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Start of the end of Goerli testnet

Goerli is one of the few Ethereum testnets where developers deploy their dapps for testing purposes prior to the main net. And in this test environment, Goerli ether (gETH) is the token to pay for gas fees.

These tokens (gETH) are a testnet version of actual ether for developers to simulate transactions, smart contacts, and other activities prior to deploying on the Ethereum main net. This means that these tokens are supposed to be free – issued simply for testnet developers.

But not anymore. Last week, LayerZero Labs introduced a testnet bridge, essentially launching a liquid market for gETH. Which, you can expect, lead to gETH’s price spiking to over $1.60 over the weekend, rising from 7 cents and reaching a market capitalization of as much as $15 million.

On one side, LayerZero Labs claims it to be a public good making it easier for developers to get gETH. While on the other hand, this liquid market has enabled the degens to speculate and pump the price for a token that was supposed to be free.

As Mudit Gupta (CISO at Polygon) posted on Twitter, “This is the start of the end of Goerli testnet. It served us well.” And, I’d agree with him.

Where do you stand? Is this a public good making it easier for devs to get testnet ETH or a harmful step? Let us know by tagging us on Twitter.

Tweet of the week

MKR/DAI is becoming LUNA/UST.

FRAX is becoming DAI.

Arbitrum is moving to PoW.

These were definitely not on my bingo card. I can’t wait for what March will bring 🥰
— 0xBeans.eth (@0x_Beans) February 25, 2023

Web3 tool of the week

Approvals.xyz - Revoke risky approvals

Approvals.xyz lets you connect your wallet to see your health score and revoke approvals which can put your assets at risk. You need to give approvals to sell or swap tokens but approvals can be exploited by attackers to steal your assets.

Using Approvals.xyz, you can simply connect your wallet to see the riskiest approvals and revoke them.