Argent Newsletter - Issue #5

Looking back on 2021, L2 22, Join us - work in Web3 and much more

Tagged

Edward Wilson

Jul 16, 2024

Quick summary

Happy New Year - We hope you had a chance to celebrate with your family and loved ones. This week we pick out some of the best 2021 recaps, and also share some great new content to start the year right.

🕰️ Looking back on 2021

In terms of adoption and general awareness, last year was a breakout year for crypto. Our last newsletter included Messari's authoritative Crypto Theses for 2022. Despite the name it has a thorough roundup of 2021 themes and we’d recommend it again if you missed it.

Developer activity is a great indicator of which crypto ecosystems are thriving. This report from Electric Capital looks at that activity across crypto as a whole, beyond just Ethereum. It’s exciting to see that developer growth is rising at the fastest pace ever. It bodes well for the long term health of the space.

To close 2021, crypto trader and podcast host, Cobie, shared a series of articles covering some of its biggest themes, e.g. Wtf is web3, the attention economy, and trading.

⚡ L2 22

2022 is the year of Layer 2s and there are already over 200,000 unique depositors on zkSync!

Unique deposits on zkSync

Our friends over at Bankless produced a handy guide on how to use zkSync which includes us and our L2 partner ZigZag. It’s a great read to get familiar with zkSync and one to share with friends and family.

Please note, you can’t currently use Gitcoin grants or zkNFT with Argent but we’re exploring how best to add support.

We’re also building on StarkNet, Starkware’s permissionless zk-rollup. If you want to learn more about Starkware and their products, we highly recommend you go through these resources which were carefully curated by @natimuril.

🖥️ New Year...new job? Join web3

Scaling, new use cases, crazy developer activity... It’s the perfect time to work in web3. If you want to make the leap, here are 7 steps to make that transition if you’re not a developer.

And if you’re a developer thinking about the move, here’s Nader Dabit’s 17 favorite videos and guides. Also, we’re hiring too!

How to become a developer in web3

🎧 Our favorite podcasts & reads

As well as Layer 2, is 2022 also the year for DAOs? Be ahead of the curve by listening to CoopahTroopah on The Blockcrunch Podcast with Jason Choi. And if you want a summary before listening, check out these podcast notes on all you need to know about DAOs .

We’ve also included a podcast with Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin on Bankless discussing the current Ethereum roadmap. We also have notes on this podcast for you.

💥 Argent update

Last, we’re thrilled by the feedback so far to our L2 wallet. Check out some guides to staking ETH (with Lido) and earning interest (with Yearn) with low fees.

What is zkSync?