridged out.

Keeping track of what’s happening can get overwhelming, and two weeks go by quickly. Enough happens in that span to lose track if you’re not watching closely. We’ll be back in two weeks with our next edition of the wrap.

On December 17, 2025 at 07:00AM UTC, Etherlink 6.0 (Farfadet) went live on Etherlink Mainnet on block #34,089,273. Later on the same day, at 8:36AM UTC, a user deposited 3,125.423349 Lyzi to Etherlink Mainnet using the Tezos Bridge. Lyzi is a FA token on Tezos L1, equivalent to the ERC20 standard on Etherlink, and the Tezos Bridge is used to transfer tez and FA tokens between Tezos L1 and Etherlink. This deposit was injected by the sequencer in block #34,093,446, but the resulting transaction failed, preventing the deposited Lyzi tokens from being minted as expected. It was quickly established that all FA token deposits would be affected (this is not an issue specific to Lyzi), and as a precaution, Optimistic Labs has disabled FA deposits in the Tezos bridge frontend. They will be re-enabled once the functionality has been restored. Tez deposits/withdrawals were unaffected, as was the LayerZero wrapped asset and OFT bridge between Etherlink and other EVM networks.

This is a regression introduced by Farfadet, which requires a new upgrade of Etherlink Mainnet to be resolved. In this post, we will cover

• What exactly is the issue at hand, as well as why we haven’t uncovered it prior to Etherlink 6.0 activation.
• How we are proposing to fix FA deposits.
• How we are proposing to unblock the Lyzi tokens and deliver them to their recipient as it was expected.

This post is intended to be fairly technical, as its goal is to provide the necessary rationale to reassure the community about the completeness of the proposed fixes, justify using the Fast governance contract to deploy them, and convince Tezos bakers to support the resulting Etherlink 6.1 kernel upgrade proposal.

Explaining the FA Deposit Regression of Etherlink 6.0

A comprehensive description of how the Tezos bridge works can be found on the Etherlink public documentation. For FA deposits from Tezos Layer 1 to Etherlink specifically, the workflow goes roughly as follows:

• On Tezos Layer 1, any smart contract can send Michelson tickets to the Etherlink Mainnet smart rollup (this is what happened in this operation). When this happens, a new message is added to the smart rollups shared inbox. From the perspective of the Tezos Layer 1, the smart rollup of Etherlink Mainnet becomes the owner of the associated tokens.
• On the Etherlink side, the deposit is added to the delayed inbox. Once the sequencer is made aware of this, it will inject the deposit in the next block, which normally leads to new tokens being minted on Etherlink Mainnet. The ownership of these new minted tokens is transferred to the expected recipient, completing the process.

Unfortunately, this second step does not work as expected with Etherlink 6.0. The deposit transaction correctly appears in a block, but this transaction fails, preventing the transfer of ownership.

To understand why FA deposits suddenly fail with Etherlink 6.0, we need to dive deeper into how they are actually implemented. Before Etherlink 5.0, the contract responsible for bridging FA tokens was a so-called precompiled contract implemented natively in Rust. Etherlink 5.0 migrated the implementation to a regular Solidity smart contract. This smart contract was later modified in Etherlink 6.0. The changes were not limited to the implementation, but also impacted the ABI of the contract. More specifically, a new queue public function was added, and the FA deposit logic was updated to make use of this new function.

We have an extensive test suite to ensure the correctness of the bridging logic for FA tokens, including tests to assess that the deposit produces the expected results. However, this test-suite critically was not taking into account that the fa_bridge.sol contract code could change from one version of Etherlink to another, and all tests were running starting from a new instance of Etherlink directly originated with the tested kernel. This is what prevented us from catching the issue ahead of time, since the logic used by the Etherlink kernel to make sure the FA token bridge contract is correctly deployed is the root cause of our issue. More specifically, here is the Rust function ensuring that the FA bridge is correctly deployed.

fn init_precompile_bytecode<Host: Runtime>(
    host: &'_ mut Host,
    addr: &Address,
    hex_bytes: &str,
) -> Result<(), Error> {
    let mut created_account = StorageAccount::from_address(addr)?;
    let mut account_info = created_account.info(host).map_err(custom)?;
    if account_info.code_hash != KECCAK_EMPTY {
        return Ok(());
    }
    let code = Bytecode::new_legacy(Bytes::from_hex(hex_bytes).map_err(custom)?);
    let code_hash = bytes_hash(code.original_byte_slice());
    account_info.code_hash = code_hash;
    created_account
        .set_info(host, account_info)
        .map_err(custom)?;
    CodeStorage::add(host, code.original_byte_slice(), Some(code_hash))?;
    Ok(())
}

The bug can be isolated to the if clause checking whether the kernel needs to deploy the bytecode for the given contract, that is

if account_info.code_hash != KECCAK_EMPTY {
    return Ok(());
}

In simpler words, the function has no effect on Etherlink if some bytecode has already been deployed at the provided address, independent of what bytecode was deployed before. This is the root cause of the regression: on Etherlink Mainnet, since Etherlink 5.0 was deployed before the activation of Farfadet, the first version of fa_bridge.sol was already deployed, contrary to our test-suite setup that started from an empty world state.

