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London, United Kingdom, December 22nd, 2025, Chainwire
Following governance approval, the sixth upgrade has activated on the Tezos EVM, Etherlink, capping a year of significant growth that saw total value locked surge from $1.46M at the beginning of the year to over $82.73M in November, major protocol integrations, and the establishment of a rich DeFi and gaming ecosystem.
Farfadet is the latest in a rapid run of upgrades to be activated on Etherlink in 2025, including Calypso, Dionysus, and Ebisu, which all ushered in major technical infrastructure advances. It builds on a number of radical enhancements made to date this year, including the introduction of fast withdrawals, which reduced transfer times from 15 days to under a minute. Farfadet nearly doubles chain capacity, enabling the network to handle more than 1,000 native transfers per second with no impact on the transaction cost, kept at a fraction of a cent. It also unlocks features like instant confirmations, which can be of particular value to audiences, including DeFi traders seeking to deploy time-sensitive strategies, and gamers who expect the best performance without typical blockchain lag. The new features introduced with Farfadet will be warmly welcomed by Etherlink users who will now benefit from a faster and better network.
“Farfadet represents our commitment to staying ahead of network usage and keeping the Tezos platform open and accessible for projects requiring the most up-to-date EVM compatibility,” said Thomas Letan, Core Developer at Nomadic Labs. “This is the first time we are in a position to activate a new EVM version only a few days after an Ethereum hardfork, and we aim at making it the standard moving forward.”
Recent months have seen user numbers on Etherlink swell significantly, due in part to the launch of Apple Farm, a $3 million incentive program that catalyzed explosive ecosystem growth. Now two seasons in, the program has contributed to the growth of a thriving DeFi ecosystem on Etherlink, with protocols including Oku, Morpho, Superlend, Hanji, Jumper Exchange, Curve Finance, and Gearbox Protocol all integrating with the chain during the year.
Oku brought Uniswap v3, Morpho functionality, and DeFi aggregation to Etherlink users, while Lombard Finance introduced Liquid Bitcoin (LBTC), and Midas deployed institutional-grade tokenized assets backed by leading VCs like MEV Capital and Re7. Gaming also blossomed, with the biggest announcement of the year being the AAA open-world extraction shooter, REAPER ACTUAL, developed by Distinct Possibility Studios, which uses Etherlink infrastructure in its web3 endeavors.
Etherlink is ending the year as a top-tier EVM-compatible decentralized infrastructure that has already attracted millions in protocol TVL, attracted 438,500 unique gaming users, and democratized uranium access.
About Etherlink
Etherlink is an EVM-compatible blockchain powered by Tezos Smart Rollups technology. It empowers developers to smoothly deploy any EVM codebase and migrate users and assets from Ethereum and other interoperable chains, enabling seamless interaction and asset transfers across different networks. Learn more: https://www.etherlink.com/
ContactSara Moric
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