Weekly Alpha #14: Avocado Smart Contract Wallet 🥑
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Weekly DeFi news 🗞️
Ether Turns Inflationary As On-chain Activity Slides
Hacker Steals Over $700K After Hijacking Vitalik’s X Account
Lido assures LDO, stETH tokens remain safe despite flaw in token contract
Vitalik Buterin reveals X account hack was caused by SIM-swap attack
DeFi group petitions to stop ‘patent troll’ targeting DeFi protocols
zkSync Airdrop Farmer Deploys 21,877 Wallets
Hello Holesky, Ethereum’s Newest Testnet
Sony Unveils Plans To Develop Blockchain
LayerZero Taps Google Cloud Oracle For Message Verification
Polygon Targets Q4 For MATIC Token Migration
Vitalik Buterin invited to visit Hong Kong after raising concerns over its crypto-friendliness
ZRX-backed Loan On Aave V2 Gets Closer To Liquidation
Decentralized stablecoins could dominate crypto: MakerDAO founder
Ethereum Merge anniversary — 99% energy drop but centralization fears linger
Alpha Yield Opportunities 👩🌾
Pearl (Polygon Mainnet) - 27.2% APR on the on the USDR-DAI Pool
Vela Exchange (Arbitrum) - 17.770% APR on staking USDC.e
Pendle Finance (Arbitrum) - 7.966% APY on rETH
Stargate Finance (Base Mainnet) - 5.12% APY on ETH farming
Hop Protocol (Polygon) - 6.97% APY on ETH-hETH pool
DeFi market overview 📈
The Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi remains stagnant in September, currently sitting at $37.841 billion. Hopefully, we will see more movement in the coming weeks as new money enters the market.
In the Layer 2 space, zkSync Era maintains its leadership position with 46.1% of weekly active addresses, dominating the user share across all Layer 2 networks.
In the last 7 days, the Base Mainnet fees paid by users have surged by 252%, primarily due to increased activity on Friend.tech.
Avocado - the ultimate DeFi wallet 🥑
Smart-contract wallets are a hot topic often discussed at Ethereum conferences. Many experts argue that these wallets are crucial for introducing non-technical people to the world of cryptocurrency.
For those who aren't familiar, smart-contract wallets represent a significant advancement in both the security and usability of crypto wallets.
You can tailor a smart-contract wallet to suit your specific needs—features like social recovery, bundled transactions, and the ability to pay gas fees in different tokens such as USDC or USDT are all possible. You can even block specific addresses from sending you funds.
This week, I explored Avocado Wallet web version and I got really impressed with the tech they are building so I wanted to share it in my newsletter.
What is Avocado Wallet?
Avocado Wallet is a smart contract wallet developed by the team at InstaDapp. Currently, the wallet is available on 11 EVM networks.
Avocado key features
Network Abstraction
One of the most interesting key features of Avocado Wallet is Network Abstraction. The wallet uses a network aggregator with its own RPC details; this is the address through which all your transactions and messages are processed.
In summary, when using Avocado Wallet, you don't need to constantly switch RPC settings. You can execute transactions on any of the supported networks without having to change the RPC on MetaMask all the time.
In my opinion, this is a game-changing feature that significantly simplifies the user experience, especially for those who have funds across multiple networks.
unified Gas Balance
Avocado Wallet utilizes a unified gas balance, which means you can fund your gas reserve on any supported network and use this reserve across any supported EVM network. The gas needs to be funded in USDC, a feature I think is quite beneficial as it eliminates the need to worry about having insufficient ETH while executing a trade.
On the other hand, it would also be great if the wallet could abstract the currency used for the gas reserve. For example, allowing users to pay for gas with USDT and automatically converting it to USDC within Avocado Wallet would streamline the process and make it less cumbersome for users.
Overall, this is one of the most compelling features of Avocado Wallet. Keep in mind that even if you fund your gas reserve on a network like Optimism, the gas price will remain the same when you're using Ethereum. The only difference is that the cost will be denominated in USDC.
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Cross-chain Send
With Avocado Wallet, you can also execute cross-chain transactions directly within the wallet. This feature is particularly useful for moving funds across EVM networks without the need to find a bridge. Now, you can perform this action directly within the wallet, and thanks to account abstraction, it can be done with a single click.
As illustrated in the screenshot below, I'm transferring ETH from the Base network to Optimism, with the gas fees being paid in USDC from my gas reserve. This ensures that I will receive the exact same amount of ETH that I sent.
Additionally, you can save transactions as shortcuts, which can be very useful if you plan to execute the same transaction multiple times.
Easy token migration
The wallet has a highly useful feature that allows you to transfer your funds from your Externally Owned Account (EOA) directly into the Avocado Wallet. The onboarding page aggregates all the tokens and lets you select the ones you want to move to Avocado
Multisig management
Whether you're managing a DAO treasury or simply want to secure your smart contract wallet with a multisig, it's easily achievable with Avocado Wallet.
If you already have a SAFE account, Avocado allows you to migrate and clone your SAFE account in just a few clicks. This feature is very useful if you're considering switching wallets.
Conclusion
Avocado offers many more features, such as bridging, swapping, and a contact list. I'm particularly impressed with how they've implemented Account Abstraction and the way they're addressing challenges that newcomers face when using EVM Networks.
I would love to see a dApps store on the website, similar to what SAFE is offering, to make it easier to connect to different applications. Additionally, the ability to refill the USDC gas tank using any token—with the swap managed by InstaDapp—could generate fee revenues. This would create a win-win situation.
I'm gradually transitioning to Avocado as my primary wallet for DeFi transactions. I've also gained access to the beta version of the iOS app, which I plan to review in an upcoming newsletter.
The team at InstaDapp has been around for a long time and they are truly forward-thinking. I'm excited to see them launching this innovative product. Whether it's for onboarding newcomers or managing DAO treasuries, I'm confident that Avocado will be successful.
That's it for this week. I will continue to share alphas and news each week, so don't hesitate to subscribe to the newsletter.
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None of the information in this newsletter constitutes financial advice. While I personally use most of the protocols that I discuss, it's important to understand that they involve substantial risk. Don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose