🎄 It’s the 10th day of ZILmas, and we are looking at how Jasper raises the bar for blockchain performance!

The Zilliqa 2.0 proto-testnet paved the way for Aventurine, showing the ultra-fast finality and efficiency possible with our next-gen tech.

Read more: https://blog.zilliqa.com/jasper-proto-testnet-showcases-zilliqa-2-0-performance-and-paves-the-way-for-aventurine/

🎄 On the 11th day of ZILmas, we celebrate Fireblocks joining the Zilliqa family!

This integration opens the door for institutional investors, boosting adoption across the Web3 space.

👉 Learn more: https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-opens-to-institutional-investors-through-integration-with-fireblocks/

🎄 On the 12th day of ZILmas, we are highlighting the launch of The Winners Circle 🚀

This exclusive Web3 loyalty programme brings the thrill of horse racing to a new generation of fans.

🏇 Dive into the action: https://fans.thewinnerscircle.io/login

Merry ZILmas from all of us at Zilliqa! 🎅✨

See you in 2025 Zilfam !💪

✨As the year comes to a close, we want to take a moment to express our gratitude to our incredible community of supporters, builders, and visionaries. Thank you for being part of our journey.

Let’s make 2025 extraordinary—together. 🚀

As we close out 2024, we’re excited to share this month’s key highlights, including the launch of Aventurine, the final step towards Zilliqa 2.0 mainnet. Let’s take a look at the progress made and what’s coming in 2025!

Aventurine Launched

We successfully deployed Aventurine, the proto-testnet and proto-mainnet, marking the final milestone before Zilliqa 2.0’s mainnet launch. Aventurine gives developers a powerful testbed to prepare for the new Zilliqa network.

Preparing for Zilliqa 2.0 Mainnet

With Aventurine live, all focus shifts to the Agate mainnet launch in Q1 2025. The extension of the Aventurine testing phase ensures devs and dApps transition smoothly to Zilliqa 2.0

Empowering GZIL Holders

The community voted to form the GZIL Collective Committee, empowering GZIL holders to allocate funds for Zilliqa ecosystem growth. This is community-driven innovation at its best!

Partnering with Brillion

Zilliqa has partnered with Brillion to bridge real-world assets (RWAs) and DeFi to the new Zilliqa 2.0 blockchain. This collaboration will enable cross-chain connectivity and drive Web3 adoption.

Looking Ahead to 2025

We wrapped up the year at #ETHRiyadh (Dec 1–3), where we showcased Zilliqa 2.0’s ability to plug into the EVM ecosystem. Next up: delivering Agate, the Zilliqa 2.0 mainnet, in Q1 2025.

Read all the highlights here: https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-monthly-newsletter-december-2024/

We’re proud to announce our partnership with Request Finance to empower businesses on Zilliqa with efficient financial tools.

This collaboration combines Zilliqa’s high-performance blockchain with Request Finance’s user-friendly platform, enabling companies to streamline both crypto and fiat transactions with ease.

Learn more about this partnership: https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-partners-with-request-finance-to-simplify-web3-finance/

Dear Community,

We noticed an issue with Look-up nodes going out of sync, which has unfortunately resulted in transactions not reaching the blockchain for processing.

We will be restoring the Zilliqa network now to fix this issue. Please note that the network will not be processing transactions during this time.

We really appreciate your patience and deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause. Rest assured, our team is working tirelessly to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible.

Note - Funds are SAFU. If you can't see funds in your wallet, You can always check it on-chain by going to https://viewblock.io/zilliqa. Add your Zil address in search box & hit enter.

Dear Community,

The team has worked diligently over the past few hours, and we are pleased to announce that the network recovery is now complete.

Full functionality has been restored to the Zilliqa mainnet, and you may now resume transacting on the network.

Thank you for your patience and continued support.

Migration Completed! 🎉

The migration from ZilBridge to X-Bridge has been completed. You can now transfer tokens seamlessly between Zilliqa and supported networks using https://xbridge.zilliqa.com.

We appreciate the patience from the Zilliqa community as we transitioned to this new platform.

🤖ICYMI: AI Agents are coming to Zilliqa!

The GOAT framework for connecting AI agents to on-chain apps now works with Zilliqa, unlocking new opportunities for everything from onboarding to DeFAI.

A few AI Agents are already live on the blockchain - Ava Stallion, Tacocat.

