The zkEVM Rallying Cry

gm Bankless Nation,
It's no secret that Ethereum ecosystem morale needs a shot in the arm. Thankfully, the most bullish system upgrade of all time is on the horizon, it's time to get excited about the zkEVM. Today, David lays out the case.

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The ecosystem is still digesting Vitalik’s “rollup-centrism no longer makes sense” tweet. Reactions range from frustration to relief to outright anxiety about Ethereum’s direction.

If rollups are no longer the north star of Ethereum, what is?

The answer is clear: it's the zkEVM...

The rest of this story is for Bankless Premium subscribers only.

📈 The Asset

• Ethereum’s DeFi TVL ($59B) is now 8x larger than the second-closest network
• Revolut has now staked ~60,000 ETH
• Bitmine staked nearly 900,000 ETH over the past week

🏛️ The Protocol

• Vitalik proposed scaling Ethereum state by adopting a tiered storage system
• The EF released its Trillion Dollar Security dashboard and announced its 2026 PhD Fellowship Program
• Ethereum processed 70M transactions in January, a new record

📱 The Apps

• ENS unveiled the new ENS App Alpha and the new Explorer Alpha; it’s also ditching Namechain and instead deploying ENSv2 on Ethereum
• Yearn rolled out stYFI
• Fidelity officially introduced its dollar-pegged FIDD stablecoin
• Kraken’s new DeFi Earn offering has now passed $30M TVL
• Tally developed an ICO platform powered by Uniswap’s CCA
• Universal deployed USDU, a dollar-pegged stablecoin registered with the Central Bank of the UAE
• Y Combinator startups can now opt for USDC funding on Base

🤫 The Privacy Stack

• Payy announced Payy Network, a new privacy-focused EVM L2

🐸 The Culture

• Vitalik: “How I would do creator coins”; “The original vision of L2s … no longer makes sense”; and “We don’t need more copypasta EVM chains”
• Geode Labs released the ETHStars Opportunity Board and published a deep dive on Vietnam’s Ethereum community

💽 The Tech

• ERC-8004 was rolled out on Arbitrum, Base, Celo, Gnosis, Polygon, Scroll, and Taiko.
• Wonderland introduced Interoperable Addresses

Crypto enters a full-blown pain market as Bitcoin, ETH, tech stocks, and even gold sell off together.

Ryan and David break down why crowded trades are unwinding across markets, what the Warsh Fed chair pick means for rates and risk assets, and whether crypto has become uniquely fragile in this cycle. They dig into Vitalik’s L2 pivot and what it signals about Ethereum’s next era, unpack massive institutional paper losses at Strategy, BitMine, and Galaxy, and analyze Polymarket odds on where Bitcoin goes next. Plus: OGs selling to ETF buyers, the Clarity Act standoff between banks and crypto, and how to survive the psychology of a real bear market.

Tune into this week’s Rollup! 👇

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