Welcome to the Sei Weekly Overview. This week, we explore how private transactions can manipulate the market, a couple apps that have launched on Monaco’s testnet, and Binance U.S.’ Boost rewards campaign.
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By the Numbers
$SEI token price: $0.04 (-3.7%)
Market cap: $310.1M (-1.1%)
Total Value Locked (TVL): $42.8M (-5.3%)
Stablecoin market cap: $304.7M (-0.7%)
Daily EVM transactions: 12.1K (-45.2%)
Daily EVM active addresses: 1.7K (-22.7%)
Block time: 0.43s (+7.5%)
Percentages and metrics are calculated over a 7-day time frame, unless noted otherwise.
Sei Showcase
Highlighting the biggest development on Sei
💨 What’s happening: Sei Labs has found that encrypted mempools, which hide certain transaction details, can make some kinds of market manipulation more profitable, even though the feature is designed to protect traders.
The research paper measures how much an attacker could gain by exploiting this mechanism, and lays out a fix that trading platforms can adopt.
💨 Why it matters: Hiding pending transactions via encrypted mempools protects traders from bots used to front-run trades. However, when a malicious actor is the one making the trade, hiding transactions doesn't slow them down, since they already know what they're doing. Instead, it blinds the good actors (honest traders) who would normally spot the manipulation and correct it.
Sei’s research report uses perpetual futures as an example: an attacker places a trade to distort prices, and then collects the inflated payment before anyone can respond.
The proposed fix from Sei is to change the order of operations to first reveal transaction details, correct them, and then make the payment. After hidden transactions become visible, the market gets a short window to trade against any distortion, and the platform only calculates and pays out after that window has closed.
💨 The bigger picture: Sei’s Giga upgrade has transaction privacy as a core feature, and the initiative is being developed with an eye towards attracting derivatives platforms.
Via such research reports, Sei is trying to take a proactive approach to identifying potential gaps in its upgrades, and how to solve them.
Accelerating Sei’s blockchain
Updates on the latest games, validators, builders and more that are helping Sei expand
Mach 1, a spot trading terminal that supports automated trading and AI agents, and Monte Carlo, an options trading DEX, have deployed on Monaco’s testnet. As Monaco’s stated mission is to be a fast trading venue, it requires such tools to enable advanced trading strategies.
Binance U.S. started a Boost campaign for Sei that lets users earn from a pool of 2M $SEI rewards by moving their USDC, USDT, or bitcoin to the exchange. Participants are only required to hold an asset, and don’t need to engage further via a DeFi protocol, like how most other incentive campaigns are.
MetaMask has published an article highlighting how Sei's Giga upgrade addresses MEV-driven slippage, which is the hidden cost traders pay when bots front-run trades against them.
Lock in to the ecosystem
Want to get involved?
Check out the latest job postings on Sei Labs and Sei Development Foundation.
Explore Sei’s ecosystem to find regional partners and learn how to build on its EVM layer.
That’s all for this week.
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.