Week in Ethereum News, January 20, 2024
Eth News and Links
Dencun (Cancun + Deneb) upgrade (meta EIP7569)
Latest all core devs – execution (ACDE) call video. Recap by Tim Beiko. Notes from Tim Beiko and Christine Kim:
Goerli testnet: successfully upgraded to Dencun, Prysm bug patched, blob spamming started & blob expiry can be tested from Feb 5
Testnet upgrade dates unchanged: Sepolia Jan 30 & Holešky Feb 7
Mainnet upgrade: Tim Beiko expects minimum 1 month after Holešky upgrade
Pectra (Prague + Electra):
Small fork late 2024; Verkle likely in following upgrade (Osaka)
Candidates for inclusion: EIP2537 (BLS precompile), EIP6110 (validator deposits onchain) & EIP7002 (EL triggerable exits)
Diagram of all proposed EIPs & viz of where each EIP fits in roadmap
Presentations on batch txs for EOAs (EIP3074), SETCODE, EIP7251 (increase max effective balance) & EIP7547 (inclusion lists)
next ACDE to discuss potential big feature: Verkle, EOF & EIP4444 (bound historical data)
Ephemery testnet successfully upgraded to Dencun
Consensus-specs v1.4.0-beta.6: fork choice filter change
Verkle
Verkle implementers call video & notes: all client teams working on Verkle, testnet to be relaunched and challenges with BLOCKHASH opcode
Verkle proofs & stateless clients explainer
Client releases
Consensus layer:
Lodestar v1.14.0: option for local block publishing signed by the validator
Prysm v4.2.1-rc.0: fix historical roots for Goerli Dencun upgrade
Execution layer:
Erigon v2.57.0: Sepolia & Holešky testnets Dencun upgrade
Nethermind v1.25.1: fix eth_syncing behavior and extra bodies & receipts downloaded after upgrading long-living node
Reth v0.1.0-alpha.15: consensus fix for Dencun and enables default on-disk blob store
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 32.10% is far too close to 33.3% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
Execution layer: Geth 84% supermajority, could possibly cause a chain split
Consensus layer: Prysm 40%, any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe
Layer 1
Pari: testing path to raise gas limit, local then shadowforks to ensure within burst (worst case) & long term constraints
Potuz: heuristics for detecting censorship so execution layer clients can signal for local building
For stakers
Besu (execution layer client) performance improvements (95% of blocks processed within ~250ms) and optimal config
MEV
Flashbots order flow visualization using Sankey diagrams
Layer 2
Arbitrum Orbit permissionless L2 & L3 creation, requires revenue sharing
Public Goods Network (PGN) shutting down in June
EIPs/Standards
EIPs
Meta EIP7600: Hardfork Meta - Pectra (Prague + Electra)
ERCs (application layer):
Stuff for developers
Foundry:
Forge-std v1.7.6: new cheat codes dumpState (write state to disk in JSON), signP256 (generate secp256r1 signatures) and toBase64 & toBase64URL
Remix challenge: 4 questions on zk proofs with Circom, mint NFT on Optimism
GasliteToken (ERC20 base smart contract): gas optimized ERC20 with fees
Contract obfuscation to avoid generalized front running
The Rippler: fast multicaller, reverse packed encoding
Vyper Jupyter plugin to deploy from Jupyter notebooks & Google Colab using titanoboa
Curta CTF ZSafe solution
ABI parsers vulnerable to zero-sized types (ZSTs) DoS attack
Security
Socket/Bungee $3.3M exploit on mainnet, token approvals drained via unverified user input
Enterprise
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance: DeFi risk assessment guidelines, feedback by April 15
GameStop NFT marketplace shutting February 2, due to regulatory uncertainty
Job Listings
Nethermind: Distributed System Engineer, Lead Engineer, Protocol Researcher
ZK circuits engineer sought by EF Privacy & Scaling Explorations team
Status is hiring: Technical Chief Operating Officer - Apply here
Job listings: $600 for 4 issues (75 char limit). Pay using 3cities. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Onchain stats
Gas fees (via ultrasound.money): 11.3 to 74.6 gwei, with 28.7 gwei average
Zero net issuance currently at 22.0 gwei
6.9k ETH net burn this week
ETHUSD: $2,419 - $2,605, currently $2,485
ETHBTC: currently 0.06 (Flippening at ~0.16)
Notable at app layer
Sablier monthly unlocks streaming curve, can use like traditional payroll
Dagon (DAO singleton) live on mainnet & Optimism, add weighted token voting to any account
Zuzalu QF grants: spinoff events (Zu-villages) & digital public goods rounds
Regulation/business/tokens
US IRS: $10k+ crypto transaction reporting not currently enforced
EU provisional agreement on AML, customer due diligence required for €1k+ crypto transactions
General
$32M in rugpulls from 1,300 automatically created meme tokens
Dark DAO lite demo for vote buying
Trail of Bits: LeftoverLocals, recovery of data from GPU local memory
Follow @WeekinEthNews to find out what the most clicked links are. Follow @abcoathup and @evan_van_ness to get most of the week’s news in real time.
Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-january-20-2024
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Jan 22 – EF’s Next Billion fellowship cohort 4 deadline extended
Jan 30 – Sepolia testnet Dencun upgrade epoch 132608 (assuming no issues)
Feb 2-4 – ETH Cinco de Mayo hackathon (Cholula, Puebla)
Feb 3 – Ethereum Lima Day
Feb 7 – Holešky testnet Dencun upgrade epoch 29696 (assuming no issues)
Feb 23-Mar 3 – ETHDenver BUIDLWeek & hackathon
Mar 13-14 – ETHLatam (San Pedro Sula, Honduras)
Mar 15-17 – ETHGlobal London hackathon
Mar 19-21 – ETH Canal (Panama City, Panamá) conference & hackathon
Mar 21-24 – ETHTaipei conference & hackathon
Mar 27-30 – ETH Bucharest hackathon & conference
Mar 29-31 – ETH Seoul hackathon
Apr 5-26 – ETHGlobal Scaling Ethereum virtual hackathon
Apr 5-7 – EthereumZuri.ch conference
Apr 12-14 – ETHDam (Amsterdam) conference & hackathon
May 3-5 – ETHGlobal Sydney hackathon
May 21-23 – DappCon (Berlin)
May 24-26 – ETHBerlin hackathon
May 31-Jun 2 – ETHDublin hackathon & conference
May 31-Jun 2 – ETHPrague conference & hackathon
Jun 3-5 – ETH Belgrade conference
Jul 8-11 – EthCC (Brussels) conference
Jul 12-14 – ETHGlobal Brussels hackathon
Jul 26-30 – EDCON Tokyo conference
Aug 23-Sep 13 – ETHGlobal ETHOnline virtual hackathon
Sep 20-22 – ETHGlobal Singapore hackathon
Oct 18-20 – ETHGlobal San Francisco hackathon
Nov 12-15 – Devcon 7 - Southeast Asia (Bangkok)
Nov 15-17 – ETHGlobal Bangkok hackathon
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