Fixing the Tezos Bridge

In and of itself, the bug is straightforward and can be fixed quite easily by changing the initialization logic of predeployed contracts.

 fn init_precompile_bytecode<Host: Runtime>(
     host: &'_ mut Host,
     addr: &Address,
     hex_bytes: &str,
+    code_hash: &FixedBytes<32>,
 ) -> Result<(), Error> {
     let mut created_account = StorageAccount::from_address(addr)?;
     let mut account_info = created_account.info(host).map_err(custom)?;
-    if account_info.code_hash != KECCAK_EMPTY {
+
+    if account_info.code_hash == *code_hash {
         return Ok(());
     }
+
+    if account_info.code_hash != KECCAK_EMPTY {
+        CodeStorage::delete(host, &account_info.code_hash)?;
+    }
+
     let code = Bytecode::new_legacy(Bytes::from_hex(hex_bytes).map_err(custom)?);
     let code_hash = bytes_hash(code.original_byte_slice());
     account_info.code_hash = code_hash;

By changing the function to also take the expected hash of the bytecode we deploy, we refine the initialization logic to correctly deal with the case where a contract already exists, but its bytecode is not the one expected.

Unblocking the locked Lyzi token deposit

At the time of publication of this post, one user has been affected by this regression in the Tezos bridge. Their tokens are safely locked on Tezos Layer 1, and are currently owned by the Etherlink Mainnet smart rollup, but the user cannot claim ownership of them on Etherlink Mainnet as intended. In addition to fixing FA token deposits and resuming regular operations of the Tezos bridge, it is necessary to make sure the Lyzi tokens are effectively delivered, as they should have been.

To deliver this, we have implemented a migration specific to Etherlink Mainnet. A migration is a Rust function that is executed when a new kernel is activated on a network. Here, we have implemented one that re-injects the lost deposit to the delayed inbox. Upon activation of Etherlink 6.1 — assuming Tezos bakers support it in the upcoming governance vote — the sequencer will automatically inject it in an Etherlink block. This time, the deposit logic will have been fixed, and the deposit will be completed as expected.

For completeness, here is the implementation of this migration function.

        StorageVersion::V45 => {
            // Re-inject locked FA deposit 0x82f507bc5aba0f3f6088c087c2fcd87fc7b7f33c9445e331ec3d1fdf45e4be38,
            // affected by the regression introduced by Farfadet
            if is_etherlink_network(host, MAINNET_CHAIN_ID)? && !evm_node_flag(host) {
                let mut delayed_inbox = DelayedInbox::new(host)?;
                let previous_timestamp = read_last_info_per_level_timestamp(host)?;
                let level = read_l1_level(host)?;
                let fa_deposit = FaDeposit {
                    amount: U256::from_dec_str("3125423349").unwrap(),
                    receiver: H160::from_slice(&[
                        0x94, 0x6a, 0x4f, 0x7a, 0x4e, 0xc4, 0x40, 0x77, 0xc6, 0x8b, 0x5a,
                        0x1b, 0x00, 0xfb, 0xe0, 0xb9, 0x61, 0x0c, 0xf6, 0x87,
                    ]),
                    proxy: Some(H160::from_slice(&[
                        0x19, 0x41, 0x8d, 0x0a, 0xf0, 0xf3, 0x68, 0x65, 0xcd, 0xfb, 0xb2,
                        0x43, 0x7d, 0xfe, 0xd2, 0x9b, 0xa3, 0x4d, 0x31, 0x90,
                    ])),
                    ticket_hash: H256::from_slice(&[
                        0x23, 0x06, 0x44, 0xd9, 0xa1, 0xc4, 0x5d, 0x22, 0xfb, 0xe4, 0x66,
                        0x61, 0xc0, 0xf5, 0xf8, 0x65, 0x8c, 0x45, 0x31, 0xbd, 0xb1, 0xa8,
                        0xe9, 0x73, 0x1a, 0xad, 0x38, 0x6a, 0xdd, 0xb6, 0x1d, 0xff,
                    ]),
                    inbox_level: 11228700,
                    inbox_msg_id: 4,
                };
                let tx_hash = fa_deposit.hash(&[0u8; 20]).into();
                let tx = Transaction {
                    tx_hash,
                    content: TransactionContent::FaDeposit(fa_deposit),
                };
                delayed_inbox.save_transaction(host, tx, previous_timestamp, level)?;
            }
            Ok(MigrationStatus::Done)
        }

Each field of the deposit above has been extracted from the original one, and matches exactly its content. We can reconstruct it from the operation receipt, more specifically using the argument passed to the %default entrypoint of Etherlink Mainnet smart rollup.

(Pair
  946a4f7a4ec44077c68b5a1b00fbe0b9610cf68719418d0af0f36865cdfbb2437dfed29ba34d3190
  (Pair
    01b72707de07860febe3b0429f978d5854d45ce5ce00
    (Pair 
      (Pair
        0
        (Some 0502000000ad07040100000010636f6e74726163745f616464726573730a000000244b5431554d7837615a51574e4b59396e43344c52594e7375654569474d6670635168684407040100000008646563696d616c730a0000000136070401000000046e616d650a000000044c797a690704010000000673796d626f6c0a000000044c595a4907040100000008746f6b656e5f69640a00000001300704010000000a746f6b656e5f747970650a00000003464132
      3125423349))))

The bytes provided as the first argument are the concatenation of:

• the receiver (946a4f7a4ec44077c68b5a1b00fbe0b9610cf687)
• the proxy (19418d0af0f36865cdfbb2437dfed29ba34d3190).

