On December 18th, according to official sources, Web3 game Layer2 COMBO announced the official launch of its mainnet, meeting the high-performance and low-fee requirements for game development, and building a convenient Web3 game development, deployment and operation ecosystem for developers.

The latest in blockchain tech upgrades, funding announcements and deals. For the period of Dec 14-Dec. 20, with live updates throughout.

The CEO of Blockstream stated on social media that it is impossible to stop JPEGs on Bitcoin and complaining will only create more. High gas fees have driven adoption of Bitcoin Layer2 and spurred innovation.

According to L2BEAT data, the total amount of locked funds in Ethereum Layer2 network is currently 15.82 billion US dollars, with a 1.88% decrease in the past 7 days.The top five locked funds are: Arbitrum One (8.23 billion US dollars, a 3.71% decrease in the past 7 days); OP Mainnet (4.5 billion US dollars, a 0.48% increase in the past 7 days); Base (704 million US dollars, an 8.17% increase in the past 7 days); zkSync Era (507 million US dollars, a 10.86% decrease in the past 7 days); dYdX v3 (348 million US dollars, a 3.46% decrease in the past 7 days).

Odaily Star Daily News Layer 2 solution Enphyr received a $1 million investment in a recent seed funding round, with a company valuation of $10 million. The funding round was led by Waveslab Ventures, with several important private investors also participating.<br>Enphyr said the funds will be used for team expansion, exploring strategic partnerships, and strengthening engineering projects to accelerate the realization of its protocol infrastructure in more application scenarios. Enphyr aims to build the next generation of applications using Ethereum's security. <br>

Layer-2 EVM protocols on top of Ethereum, including optimistic rollups and ZK rollups, depend on EVM verification. However, this requires them to trust a large codebase, and if there is a bug in that codebase, these VMs risk getting hacked. Additionally, it means even ZK-EVMs that want to stay exactly equivalent to the L1 EVM need to have some form of governance, to copy changes to the L1 EVM into their own EVM implementation.

On December 13th, DAG payment network COTI announced plans to launch an Ethereum Layer 2 network in next year's upgrade. COTI's Ethereum Layer 2 network will focus on user privacy protection while receiving security support from the Ethereum mainnet. A COTI spokesperson told The Block, "COTI's infrastructure will transition from the previous proprietary DAG protocol to a privacy-centric Layer 2 network compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)."<br>COTI V2's development network (devnet) is planned to launch in the second quarter of 2024, followed by the release of a testnet. The mainnet is expected to go live before the end of the year. COTI V2 will use encryption technology to protect transaction privacy. The system will implement a method called "obfuscation circuits," an alternative privacy protection solution to the commonly used zero-knowledge technology.

On December 13th, the Ethereum Layer 2 project Enphyr completed a $1 million seed round of financing with a valuation of $10 million. This round of financing was led by Waveslab Ventures with participation from several individual investors.

Enphyr, an Ethereum Layer 2 solution, announced the completion of a $1 million seed round financing at a valuation of $10 million. Waveslab Ventures led the investment with participation from a group of industry private equity investors. Enphyr mainly helps projects use the security of Ethereum and build the next generation of Web 3 applications through its data privacy, data tokenization, and blockchain-supported KYC verification services. The new funds will be used to expand the team and build strategic partnerships.

According to L2BEAT data, the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum Layer2 network is currently 15.57 billion US dollars, with a 7-day increase of 1.94%. The top six locked values are: Arbitrum One ($8.09 billion, 7-day decrease of 1.16%), OP Mainnet ($4.47 billion, 7-day increase of 8.85%), Base ($0.65 billion, 7-day increase of 2.51%), zkSync Era ($0.515 billion, 7-day decrease of 4.62%), dYdX V3 ($0.354 billion, 7-day decrease of 1.22%), Immutable X ($0.267 billion, 7-day increase of 33.28%).