Quick Take

• The Kiln Ethereum merge testnet is now live.

• Optimism NFT marketplace Quixotic rolls out rarity rankings/

• MetaMask surpasses 30 million MAUs.

• ConsenSys raises a $450 million Series D at $7 billion valuation.'

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Kiln Ethereum Merge Testnet Now Live

Kiln, an ethereum merge testnet, is now live. Just like Ethereum mainnet, Kiln’s execution layer was launched under proof-of-work in parallel to a Beacon Chain running proof-of-stake. Kiln will undergo the merge as it transitions to proof-of-stake. It is expected to be the last merge testnet created before existing public testnets are upgraded. 

Kintsugi, the previous merge testnet launched late December, will be deprecated in the coming weeks. Application & tooling developers, node operators, infrastructure providers and stakers are strongly encouraged to test on Kiln to ensure a smooth transition on existing public testnets. You can add Kiln to MetaMask or become a validator by visiting kiln.themerge.dev.

Quixotic Adds Rarity Rankings

Optimism-based NFT marketplace Quixotic has rolled out support for rarity rankings directly on the platform. Users can now see the rarity for each NFT and sort by rarity while browsing the collection page. The feature is currently in a beta phase and requires collection owners to enable rarity rankings in order for them to be displayed.

Rarity rankings are one of the most desired tools for NFTs, however, OpenSea and LooksRare are yet to implement such a feature. Currently, users need to install third party browser extensions in order to view rarity ranks on popular marketplaces. Quixotic is the largest NFT marketplace on Optimism, Ethereum’s fourth largest L2 network.

StarkNet Alpha v0.8.0 Now Live

StarkWare has released StarkNet Alpha v0.8.0, an update to its permissionless L2 Ethereum ZK-Rollup. The release includes performance and protocol design enhancements with the addition of a fee mechanism. Without a minimal fee, the network could face infinite transactions, rendering it impossible for the system to be efficient. The fee mechanism disincentivizes spammers from sending countless transactions.

Developers can now start to optimize their contracts according to StarkNet’s cost model. Fees will be collected atomically with the transaction execution on StarkNet L2. StarkWare will still subsidize L1 communication costs for the time being, but will update the fee mechanism to include the cost in version 0.9.0, which is due to be released in a few weeks.

ConsenSys Raises $450M Series D

ConsenSys, the blockchain company focused on products built for Ethereum, has raised a $450 million Series D funding round at a $7 billion valuation. The round was led by ParaFi Capital and included participation from SoftBank, Microsoft, and Sound Ventures among others. The round follows a $200 million Series C round raised in November 2021.

The proceeds from the fresh round of funding will be converted into ETH to rebalance the ratio of ETH to USD-equivalents for the company. ConsnenSys says they are working on efforts to drive NFT adoption. The company claims it is on track to hire an additional 300 full time employees by the end of 2022.  This comes as ConsenSys had laid off 14% of its employees in 2020.

MetaMask Surpasses 30 Million MAUs

MetaMask, the browser extension wallet by ConsenSys, now has over 30 million MAUs, a 42% increase over the last 4 months. The browser wallet had just surpassed 10 million MAUs in September 2021. ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin has confirmed that MetaMask is intending to launch a token.

Lubin told Decrypt Media that there is a DAO being formed right now, but it won’t govern MetaMask. Rather it will enable the creation of new pieces of MetaMask to be funded. Infura, the Ethereum developer suite by ConsenSys, has also exceeded $1 trillion in annualized on-chain ETH transaction volume supported through its API.