The remaining Michelson values identify the ticket itself. Notably, the last integer is the number of tokens being deposited (3125423349). The ticket is hashed by the kernel, resulting in its ticket_hash value. For the Lyzi token, it is 0x230644d9a1c45d22fbe46661c0f5f8658c4531bdb1a8e9731aad386addb61dff. We can verify the ticket hash by looking at the events of a successful mint executed by the Lizy ERC-20 smart contract deployed on Etherlink prior to Etherlink 6.0 activation, for instance here.

Finally, we recompute a fresh hash for the resulting transaction. Keeping the same transaction hash would otherwise break an important invariant of Etherlink: uniqueness of operations. That is, you cannot have the exact same transaction — uniquely identified by its hash — in two different blocks. To ensure freshness, we recompute the hash of the same value with a different seed. We plan to align the computation of deposit hashes with EVM standards in our next major kernel upgrade proposal.

Call for Action: Tezos Bakers, we need your support!

The Etherlink 6.1 kernel proposal gathers the two patches discussed in this post. Given the Tezos bridge is a prominent component of the Etherlink infrastructure and that user funds are currently locked, we are convinced that the fix should be deployed on Etherlink Mainnet ASAP.

This is why we are proposing to the community to make use of the Fast governance process.

📅 Important dates

We plan to release Etherlink 6.1 to the governance process this Friday, Dec 19th, targeting the following periods:

• Proposal: fast governance period 689, spanning between L1 levels #11247889 and #11,251,488 (Fri 19 December 2025, 03:22 UTC — 11:22 UTC)
• Promotion: fast governance period 690, spanning between L1 levels #11,251,489 and #11,255,088 (Fri 19 December 2025, 11:22 UTC — 19:22 UTC)The ETA of these blocks might be affected by network delays and may drift slightly.

For up-to-date information, see the Etherlink mainnet governance portal.

Based on this timeline, should the governance process be successful, we expect Etherlink 6.1 to go live on Etherlink Mainnet some time between December 20 8:00PM UTC and December 21 7:00AM UTC.

After ensuring the fix is correct, and locked deposits fulfilled, we will re-enable FA token transfer functionality back to the Tezos Bridge.

As usual, we will provide voting instructions on Tezos Agora later today.

Updates around Etherlink land in all kinds of places, and it’s easy to miss things along the way. This edition puts the past two weeks in one spot, so the picture is easier to follow.

DeFi and Protocol Updates

This section looks at the changes that affect Etherlink under the hood, from how assets move around the chain to the proposals that guide its next steps.

November 25, 2025: Farfadet Upgrade Announced

The sixth upgrade, Farfadet, has been proposed for Etherlink. Its focus is on keeping the chain fast as activity grows, and the upgrade leans toward changes that reduce wait times and widen capacity. Voting for the proposal opens on December 8.

November 28, 2025: LBTC Bridging Through Jumper Exchange

LBTC can now move on to Etherlink through Jumper. Instead of choosing a bridge yourself, Jumper handles the routing in the background. It takes the guesswork out of bringing Bitcoin over, which makes it easier to use LBTC in lending, Curve pools, and other spots where it’s needed.

Ecosystem Integrations

These are the tools people rely on when they’re trying to get things done on Etherlink.

November 16, 2025: Chainlink Adds Etherlink to Its Weekly Integration Update

Chainlink’s weekly adoption post listed Etherlink among the chains included in that week’s eighteen integrations. These weekly updates get a lot of eyes from developers who follow Chainlink’s activity, so the mention puts Etherlink in front of the same people who track those changes.

November 27, 2025: Nightly Wallet Adds Etherlink Support

Nightly, a wallet many people already use for DeFi on Aptos, Sui, NEAR, and other EVM chains, added Etherlink to its supported networks. With the update live on iOS and Android, Nightly users can now connect to Etherlink and handle their activity there the same way they do on the rest of the chains they use.

Community & Events

This section tracks where Etherlink showed up in the world during the period, from local meetups to interviews and broader event coverage.

November 20, 2025: Appleville and Sugar Match Nominated in PlayToEarn Blockchain Game Awards

PlayToEarn opened up voting for this year’s Blockchain Game Awards, and both Appleville and Sugarverse are in this year’s round of nominations. The awards cover eighteen different categories across more than nine hundred games. With voting open until December 11, anyone who wants to support either title can vote through the awards page on playtoearn.com.

November 27, 2025: EF Devcon Interview

Tezos was active around Devcon Buenos Aires from November 17–22, with local TrailBlazers hosting a Breakfast Club meetup in the city. Tezos posted photos from the gathering, and most of the talk centered on what people are building and how they’re approaching Etherlink.

A few days later, the Devcon interview with Beata Lipska from Trilitech went live. She spoke with Lock Fryer of Genzio about Etherlink’s EVM tools and how they fit the work bakers and builders are already doing.

Projects in Focus

This section looks at a few products that see steady use around Etherlink and explains what each one brings to the table.

Stacy.fi (stXTZ)

stXTZ is a liquid staking token from Stacy.fi that tracks a share of a pooled staking balance on Tezos. Instead of waiting through the lock period that comes with unstaking, people can hold stXTZ and keep the rewards accumulating in the token’s price while staying free to move it. The pool handles the baking and reward accounting under the hood, so the token slots easily into tools that already support FA2 assets.

