[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, UAE, February 5th, 2025]

The expanding blockchain landscape, featuring established networks like Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon PoS alongside emerging chains such as MegaEth, Berachain, and Monad, presents growing complexity for developers and users alike. Existing cross-chain infrastructure remains challenging, with intricate messaging protocols and bridging mechanisms that add friction to blockchain interoperability.

SOCKET’s chain abstraction protocol, in collaboration with Polygon Labs’ Agglayer, seeks to simplify multi-chain development by enabling seamless interaction across networks. This initiative allows developers to compose contracts across chains without relying on traditional cross-chain messaging or bridging.

SOCKET protocol removes the complexity associated with cross-chain development by enabling builders to compose contracts asynchronously, similar to contracts on a single chain. Developers can deploy Solidity contracts on SOCKET as an app-gateway, where users interact by sending signed messages. These messages are then processed and executed on-chain using Agglayer’s pessimistic proofs, enhancing security and reliability.

Unlocking Chain Abstracted Accounts

A key development enabled by this approach is Chain Abstracted Accounts, which move beyond traditional bridging mechanisms that isolate token balances across chains. With SOCKET, users can maintain a unified balance across multiple chains, eliminating the need for manual bridging and reducing transaction failures.

For example, a user with 300 USDC on Arbitrum and 200 USDC on Base can seamlessly transact on Solana without manually transferring funds. This results in:

• A “Chain Abstracted Balance”, allowing users to transact across multiple chains without isolated token balances.
• Instant transactions, removing the need for bridging, reducing delays, and ensuring guaranteed execution.

Beyond Chain Abstracted Accounts, SOCKET and Agglayer also introduce new possibilities for intent-based protocols, DeFi automation, and other decentralized applications by leveraging chain abstraction.

Commemorating the Launch with a Limited NFT Collection

To mark this development, a limited collection NFT is being introduced, with a cap of 5,000 mints. This NFT serves as a commemorative piece celebrating the integration of Agglayer into SOCKET’s chain abstraction framework.

SOCKET and Polygon Labs continue to advance blockchain development by simplifying cross-chain interactions and enhancing the developer experience. Further updates, integrations, and collaborations will be announced as chain abstraction technology evolves within the Ethereum ecosystem.

About Socket Protocol

Socket Protocol is the first Chain Abstraction Protocol, offering a modular and adaptable framework for chain-agnostic applications.

It simplifies interaction by abstracting chain complexities from users. As a core mechanism, Modular Order Flow Auction (MOFA) establishes a marketplace for transmitters and user requests, facilitating smooth cross-network interactions without the usual complexities. Never bridge again.

For more information, users can visit https://www.socket.tech/.

MetaMask has introduced a new feature that allows people to use a selection of tokens to pay gas fees when using MetaMask Swap for smart transactions.

Dubbed Gas Station, the innovation addresses a common issue faced by Ethereum users: transactions failing due to insufficient gas fees.

Details of the New Update

The crypto wallet provider announced the functionality in a February 4 post on X, stating that it will help users avoid transaction failures due to a lack of ETH for gas fees.

Such payments are required for processing transactions on the Ethereum network and must traditionally be settled in ETH. This often leaves users stranded if they do not have enough of the cryptocurrency in their wallet, forcing them to purchase it from an exchange before proceeding with their transaction.

“Being blocked by insufficient gas will no longer be a problem when swapping, thanks to MetaMask’s new Gas Station feature,” the company stated in an accompanying blog post.

The new functionality eliminates this issue by allowing clients to utilize select tokens to pay gas fees when using MetaMask Swap. Supported cryptocurrencies include USDT, USDC, DAI, ETH, wETH, wBTC, wstETH, and wSOL. Additionally, the new system ensures that network charges are already factored into the quoted price, providing a smoother experience.

The update is currently available on the MetaMask extension for the Ethereum mainnet, with a mobile release expected soon. It also maintains the wallet provider’s existing functionality of sourcing the best exchange rates from multiple liquidity providers, ensuring users receive competitive pricing.

Ethereum’s Gas Limit Increase

The introduction of the Gas Station feature comes at a pivotal moment for the Ethereum network, which is also undergoing an update of its own. Validators recently approved an increase in the blockchain’s gas limit, raising it from 30 million to a planned maximum of 36 million units. According to on-chain data, the average gas limit has already reached 35.6 million units as of February 5.

This marks the first adjustment since Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) and the most notable change since 2021 when the network doubled the limit from 15 million to 30 million. The increase is designed to enhance scalability, ease congestion, and support the growing demands of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

Gas limits determine how much computational work can be handled in each block, directly impacting the number of transactions that can be processed. When demand exceeds capacity, fees rise as users compete for space.

By expanding the cap, Ethereum aims to improve efficiency, allowing more transactions to be processed per block and reducing overall congestion.

Ethereum’s price has experienced a massive crash today, sending shockwaves throughout the crypto market.

Many investors are now wondering whether this is the beginning of a new bear market or a substantial short-term liquidation event.

Technical Analysis

By Edris Derakhshi (TradingRage)

The Daily Chart

As the daily chart suggests, the Ethereum price dropped all the way back to the $2,100 level before experiencing a rebound. The $3,000 level and 200-day moving average, located around the same price mark, has been broken to the downside yesterday.

This has been one of the primary contributing factors to today’s crash, at least on the technical side of events, as the 200-day moving average is a key trend indicator, and if the market fails to climb back above it soon, a longer and even deeper correction could be expected.

The 4-Hour Chart

On the 4-hour chart, it is evident that the price has recently tried to break above the large falling wedge pattern, but the breakout was a fake one.

This bull trap has led to a considerable drop, as the $2,800 level is also lost and can now be seen as a resistance zone. Therefore, if a quick recovery does not occur, a consolidation between the $2,800 and $2,400 levels is likely for the upcoming weeks.

Sentiment Analysis

By Edris Derakhshi (TradingRage)

Ethereum Open Interest

While Ethereum’s price action indicated some clues that were pointing to today’s market crash, more research has to be done on the underlying market dynamics. Analyzing the futures market metrics can provide a distinct picture of the current situation.

This chart presents the ETH price and the 7-day exponential moving average of the open interest metric, which measures the total number of open perpetual futures contracts on centralized exchanges.

As the chart demonstrates, while the asset has experienced a massive drop, the open interest is still not showing a significant decline. Therefore, if the crash is to be seen as a liquidation cascade, the futures market has not cooled down yet, and there could be more liquidations and drops in the short term in case the current selling pressure persists.