Base Launches Azul Multiproofs as $7.5B Options Expiry Pressures Ethereum Near $2K

Ethereum News

Coinbase-incubated layer 2 Base activated its Azul upgrade on mainnet this week, pushing the network closer to full decentralization. The release introduces a multiproof system that pairs trusted execution environment proofs with zero-knowledge proofs, allowing either type to finalize state independently. When both agree, withdrawal finality can compress to a single day. Critically, permissionless ZK proofs can override permissioned TEE proofs if the two diverge — a design intended to harden censorship resistance and move Base toward Stage 2 status. The change marks one of the more meaningful architectural shifts for a major Ethereum scaling network this quarter.

Azul also consolidates Base onto a single execution client called base-reth-node and introduces base-consensus, a fresh consensus mechanism client built on OP Kona. It is the first independent upgrade Base has executed without piggybacking on broader Optimism stack releases. The new client architecture has already cut empty block production by roughly 99%, dropping from around 200 per day to about two, and sustained multiple bursts of 5,000 transactions per second under live conditions. The release additionally enables the CLZ opcode and aligns the chain with Ethereum's Osaka execution-layer repricing specifications, which the team says requires no significant rewrites from most application developers.

Base enters its Azul era as one of the largest Ethereum scaling environments by deposits, with roughly $4.4 billion in total value locked across its DeFi ecosystem and approximately $4.98 billion in stablecoin market capitalization. That position makes it the leading destination for USDC liquidity among optimistic rollups. Node operators running op-node, op-geth, nethermind, or kona implementations must migrate to the updated clients to remain in consensus. The protocol has signaled two further upgrades for the back half of the year — a performance-focused release targeting end-of-June and a user-experience overhaul around late August, with native account abstraction sitting on the medium-term roadmap.

Crypto derivatives markets faced a heavy month-end test on May 29 as roughly $7.5 billion in combined Bitcoin and Ethereum options reached monthly expiration. Monthly settlements concentrate the largest accumulated open interest of any single date and tend to generate amplified spot volatility when contracts unwind. Today's session arrived in the middle of a broader correction, with both leading digital assets trading meaningfully below their respective Max Pain levels. Bitcoin alone held 84,112 expiring contracts worth close to $6.2 billion, while Ethereum carried 643,639 contracts totaling around $1.29 billion in notional value across the order book.

Ethereum's expiring book skewed bullishly heading into the close, with a Put/Call Ratio of 0.74 reflecting 369,158 active calls against 274,481 puts. That positioning, however, has been undercut by recent spot weakness, which left a significant slice of upside calls out of the money. The largest single strike concentration sits at $2,200, where more than 70,000 put contracts have accumulated. Open interest at the $2,500 and $3,000 strikes remains active but is increasingly distant from prevailing spot, suggesting many of those bullish positions will expire worthless and may not roll forward in the same volume during the next cycle.

Both assets are currently trading below their respective Max Pain levels — the strike prices at which the maximum number of options expire worthless and where market makers face the smallest aggregate payout. Bitcoin's Max Pain sits at $75,000 against a spot near $73,350 after a roughly 5% weekly drawdown. The downward gravity has been compounded by institutional ETF distribution, with spot Bitcoin product outflows totaling around $2 billion since May 14. That sustained selling has dragged price action away from the Max Pain attractor in the final hours before settlement, increasing the likelihood of post-expiry volatility as positioning resets.

Ethereum trades at $2,001 with a modest 1.2% daily uplift, but the broader picture remains constrained. Immediate support stacks at $1,965, $1,876, and $1,800, while resistance clusters at $2,030, $2,131, and $2,214. RSI prints at 30.25, placing the asset at the upper edge of oversold territory and hinting at a potential mean-reversion bounce. The MACD remains bearish and the overall trend leans toward a bear-market structure, so any move higher needs to reclaim $2,030 on volume to challenge the thesis. A clean break below $1,965 would open the door to $1,800 and confirm continuation; a reclaim of $2,131 invalidates the near-term downside scenario.