Nightly Wallet

Nightly is a multichain wallet that now includes Etherlink alongside the networks it already supports. It covers the basics like sending, receiving, and checking balances. That familiarity makes it an easy option for people who move between networks or arrive from EVM tooling and want something that feels the same on Etherlink.

Sugar Match

Sugar Match is a three-player match-3 game, available on iOS and Android, where each player works on their own board and can send effects to the others. You build your score through matches, then use blockers, stolen bonuses, and multipliers to put the other two players at a disadvantage. Its $CNDY token is minted on Etherlink and used for rewards and in-game actions.

That closes out this stretch. With updates landing across upgrades, tools, and events, it helps to keep a single running view of what changed. We’ll continue that in the next edition.

Today we’re announcing Etherlink 6.0, our latest major upgrade proposal for the Etherlink kernel. If supported by Tezos L1 bakers via a successful governance vote, Etherlink 6.0 will bring many improvements to the EVM-compatible layer of Tezos with a common theme: speed.

Please note that this proposal includes breaking changes. All of them are detailed in a dedicated section at the end of this post.

• By adding support for the Osaka EVM version right after the Fusaka Ethereum hardfork goes live (expected on December 3, 2025)
• By almost doubling the chain capacity, bumping it from 14MGas/s to 27MGas/s
• By unlocking transactions receipts being delivered 10x faster on average

We intend to submit a proposal to activate Etherlink 6.0 on Etherlink Mainnet using the slow track of the governance process on December 4th. This confirms our commitment to enable Etherlink to remain a welcoming environment for projects requiring EVM compatibility.

For a comprehensive list of changes compared to the kernel currently deployed on Mainnet and links to the code changes, refer to the kernel’s changelog. Below are the most important improvements and some other notes about the upgrade.

Better, Faster, Sharper

Support for Osaka

Our rapid adoption of Osaka showcases the internal processes that we use to streamline the adoption of EVM changes and our dedication to keeping Etherlink’s EVM environment current, reliable, and ready for innovative projects.

The Osaka support in Etherlink includes several new features:

• EIP-7951: Precompile for secp256r1 Curve Support
  This EIP adds a new precompiled contract for optimized secp256r1 ECDSA signature verification, including proper security checks necessary for the security of the scheme. This makes relying on the secp256r1 curve possible, which opens up a wide range of previously impossible use cases. Typically, sophisticated account abstractions pattern relying on third-party authentication systems like Apple Secure Enclave, Android Keystore, HSMs, TEEs, and FIDO2/WebAuthn authenticators becomes possible.
• EIP-7939: Count leading zeros (CLZ) opcode
  This new opcode optimizes a basic building block used in math operations, byte operations, compression algorithm and more.
• EIP-7883 and EIP-7823: ModExp Rework (Breaking Change - see dedicated section below)
  These two EIPs rework the ModExp precompile to improve its security overall. Firstly, the gas cost of a ModExp precompile has been changed to more accurately reflect computation costs, as it was previously underpriced. Underpricing gas cost leads to a weaker gas model, which creates attack vectors for attackers and threatening the latency guarantees of the chain. Secondly, an upper bound on the inputs of the precompile has been introduced, to harden the implementation.

Increased capacity

Etherlink 6.0 follows the footsteps of Ebisu by noticeably increasing the chain capacity. More precisely, Etherlink 6.0 increases Etherlink’s capacity from 14Mgas/s to 27Mgas/s. This means Etherlink Mainnet will be able to handle spikes of activity above the 1,000 native transfers per second symbolic threshold. Besides, the gas price will remain a thousandth of a mutez per gas unit as long as the chain does not process more than 13.5MGas/s for an extended period of time (in which case the gas price will rise to incentivize users to delay injecting their transactions). For more information, see Fee structure.

We remain committed to increasing Etherlink Mainnet capacity, as stated during TezDev 2025. For Etherlink to stay true to its motto (“fast, fair, and (nearly) free”), it is important that we remain one step ahead of the network current usage to make sure there is enough room for newcomers.
These efforts will continue and even intensify during the course of 2026 with fundamental improvements to the Smart Rollup technology powering Etherlink. Stay tuned for this!

Unlocking Instant Confirmations transaction injection

Etherlink 6.0 introduces instant confirmations, allowing traders to know, within roughly 50 ms, whether their transaction will be included in the next block and what its receipt will be.

To benefit from this, builders can now use the experimental eth_sendRawTransactionSync JSON-RPC method supported by the latest Octez EVM node release. This API returns both inclusion status and the resulting receipt almost instantly, giving low-latency applications a clear edge.

Behind the scenes, Etherlink’s governed sequencer operator now advertises, ahead of block creation, the transactions it intends to include. Clients that choose to trust the sequencer not to reorder transactions can compute their receipts even before the block is produced.

This is only the beginning: we aim to push Etherlink’s latency down to the 5 ms range in future upgrades, and will share more details in an upcoming dedicated post.

Breaking changes

FA bridge events

The FA bridge lets users deposit FA tokens to — or withdraw them from — Tezos Layer 1. This Etherlink 6.0 proposal completes the work started in Etherlink 5.0 to standardise the EVM events emitted by the FA bridge precompile. This improved consistency makes it easier for indexers and dapps to consume these events reliably, enhancing the overall Developer Experience in the same way well-structured and predictable API parameters do.

