Project Progress

Risk management firm Chaos Labs announced it is ending its three-year partnership with DeFi lending protocol Aave, citing a fundamental disagreement between the two parties on approaches to risk management. This exit has exposed the legal gray area in the DeFi ecosystem where regulatory safeguards are lacking—especially after a recent oracle incident that led to an erroneous liquidation of about $27 million. The separation between Chaos Labs and Aave leaves Aave facing a governance vacuum during a critical period for the V4 upgrade, further fueling concerns about accountability for decentralized risk systems.

April 7, under the influence of the bear market, 21 crypto projects announced they would shut down or scale back services, covering areas such as wallets, DeFi, NFTs, and games. Projects like Leap Wallet and Magic Eden exited or adjusted due to market pressure; industry insiders believe this shakeout will help reshape the market, and that focusing on sustainable Web3 projects in the future will be more competitive.

The Polygon mainnet will undergo a Giugliano hard fork upgrade on April 8, with improvements including faster block finality, integrating fee parameters into the block header, and new RPC endpoints that support fee queries. Node operators need to upgrade to the corresponding version to ensure the network functions normally.

Pi Network released the mandatory agreement 21.2 on April 6 and fully opened its software development kit (SDK), supporting an application development environment for 18 million KYC-verified users. The protocol upgrade mainly improves network stability, laying the groundwork for decentralized exchanges and smart contracts. The SDK unlock enables developers to build practical applications, marking Pi Network’s transition from early mining to payments and decentralized services, but the community still has concerns about communication and transparency.

The Solana Foundation is rolling out the STRIDE security assessment and monitoring system, as well as the SIRN incident response network, to improve the security of DeFi protocols in the ecosystem. STRIDE provides layered security assessment and monitoring, performing around-the-clock monitoring for protocols with TVL of more than $10 million, while SIRN enables real-time coordinated incident response for security events. Together, the two establish a dual-track security protection framework for the Solana ecosystem, emphasizing that protocols must take responsibility for their own security.

Ethena officially announced that it will expand USDe’s collateral types after obtaining approval from an independent risk committee, with the goal of reducing concentration risk and achieving collateral structure diversification. It will cover four areas: institutional stablecoin lending and borrowing, real-world assets, basis trading in stocks and commodities, and financing for trading institutions.

The prediction market platform Polymarket will undergo a full rebuild, launching a new collateral token, “Polymarket USD,” to replace the existing USDC.e, in order to enhance its control over the settlement layer and comply with regulatory requirements. The upgrade will affect users’ trading workflows: ordinary users can complete the conversion automatically, while advanced users must do it manually. This move is intended to strengthen management of market manipulation and to promote a shift toward compliance.

Polymarket’s prediction market platform will undergo a major upgrade in the coming weeks, including the launch of the V2 trading system, the native stablecoin Polymarket USD, and an optimized order book structure. The new system will improve matching efficiency, reduce Gas costs, and support smart contract wallets to participate in trading.

The Solana Foundation launched an ecosystem security initiative on April 7, led by Asymmetric Research. It includes two major mechanisms, STRIDE and SIRN, providing security assessments, threat monitoring, and response services, and it will freely open a variety of security tools, but it does not replace the security responsibilities of protocol teams.

Aave risk-management partner Chaos Labs has announced its official exit, citing reasons including long-term losses, the departure of key personnel, and disagreements with Aave Labs on risk management philosophy. Although Aave Labs proposed a $5 million budget plan, Chaos Labs believed the amount actually needed was $8 million, and the two sides’ disagreement over risk priorities was difficult to reconcile. In response, Aave Labs CEO said that the V4 migration has no mandatory timeline and that V3 will continue to operate normally.

The essay discusses advancements in machine learning for Bitcoin transaction classification, highlights Zcash's increasing use of shielded transactions, and outlines the growth of decentralized liquidity in bypassing KYC. It also covers Zcash's post-quantum initiatives and its recent organizational restructuring.

Chaos Labs is exiting Aave, highlighting internal friction over the protocol's evolving strategy and a misalignment in risk management. Despite its successful track record, the firm cites unsustainable economics and increased operational complexity as reasons for departure, raising concerns about Aave's future risk management.

Polymarket plans to launch a new USDC-backed collateral token, Polymarket USD, as part of a comprehensive platform upgrade. This move aims to enhance control over settlement and liquidity. The potential introduction of a POLY token for governance could further refine market integrity, following controversies in its current governance system.

Io.net offers a decentralized solution for AI computing, addressing the rising costs faced by developers. It provides affordable, on-demand GPU capacity, aiming to bridge the gap for smaller innovators in a market dominated by high expenditure.

Polymarket announcement: a major upgrade is planned in the next 2–3 weeks, including rebuilding the trading engine, introducing Polymarket USD, optimizing order-matching efficiency, and more. This upgrade is the largest scale since the platform launched, and it will improve trading efficiency while reducing users’ concerns about non-official assets.

Gate News Message, according to the governance update, key contributor Chaos Labs has left the Aave DAO. Previously, BGD and ACI had left that DAO organization one after another.

Resolv Labs destroyed 36.73 million USR tokens held by the hacker via a contract upgrade. Previously, the hacker had minted 80 million USR tokens through a vulnerability and sold them off. The project team has since burned about 46 million USR tokens, and the actual loss was $34 million.

Gate News message. On April 6, according to The Block, South Korea’s payments and banking giant Toss disclosed that it is considering developing its own blockchain network and issuing a native cryptocurrency. Insiders say Toss may build on a Layer1 mainnet and is exploring Layer2 expansion solutions, but has not yet made a final decision on what architecture to use. Related decisions are influenced by the progress of South Korea’s “Digital Asset Basic Act,” which will regulate key areas such as token issuance, stablecoins, and crypto ETFs.