Read more: https://blog.zilliqa.com/goat-brings-easy-ai-agent-integration-to-zilliqa/

What is Proof-of-Stake (PoS)?

With Zilliqa 2.0, we're introducing Proof-of-Stake (PoS)—a faster, more efficient consensus mechanism for the next evolution of our blockchain.

Here’s how it works:

✅ Validators stake $ZIL as collateral to propose blocks and earn rewards from transaction fees—no mining required!
✅ It’s energy-efficient, scalable, and maintains strong security by making attacks costly for malicious actors.

Why the shift? PoS outperforms traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW) by consuming less energy while enabling a faster, more decentralised network.

Learn more about PoS and how it powers Zilliqa 2.0: https://blog.zilliqa.com/what-is-proof-of-stake-pos/

Big staking changes are coming with Zilliqa 2.0

On Zilliqa 2.0, SSNs will be replaced by a full Proof-of-Stake system that is more efficient and decentralised. Under this new system, stakers play an active role in network security and should make a considered decision around which validator to delegate their stake to.

For a full breakdown on how staking is changing in Zilliqa 2.0, read our recent blog post.

AI agents have arrived on Zilliqa

January was a busy month for the AI space, and Zilliqa has been right there in the mix with other major networks in unlocking tools for AI agents and developers.

GOAT (Great Onchain Agent Toolkit), the first open-source framework for connecting AI agents to on-chain applications, now supports the Zilliqa network. We also announced that ElizaOS now supports the Zilliqa blockchain.

A couple of AI agents have already made their home in the Zilliqa community - check out Ava Stallion and Taco cat.

Completed migration of ZilBridge to X-Bridge

January saw the migration from ZilBridge to X-Bridge completed, with all supported token pairs moved over the new EVM-native platform.

Read more about the migration from ZilBridge to X-Bridge.

AMAs and partnerships

The Winners Circle held an AMA on the future of its $HRSE token, exploring everything from the token’s growing utility to an upcoming new game.

January also saw Zilliqa announce a new partnership with Request Finance, offering businesses operating on the scalable and easy-to-use Zilliqa network a more efficient way to manage finances.

An exciting year ahead

With the mainnet launch of Zilliqa 2.0 fast approaching, our team is focused on finalising the proto-mainnet to ensure a seamless transition with the launch of Agate: https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-monthly-newsletter-january-2025/

Stay up to date with the latest news by following us on X and subscribing to the Zilliqa blog.

🚨Security Incident Update:

We have identified a security incident affecting X-Bridge, and our team is actively investigating the situation.

As a precaution, we have temporarily suspended all bridge operations to prevent further impact. We strongly advise users to refrain from interacting with the bridge until further notice.

Our investigation is underway, and we are diligently assessing the exploit while working to recover any affected funds. We remain committed to providing timely updates as more information becomes available.

User safety and fund security are our highest priorities. In response, we are implementing enhanced security measures to mitigate future incidents.

A comprehensive post-mortem report will be shared once our investigation is complete.

Preliminary findings indicate that approximately 120 ETH has been compromised in this exploit.

Note - As a precaution, please DO NOT swap any zETH on ZilSwap at this time and remove any liquidity you have in a zETH pool.

On Feb 6, an attacker exploited a vulnerability on X-Bridge that allowed the unauthorised minting of zETH & zBNB.

To mitigate the effect of this exploit, we are implementing a number of corrective actions together with stricter security measures as X-Bridge returns to operation.

We acknowledge this update has taken some time - however, it was important for our team to fully understand the issue and confirm a resolution before sharing details publicly.

We appreciate the Zilliqa community's patience and understanding as we work to resolve this issue.

Read the full update: https://blog.zilliqa.com/overview-and-mitigation-of-x-bridge-exploit/

🚨 X-Bridge Returning to Limited Operations 🚨

We are now bringing X-Bridge back online in a restricted capacity as we continue working to ensure security and stability.

The platform is currently being manually monitored and aims to process transactions on a daily basis. These transactions will therefore take significantly longer than usual to process, so please expect delays.

Note that zETH and zBNB will not be available for bridging until the related mitigation measures have been put in place.

For full details on our corrective actions following an issue with X-Bridge, read our previous blog post:

https://blog.zilliqa.com/overview-and-mitigation-of-x-bridge-exploit/

Thank you for your patience and support! Stay tuned for further updates.