More precisely, the QueuedDeposit is now emitted by the FA bridge precompile address (instead of the system address), and the first topic of this event now matches its ABI signature.

These changes won’t affect most users, but builders not relying on the Tezos bridge maintained by Optimistic Labs will need to adapt their product to handle these breaking changes.

EIP-7883 and EIP-7823

The impact of gas calculation changes to ModExp precompile is expected to be minimal in most cases given Etherlink’s current gas pricing. Developers of wallets and other applications that submit transactions must update the logic that they use to calculate fees: to that end, the new kernel will provide accurate estimates with eth_estimateGas.

Next steps & How to Participate

Etherlink 6.0 requires the Octez EVM node version 0.48. Node operators and providers will need to upgrade their infrastructure if they have an older version deployed, or face regressions and feature breakage. Besides, an updated version of the node featuring Farfadet native execution will be published, and we recommend upgrading once it becomes available, especially before deploying to Mainnet. Once the upgrade is live on Testnet, the governance process will begin. Make sure your voting key is ready so you can take part in the upcoming proposal vote.

Proposal Voting 🗓️

We plan to announce and release the upgrade so that it can be subject to governance along this timeline:

• Proposal period vote: slow governance period 46, from L1 level 11,085,889, expected to start on December 4th, 2025.
• Promotion period vote: slow governance period 47, from L1 level 11,136,289, expected to start on December 8th, 2025.

The ETA of these blocks might be affected by network delays and may drift slightly. For up-to-date information, see https://governance.etherlink.com.

Welcome back to the Fortnightly Wrap. Every two weeks, we keep a running log of whats new on Etherlink, from protocol releases and new routes through exchanges and services to public appearances and projects using it in practice. This edition covers the period from November 1 to 14 and brings those updates into one place.

DeFi and Protocol Updates

This section looks at the updates that changed what people can do with assets on Etherlink, whether through new lending options, yield setups, or tools that support on-chain activity.

November 6, 2025: xU3O8 Lending on Oku (Morpho)

Oku added support for xU3O8 in its lending markets. Users can now borrow USDC against the token, which is the first time xU3O8 has been used this way on Etherlink. $2.5M moved into the market during its opening days.

November 6, 2025: Prediction Market Tutorial

The Building on Etherlink series published a full tutorial for a prediction market dApp. It shows how to design a hybrid AMM and pari-mutuel market, write the Solidity contract, deploy it on Etherlink testnet with Hardhat, and hook it up to a React frontend using Thirdweb. It gives builders a complete working example, from the contract to the frontend, for anyone interested in building similar applications on Etherlink.

November 10, 2025: Uranium.io Wins Benzinga Award for xU3O8

Benzinga named xU3O8 as its Best New Product in the Innovation in Crypto & Web3 category. Benzinga’s fintech awards are one of the longer-running industry events watched by both finance and tech circles, so the win gives the project visibility outside the usual crypto crowd. The award focused on Uranium.io’s work turning U3O8 ownership into a tradable on-chain format through a regulated structure.

November 14, 2025: Stake DAO Curve Strategies

Stake DAO added two Etherlink Curve pools to its boosted strategy lineup. Etherlink users can now deposit their Curve LP tokens into Stake DAO and let the strategy handle the staking and reward side, instead of managing those steps directly. It’s the first time Stake DAO has included Etherlink pools in its platform.

Ecosystem Integrations

This section tracks the integrations that make Etherlink easier to reach, whether through exchanges or the services developers rely on.

November 5, 2025: MEXC Adds XTZ Deposits for Etherlink

MEXC added support for XTZ deposits that land on Etherlink. To mark the update, the exchange ran its XTZ Party promo from November 5 to 19. New users who made a qualifying net deposit through Etherlink earned a 10 USDC bonus. Rewards are capped at 3000 participants and paid first-come, first-served from a 30,000 USDC pool.

November 12, 2025: BitMart Adds XTZ on Etherlink

BitMart added support for XTZ deposits on Etherlink and opened a small promotion alongside the update. Users who make a qualifying net deposit through the Etherlink chain can enter a 2,000 USDC bonus pool shared by the first 200 participants. The event runs from November 12 to 26.

November 13, 2025: GetBlock Adds Etherlink RPC Support

GetBlock added Etherlink to its RPC service, offering JSON-RPC and WebSocket access through shared and dedicated nodes. Developers can pull both live data and full chain history from regions including New York, Frankfurt, and Singapore, letting teams plug into Etherlink without having to run their own nodes.

November 14, 2025: Chainlink Adds Etherlink to CCIP

Chainlink’s weekly expansion update included Etherlink in the group of chains added to CCIP. CCIP handles token and data movement across supported networks, and Etherlink now sits alongside Bittensor, XDC, and a few others in that lineup.

Community and Events

Here we cover the conferences, announcements, and community-facing updates that put Etherlink in front of builders and users.

November 11, 2025: ETHDenver 2026 Participation

ETHDenver confirmed that Etherlink will take part in the 2026 conference. ETHDenver is a long-running developer event with workshops, hackathons, and a strong focus on hands-on building. Etherlink will be present as one of the chains available for teams who want to learn about the network or connect with the builders behind it.

Projects in Focus

This section highlights a few projects that show how people are using Etherlink in practice, covering real-world assets, active applications, and the tools people use day to day.

