ZKsync’s official X (formerly Twitter) account was briefly compromised to promote a fake ZK token airdrop.
The fraudulent post claimed that every follower was eligible to claim a share of the initial token supply. It directed users to a suspicious link: “distribution-zksync.io.”
The post remained live for approximately 15 minutes before being deleted. As of now, ZKsync has not issued any public statement confirming the breach.
Despite the hack, there has been no significant immediate impact on the ZK token price, yet. However, further fallout could still materialize if user trust erodes.
Security experts warn users to remain cautious and avoid interacting with any unverified links related to token distributions.
This incident highlights the growing frequency of social media breaches targeting major crypto projects.
Base, a Layer-2 (L2) blockchain developed by Coinbase, transitioned from a Stage 0 to Stage 1 rollup, effectively overtaking Arbitrum (ARB) as the largest Ethereum scaling solution.
Stages refer to a framework for assessing the maturity of L2 rollups, based on milestones proposed by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Base Becomes Largest Ethereum L2, Arbitrum Follows
Data on L2Beat shows Arbitrum One is no longer the largest optimistic rollup on Ethereum. L2Beat is an analytics and research website focused on Ethereum layer-2 scaling.
After a $557 million surge in TVL (Total Value Locked), Base has overtaken Arbitrum L2, with a margin of more than $710 million in total value secured (TVS).
Alongside overtaking Arbitrum One, Base has also matured from Stage 0, where the rollup is fully controlled by its operators (full training wheels).
It is now a Stage 1 rollup, featuring smart contract governance. However, because a security council remains in place to handle potential bugs, this stage features “limited training wheels.”
“Proud that Base is now stage 1 — and #1 by TVS but it’s still day one. Time to bring the world on-chain,” wrote Base creator Jesse Pollak.
“Welcome to the full-EVM stage 1 gang Base,” Buterin remarked.
The Ethereum executive said he would only recognize L2 networks that reach stage 1+ maturity. Buterin referred to his threshold for measuring different stages of L2s based on a decentralization scale.
“Stage 1 (75% threshold on the council to override the proof system, 26%+ of the council must be outside the rollup team) is a very reasonable moderate milestone. The multisigs I am in have not had a single liveness failure in years, let alone 26%. The era of rollups being glorified multisigs is ending. The era of cryptographic trust is upon us,” Buterin explained.
This ultimatum aligned with Buterin’s vision of advancing cryptographic trust. Recently, Buterin proposed a plan to scale Ethereum’s L1 and L2 protocols in 2025.
While this is the first time Base has overtaken Arbitrum, it is not the first time it has challenged its market position. In hindsight, Base TVL surpassed $2 billion in September after 400% growth, which saw it close in on Arbitrum’s $2.6 billion TVL.
Aerodrome remains the leading protocol on Base L2. It boasts up to $830 million in TVL, up 5% in the last week. Other leading protocols on Base include Morpho, Aave, and Uniswap.
As Base takes the lead, it is impossible to forget Arbitrum’s Achilles’ Heel. The network is still digging out of an 80% crash. Key interventions to recover include token buybacks and the recently rejected Nvidia accelerator program bid.
The crypto market in 2025 is facing intense turbulence. The capitalization of once-hot trends like meme coins has plummeted. Capital has flowed out of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, driving DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) down from $120 billion to around $87 billion.
In this context, Sonic stands out. It has consistently hit new TVL highs, reaching $1 billion in April after growing nearly 40 times since the beginning of the year. So, what makes Sonic a bright spot amid a stormy market?
Investors Are Pouring Capital into Sonic
Sonic has made its mark with a rapid TVL growth rate, far outpacing better-known blockchains. According to DefiLlama, Sonic reached $1 billion in TVL within 66 days. In comparison, Sui took 505 days, and Aptos needed 709.
This achievement reflects strong capital inflows into the Sonic ecosystem despite the broader DeFi trend of capital withdrawal. Data from Artemis supports this, ranking Sonic as the second-highest netflow protocol this year—trailing only Base, a blockchain backed by Coinbase.
The growth goes beyond TVL numbers. Sonic’s ecosystem is attracting various projects, including derivatives exchanges like Aark Digital and Shadow Exchange and protocols such as Snake Finance, Equalizer0x, and Beets. These projects still have small TVLs, but they have the potential to draw new users and capital, fueling Sonic’s momentum.
However, the question remains: Can this capital inflow remain sustainable while the market fluctuates?
Andre Cronje on Sonic’s Potential and Strengths
Andre Cronje, the developer behind Sonic, shared his ambition in an interview to push this blockchain beyond its competitors.
“Sonic has sub-200 millisecond finality, faster than human responsiveness,” Andre Cronje said.
According to Cronje, Sonic isn’t just about speed. The platform also focuses on improving both user and developer experience. He explained that 90% of transaction fees go to dApp, not to validators, creating incentives for developers to build.
Unlike other blockchains, such as Ethereum, which are limited by long block times, Sonic leverages an enhanced virtual machine that theoretically processes up to 400,000 transactions per second. Cronje acknowledges, however, that current demand has yet to push the network to its full capacity. Still, these technical advantages make Sonic a compelling option for developers seeking more user-friendly dApps.
He also revealed new features on Sonic that have the potential to attract users.
“If your first touch point with a user is to download this wallet and then buy this token on an exchange, you’ve lost 99.9% of your users. They’ll use their Google off-email password, fingerprint, face, whatever it is, to access the dApp and interact with it, and they’ll never need to know about Sonic or token,” Andre Cronje revealed.
Risks and Challenges Ahead
Despite reaching impressive milestones, Sonic is not immune to risk. The price of its token, S, has declined significantly from its peak. According to BeInCrypto, it has dropped around 20% in the past month—from $0.60 down to $0.47—mirroring the broader market’s volatility.
Furthermore, Grayscale recently removed Sonic from its April asset consideration list. This decision reflects a shift in the fund’s expectations and raises concerns about Sonic’s ability to maintain its TVL should investor sentiment deteriorate.
Sonic also faces fierce competition from other high-performance chains like Solana and Base. Although Sonic holds a clear advantage in speed, long-term user adoption will depend on whether its ecosystem can deliver real value, not just high TVL figures.
(@pseudotheos) May 12, 2025
