Crypto markets posted a \u201cBart Simpson\u201d pattern for the week, with yesterday\u2019s sell-off erasing all of Tuesday\u2019s $60B digital asset rally.<\/p>\n
The reversal was triggered on Thursday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission postponing<\/a> decision-making on Bitcoin ETFs<\/a> proposed by BlackRock, the world\u2019s largest asset manager, and Valkyrie, WisdomTree, and Invesco.<\/p>\n The combined cryptocurrency capitalization slumped 3.7% in 24 hours, sliding $40B from roughly $1.08T to a low of $1.04T. BTC shed nearly 5% and is trading for $25,960, while ETH is down 3.6% at $1,644.<\/p>\n The result? Market action that resembles the popular spiky-haired character from The Simpsons.<\/p>\n Just 19 of the top 100 digital assets are up more than 1% in the past seven days, while 46 cryptocurrencies shed more than 1% over the same period. The top gainers were Toncoin (TON), Maker (MKR), and Mantle (MNT) with gains of 21.4%, 14.9%, and 8.7% respectively.<\/p>\n KuCoin (KCS) suffered the heaviest loss with 21.2%, followed by Hedera (HBAR) with 14.3%, and Kaspa (KASO with 9.4%.<\/p>\n The market cap of DeFi assets also finished the week where it started with $42.8M after pushing up to $44.5M.<\/p>\n Despite the late-week retracement, four DeFi assets rallied more than 40% for the week among eight double-digit gainers, with Unifi Protocol (UNFI), Tellor Tributes (TRV), and Joe (JOE) topping the list. InSure (SURE) was the week\u2019s worst-performing DeFi asset with a 14.5% loss, followed by Redacted (BTRFLY) with 12.7%, and Gains Network (GNS) with 11.2%.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Yesterday\u2019s bearish momentum put a dampener on celebrations after a U.S. judge ruled<\/a> against the SEC in Grayscale\u2019s challenge to the SEC\u2019s decision to reject its application for a Bitcoin ETF on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Grayscale, a top crypto asset manager, argued that its proposed exchange-traded fund was \u201cmaterially similar\u201d to exchange-traded products tracking Bitcoin futures that the SEC approved last year.<\/p>\n The judge shared Grayscale\u2019s assessment, describing the SEC\u2019s decision to deny the ETF as \u201carbitrary and capricious because the Commission failed to explain its different treatment of similar products.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of Ethereum\u2019s top Layer 2s witnessed impressive growth over the week.<\/p>\n zkSync Era is giving the Ethereum mainnet a run for its money, processing 28.5M transactions over the past 30 days, compared to Ethereum\u2019s 30.9M, according to L2beat. Era also posted a record daily throughput of 15.2 transactions per second (TPS) on Aug. 26.<\/p>\n Starknet\u2019s throughput pushed to a daily record high of 8.5 TPS on Aug. 31 to rank second, a 53.5% gain compared to seven days ago.<\/p>\n The recent frenzy<\/a> of activity on Base, Coinbase\u2019s recently launched L2, appears to have subsided. The network processed 5.6 TPS over the past 24 hours, down from a high of 15.9 TPS on Aug. 21. However, when coupled with Optimism \u2014 its Superchain<\/a> sister network, the pair drove 10.5 TPS yesterday.<\/p>\n Combined L2 throughput tagged 53.5 TPS on Aug. 31, just shy of last week\u2019s all-time high of 54 TPS, despite the decline in activity on Base.<\/p>\n The total value locked in Ethereum L2s is at $9.6B, down from a record high of $10.7B at the start of the month.<\/p>\n Base was the week\u2019s top gainer with $359M, a 47.6% increase. The spike was driven by the launch<\/a> of liquidity mining rewards from the Aerodrome DEX, overtaking its Optimism-based predecessor, Velodrome<\/a>, within two days. Aerodrome is now Base\u2019s top protocol by TVL with $203.8M, according to DeFi Llama.<\/p>\n However, combined DeFi TVL trended sideways near $38B this week.<\/p>\n![\"the-defiant\"](\"https:\/\/thedefiant.io\/_next\/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2F6oftkxoa%2Fproduction%2F10b4cadebb5078bf2b26e661c8ac7376cb1f80a4-1254x398.jpg&w=828&q=75\")
zkSync Challenges Ethereum\u2019s Throughput Dominance<\/h2>\n
![\"the-defiant\"](\"https:\/\/thedefiant.io\/_next\/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2F6oftkxoa%2Fproduction%2Fa0e1821948aac48b3ac4f157ec5f751c13ee3c33-1131x845.jpg&w=828&q=75\")
L2 TVL Consolidates Below $10B<\/h2>\n