Uranium.io

Uranium.io issues xU3O8, a token tied to stored U3O8 held in regulated facilities. On Etherlink, the token has moved beyond simple price exposure and now sees real on-chain use, which sets it apart from many asset-backed tokens. It’s a clear example of how physical-world assets can operate on the network without drifting into abstract finance.

5050.fi

5050.fi runs simple prediction markets on Etherlink, with questions that range from sports and politics to crypto events. Users choose a side, the market closes, and payouts follow the posted outcome. It’s a small app, but it’s active, and it reflects the kind of small, direct apps people are beginning to build on Etherlink.

Temple Wallet

In case you missed it, Temple Wallet now supports Etherlink alongside Tezos, with swaps and bridging available directly inside the extension. People can move assets between the two networks without relying on extra tools, which makes the wallet a practical way to start using Etherlink.

Etherlink’s activity doesn’t arrive in a single stream. It comes through exchanges adding support, services opening new routes, and on-chain tools landing when they’re ready. Seeing those shifts together gives a clearer read on where things are picking up and where builders are putting their time. That’s why we track these stretches in one place, and we’ll return in two weeks with the next round of changes.

October 18 — October 31, 2025

The last two weeks made Etherlink feel less like a rollout and more like a network locking into place.

You can feel it in the builder layer, too. Google Cloud opened its startup program to Etherlink projects backed by Tezos Foundation grants, giving them credits, support, and direct investor access.

On the ground, that support shows up as real use. Uranium.io took the stage in London to show how physical uranium can trade on Etherlink with proof-of-reserve audits and instant settlement. Midas and Re7 Labs launched mRe7YIELD, bringing delta-neutral returns to DeFi. Morpho arrived through Oku Trade, building a deeper lending base.

And for anyone still figuring out the bridge, Etherlink’s new tutorials made the on-ramp clearer, from moving XTZ to adding the network in MetaMask.

The picture is starting to fill in. Data tools, cloud access, live assets, real yields, and open doors for users.

None of it lands with fanfare, but together it shows a network settling into daily use.

DeFi and Protocol Updates

Every network claims speed or compatibility. DeFi is where you find out if that means anything.

On Etherlink, code doesn’t just sit in contracts. It moves. Capital shifts, builders experiment, and you can see the results on-chain in real time.

October 24, 2025: mRe7YIELD launches on Etherlink

Midas and Re7 Labs launched mRe7YIELD, a delta-neutral liquid yield token that takes USDC, USDT, or DAI and instantly mints mRe7YIELD in return. The strategy engine spreads capital across protocols like Morpho, Curve, Gearbox, and Superlend, adjusting positions as yields shift. Everything runs entirely on-chain, with no bridges, custodians, or off-chain wrappers. It shows that institutional-level yield models can run directly inside Etherlink’s EVM layer with sub-second finality and minimal cost.

Read more on X

October 28, 2025: Morpho lending through Oku Trade

Oku added Morpho to Etherlink, creating a structured way to borrow and lend against yield-bearing assets like those from Midas. Each market is isolated and tuned by strategy providers, giving builders room to shape their own credit models directly on-chain. This integration strengthens Etherlink’s DeFi stack, linking yield generation with lending markets that run entirely within the network.

View the update

Ecosystem Integrations

It doesn’t matter how strong a network is if no one can reach it.

This layer is where Etherlink meets its users. Bridges, wallets, and connection guides turn it from code into something people can actually touch.

October 25, 2025: Bridge walkthrough released

Etherlink published a new tutorial showing how to move tez from the main chain to Etherlink in under two minutes. The clip walks through connecting a wallet, bridging XTZ, and confirming the final transaction inside MetaMask. It’s the clearest view yet of how simple the native bridge process has become.

Watch on X

October 30, 2025: Add Etherlink to MetaMask

A second video covered adding mainnet or testnet RPCs to MetaMask. The guide highlights correct chain IDs and naming to prevent setup errors. Anyone arriving for the first time now has a clear path in.

View the guide

Community and Events

A network only matters if people can see it and understand what it’s doing.

Here is where Etherlink started to show up: in analytics, tracing its activity, and in builders putting it to work.

October 23, 2025: Uranium.io at the London Blockchain Conference

In London, Ben Elvidge showed how physical uranium becomes a tradable asset on Etherlink. The demo showed proof-of-reserve checks, near-instant settlement, and redemption paths backed by vault custody. It framed Etherlink as a place where institutional-grade real-world assets can actually live on-chain, not just as a concept slide.

Read recap on X

Projects in Focus

Projects in Focus highlights what’s actually running on Etherlink right now: the engines, vaults, and tools that define how users interact with the network.

Midas

Midas turns Etherlink into a yield and real-world-asset engine. Its mRe7YIELD token hit $20 million in total value locked within a week, delivering a verified 32 percent APY from delta-neutral strategies. The product runs entirely inside Etherlink’s EVM layer, with liquidity on Curve and collateral use in Morpho lending vaults. For builders, it’s the backbone of the network’s DeFi flywheel. Structured, composable, and fully on-chain.

Mint mRe7YIELD

Apple Farm

Apple Farm keeps liquidity anchored on Etherlink through auto-compounding vaults that reward consistent participation. XTZ vault deposits grew 38 percent after the bridge tutorial went live, with yields reaching up to 24 percent APR. Each vault compounds across protocols like Curve, Superlend, and Gearbox, linking passive deposits to active strategy loops. It’s how everyday users keep their capital working without chasing new pools.

