Etherlink activates Farfadet upgrade after strong 2025 growth
Taken together, the Farfadet upgrade and the growth figures underline Etherlink’s push to position itself as a high-throughput, low-cost EVM environment within the Tezos ecosystem, as competition intensifies among networks targeting DeFi and on-chain gaming developers
Etherlink, an Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible layer built on the Tezos blockchain, has rolled out its sixth network upgrade, codenamed Farfadet, marking the end of a year of rapid growth in decentralised finance and gaming activity on the chain.
The upgrade caps a period in which total value locked on Etherlink rose from $1.46m at the start of the year to more than $82.73m in November, as developers and users migrated applications to the network. Etherlink said the momentum reflected broader adoption across DeFi protocols and blockchain-based games.
In a statement, the team said Farfadet nearly doubles the chain’s capacity and allows it to process more than 1,000 native transfers per second, without raising transaction fees, which remain at a fraction of a cent. The upgrade follows a series of earlier activations in 2025, including Calypso, Dionysus and Ebisu, and builds on previous performance improvements such as fast withdrawals, which cut transfer times from around 15 days to under a minute.
“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, a core developer at Nomadic Labs, one of the main engineering groups behind the Tezos ecosystem.
Etherlink said user growth was supported by Apple Farm, a $3m incentive programme designed to attract developers and liquidity. Over the course of the year, a growing number of protocols integrated with the network, including Oku, Morpho, Superlend, Hanji, Jumper Exchange, Curve Finance and Gearbox Protocol.
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According to the statement, Oku brought Uniswap v3, Morpho functionality and DeFi aggregation to Etherlink, while Lombard Finance introduced Liquid Bitcoin, known as LBTC. Midas deployed tokenised assets backed by venture firms including MEV Capital and Re7, adding to the range of financial products available on the chain.
The company also pointed to rising activity in blockchain gaming. It cited the launch of the AAA title Reaper Actual from Distinct Possibility Studios and said the network recorded 438,500 unique gaming users during the year.
The Recap
- Farfadet upgrade activated on Etherlink, the sixth upgrade this year.
- Total value locked rose from $1.46 million to over $82.73 million.
- Apple Farm paid $3 million incentives and boosted ecosystem growth.