Start compounding at app.applefarm.xyz

Etherlink Bridge

The native, non-custodial bridge is what turns Tezos holders into Etherlink users. After the October 25 tutorial dropped, bridge volume jumped 183 percent to about ₮3.4 million for the week, and 2,900+ new MetaMask connections appeared in six days. The bridge feeds liquidity directly into vaults like Superlend XTZ and Midas yield markets, tying Tezos L1 assets to Etherlink’s $80 million DeFi base. It’s not background infrastructure, it’s the on-ramp that makes the whole system usable.

Bridge XTZ in under 2 minutes at bridge.etherlink.com

Etherlink keeps expanding in ways that feel connected.

New tools plug in, dashboards track the flow, and builders keep finding places where Tezos and EVM code meet cleanly.

The activity isn’t slowing down, and neither are we.

See you in two weeks for the next Fortnightly Wrap.

The first half of October was busy for Etherlink.

Banxa brought direct fiat access to Tezos dApps, KyberSwap expanded trading routes, and the Ebisu upgrade landed on mainnet. In the same stretch, Reaper Actual showed its alpha build to thousands of players, and new data tools from OctavFi and Chainspect made network activity easier to follow.

DeFi & Protocol Updates

In early October, Etherlink added fiat access, deeper trading routes, and a new kernel upgrade that tightened how the network runs. Here’s what happened.

October 6, 2025: Banxa Fiat Access Goes Live

Banxa launched its first integration with Etherlink, adding payment rails that let users buy XTZ, USDT, and USDC inside supported Tezos dApps. The flow removes off-platform detours through exchanges or bridges and shortens the path from cash to on-chain activity. Developers can embed the widget and have newcomers fund a wallet, make a swap, or join a pool without leaving the app. For Etherlink, this is a practical step that tightens onboarding and feeds liquidity directly into DeFi.

October 8, 2025: KyberSwap Launches on Etherlink

KyberSwap went live on Etherlink with its multi-route trading aggregator. The integration links liquidity from Curve, Uniswap V3 (through Oku Trade), IguanaDEX, and Hanji’s order book, letting each swap pull from the best available price across sources. This integration brings the kind of routing logic common on major networks directly onto Etherlink, improving execution for traders and keeping volume within its own markets.

October 15, 2025: Ebisu Upgrade Activated

At block 28073013, Etherlink rolled out its fifth kernel upgrade, Ebisu. The update extended support to the EVM Prague standard and replaced the old execution engine with REVM, which raised capacity and cut processing time. It also introduced sequencer key rotation without a governance vote and adjusted bridge events to match standard EVM formats for indexers.

Ecosystem Integrations

Early October also brought new integrations, linking Etherlink to live apps and developer tools.

October 7, 2025: Forte Pay Launches on Etherlink

Forte Pay launched on Etherlink to give developers a unified fiat-to-crypto payment system with built-in compliance. Its first use powered sales for Reaper Actual’s Foundation Alpha bundles, converting NFT payments in USD and EUR directly to USDC payouts. Forte Pay processes cards, local payments, and KYC or AML checks through a single flow. Purchases happen in fiat, but settlements clear in USDC on Etherlink.

October 15, 2025: Octav Adds Etherlink Support

Octav added Etherlink to its analytics suite. Users can now watch fund movement in real time as token balances, vault deposits, and other network activity update inside the dashboards. The same data is available through Octav’s APIs for teams that build their own reports or portfolio tools. Including Etherlink expands Octav’s coverage and adds another data point to its cross-chain metrics.

October 16, 2025: Chainspect Adds Etherlink Support

Chainspect integrated Etherlink into its analytics platform, publishing real-time data on transactions, gas use, developer activity, and total value locked. The dashboards update continuously, giving anyone tracking the network direct access to live performance data. With Chainspect covering Etherlink, usage trends and protocol activity can now be studied alongside other Layer 2 networks.

Community & Events

Etherlink’s codebase can only show so much in testing. Real progress comes when people push it in live settings. Community events and early game launches give developers real data, new users, and clearer feedback on how Etherlink performs outside the lab.

October 8, 2025: Reaper Actual Alpha

Reaper Actual opened its Foundation Alpha to the public, giving players a first-hand look at its persistent world running on Etherlink. Those who bought Foundation Alpha packs, including the Stygian Oath bundle with two bases and four reapers, gained early access to the build. Purchases ran through Reaper’s site using USDC or Forte Pay, with all minting, pack openings, and asset loading handled quietly on-chain.

October 13, 2025: Hanji Ambassador Program Season 2

Hanji opened applications for Season 2 of its Ambassador Program, bringing together a small team of public creators, traders, and DeFi operators to promote its on-chain order book on Etherlink. Up to fifteen ambassadors can earn monthly stablecoin rewards for their work, along with early access to new builds and vault tests. The focus is on visible, useful output such as posts, guides, and participation that help more people understand and use Hanji.

Projects in Focus

Reaper Actual

Reaper Actual is a persistent open-world game on Etherlink. Players move reapers and place bases while AI characters roam the world. Players mint reapers and bases on-chain, giving them direct ownership. Its architecture demonstrates how complex game worlds can integrate and use Web3 assets while supporting real-time interactions.

Hanji Protocol

Hanji runs a fully on-chain CLOB order book on Etherlink. It supports low-fee trades and allows users to provide liquidity through vaults. Recent updates improved the trading interface and tools, making it simpler for builders and users to submit and track orders on-chain.

Superlend

Superlend lets users lend and borrow assets on Etherlink. Supply and loan options changed this period, and liquidity providers keep earning competitive yields. Lending remains predictable and straightforward for participants.

October showed Etherlink in action. Developers and players tested new features, explored Reaper Actual, and joined programs like Hanji’s ambassador season. Integrations with Octav, Chainspect, and Forte Pay let people track activity across the network. Keep following the network over the next two weeks to see how these updates continue to unfold and what new activity appears on Etherlink.

Welcome to the 8th edition of the Etherlink Fortnightly Wrap. This edition covers the close of Q3 2025, a period that brought new DeFi updates like Apple Farm Episode 6, Governance UI v2, and Etherlink’s presence at TOKEN2049 in Singapore. From DeFi news to community events, here is what is shaping Etherlink right now.

DeFi & Protocol Updates

In DeFi and protocol news, Etherlink saw movement across exchanges, staking, and onboarding. The following updates cover Hanji’s listing on DeFiLlama, Apple Farm’s changes, a new governance interface, and a guide for moving XTZ onto the network.

September 24, 2025: DeFiLlama listed Hanji Protocol on its Spot Volume Dashboard. Hanji runs on Etherlink as a central limit order book exchange with zero maker fees and low taker fees. The listing makes Hanji’s trading volume visible alongside other DeFi markets.

September 25, 2025: Apple Farm, Etherlink’s DeFi rewards program, switched its payouts to applstXTZ. Made together with Youves StacyFi, the token links rewards to stXTZ, which earns about 9% APY while locked. That means vesting rewards aren’t just stuck anymore; they keep generating yield.

September 26, 2025: Etherlink posted a thread on X explaining four ways to get XTZ onto its Layer 2. The guide walks through bridging from Tezos L1, cross-chain transfers from Ethereum or Arbitrum, deposits from exchanges like KuCoin, and fiat purchases through Transak. It’s now easier for anyone to move funds into Etherlink and start using DeFi apps on the chain.

October 1, 2025: Etherlink rolled out Governance UI v2, giving bakers a more straightforward way to take part in on-chain votes. The new version lets them set up cold-storage voting keys, submit and upvote proposals, and cast ballots without scripts. A step-by-step tutorial shows how to delegate rights, propose hashes, and vote through the interface.

October 2, 2025: Apple Farm launched Episode 6 on Etherlink, adding 19 new yield farming options. The update features high APYs such as 30% on USDC through Gearbox Protocol, along with vaults on Curve, Superlend, and Sugarverse for assets like ETH, BTC, and stablecoins. Rewards also continue with applstXTZ, which pays ~9% APY on locked tokens, and all activity runs through the Apple Farm app at app.applefarm.xyz.

Community & Events

In community and events, Etherlink was part of the action at TOKEN2049 Singapore and saw new momentum on the gaming front with Reaper Actual’s Foundation Alpha announcement.

October 1, 2025: At TOKEN2049 Singapore, one of the year’s biggest crypto events, the Tezos booth ran raffles, handed out swag, and kept a steady crowd throughout the day. Attendees talked about Etherlink projects like Apple Farm and Hanji, as well as rollup upgrades, Tezos’ blockchain improvements, and the panels scheduled later in the week.

October 1, 2025: Distinct Possibility Studios announced the Foundation Alpha of Reaper Actual, its open-world PvP extraction shooter built on Etherlink, will launch on October 8 at 9:00 AM PDT (moved from October 6). Early access comes through Foundation Series 1 Bundles, which give players characters, bases, and gear to use and trade on Etherlink’s Layer 2. This first phase focuses on playtesting with the community ahead of a public release in 2026.

Projects in Focus

Several projects also deserve the spotlight for how they’re shaping Etherlink’s direction. The following section looks at LBTC, Reaper Actual, and 5050.fi.

Lombard Finance LBTC: Lombard’s liquid staked Bitcoin token went live on Etherlink in July 2025, bringing BTC into Etherlink’s DeFi stack. LBTC is 1:1 backed, earns ~1% APY through Babylon staking, and trades across apps like Superlend, Hanji, IguanaDEX, and Oku. Apple Farm has added LBTC pools to its rewards program, giving Bitcoin holders a direct way to earn in Etherlink DeFi.

Reaper Actual: Distinct Possibility Studios is building Reaper Actual, a large-scale PvP survival shooter on Etherlink. Squads land on the island of Marova to complete contracts, gather gear, and expand their bases in a world that reacts through player actions. Blockchain-enabled bundles provide characters, gear, and bases that players own and can trade on Etherlink. The project is led by John Smedley, with a full Early Access launch planned for 2026.

5050.fi: 5050.fi is a prediction platform where users place bets in USDC on yes/no outcomes in sports, politics, crypto, and more. While markets are open, deposits earn yield, currently about 11% through Midas’ mBasis, so capital doesn’t sit idle. By combining predictions with yield, 5050.fi gives users a way to speculate on outcomes without losing the chance to earn in the meantime.

As Q3 2025 closes, Etherlink continues to add new tools and activity, from Apple Farm’s reward changes to Reaper Actual’s first playtest announcement and visibility at TOKEN2049. The next wrap will cover the Ebisu upgrade proposal and more progress in gaming integrations. Thanks for following along with Wrap #8. Stay tuned for Wrap #9.