Week in Ethereum News, April 6, 2024
Eth News and Links
Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade (meta EIP7600)
Latest all core devs – consensus (ACDC) call video. Recap from Alex Stokes. Notes from Christine Kim:
Missed slots: Lighthouse & Prysm updated to allow Beacon API submission of blobs even if block observed on p2p
Pectra upgrade (small fork targeting late 2024)
Electra included EIPs:
Pectra-devnet-0 spec EIP client implementation tracker
EIP6110 validator deposits onchain: mostly ready
EIP7002 execution layer triggerable exits: needs updating to handle partial withdrawals
EIP7251 maxEB: community input wanted on need for custom ceilings & EL initiated consolidations (touches EIP7002) at cost of added complexity
EIP7549 committee index outside attestation: may update for better packing efficiency
Electra candidates for inclusion:
EIP7547 IL (inclusion lists): EIP3074 compatibility issues
EIP7594 PeerDAS: work on in parallel to Electra, if going to be longer term could alternatively include EIP7659 to increase blob throughput
EIP7251 maxEB (increase max effective balance)
Breakout call notes: custom ceilings, min activation balance constant, week subjectivity issues and concerns from Lido
EIP7547 IL (inclusion lists)
Breakout call notes: potential solutions for validity & availability issues
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 29.68% finally drops below 30%, still too close to 33.3% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
Execution layer: Geth 63% majority
Stakefish migrated to 50% Nethermind
Consensus layer: Prysm 38%
Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Strategy to target largest concentrated actor with discouragement attack
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe
Layer 1
Reward curve with tempered issuance: trade-offs, security considerations and endgame
Client Releases
Consensus layer:
Prysm v5.0.3: patch with enhancements & bug fixes
Execution layer:
Reth v0.2.0-beta.5: fixes Merkle pipeline stage out of memory issue, adds pruner timeout and supports running on NFS volumes
Layer 2
Base gas target increased to 5 mgas/s
EIPs/Standards
EIPs:
ERCs (application layer):
Stuff for developers
Solidity Developer Survey 2023 results:
Hardhat usage at 33%, Foundry 32% & Remix 26%
Solidity v0.8 usage at 82%
Guide to migrate from from hardhat-deploy to Hardhat Ignition
Tweak (Foundry fork): alter onchain verified contracts (e.g. add console.log) & replay historical transactions
Hayden asked should Uniswap v4 remove events & move to call traces for 1% gas saving on swaps
Lefteris: need agreement & standardization for any alternative
Coinbase Solidity style guide
OpenSea ERC721C support: enforced creator royalties but restricted to OpenSea & Magic Eden
Fuzz-utils v0.2.0: generate Echidna/Medusa compatible fuzzing harnesses
Sigmund (CLI): collect function selectors from any contract
Swiss knife determine contract address using deployer address & nonce
SIWE AAbstractor: connect smart accounts to apps via Sign in with Ethereum
Viem experimental: support for draft EIP5792 (batch transactions with paymaster capability)
Noble-post-quantum (JavaScript): minimal implementations of ML-KEM, ML-DSA & SLH-DSA
Open Labels Initiative: framework & data model for EVM address labeling
CTFs:
Secureum RACE #28: 8 question Solidity quiz & answers
Security
Geth DoS vulnerability disclosed, nodes with exposed RPC could be crashed by applying EIPs out of order during an eth_call, fixed in v1.13.13
Ecosystem
Vitalik: next steps in the Purge, precompiles, history (via EIP4444), log reform & moving to SSZ
Road to Devcon event calendar
Hackathon winners: ETHBucharest & ETHSeoul
Enterprise
Project Agorá: BIS & 7 central banks explore tokenization of cross-border payments
Job Listings
ChainSafe: Head of Protocol Engineering and Senior Product Manager
Devcon: Community Supporter, Production Magician & Volunteer Coordinator
Nethermind Mechanism Designer, Protocol Research Manager, Research Engineer
Certora is hiring: Head of Product, SR-Rust, Compiler Developer & FV Wizard
Solidity: C++ Software Engineer and Programming Language Researcher
🔥OpenZeppelin seeks Security Researchers in Canada, Australia, LatAm & USA
Job listings: $600 for 4 issues (75 char limit). Pay using 3cities. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Onchain stats
Gas fees (via ultrasound.money): 8.6 to 120.5 gwei, with 25.8 gwei average
Zero net issuance currently at 22.7 gwei
2.8k ETH net burn this week
ETHUSD: $3,224 - $3,641, currently $3,325
ETHBTC: currently 0.049 (Flippening at ~0.16)
Notable at app layer
Maker's big bet on Ethena
Aave proposes 0% LTV for Dai in response
Blob inscriptions fizzle out
Synthetix v3 live on Base, using USDC as collateral
Gitcoin Grants 20 applications open until April 16; open source software rounds: infrastructure, dev tooling, apps and hackathon alumni
Regulation/business/tokens
US vs Roman Storm: amicus briefs from Blockchain Association, Coin Center & DeFi Education Fund
SEC Commissioner Peirce: improving communication between public & SEC
Bank of England & FCA digital securities sandbox consultation, feedback by May 29
General
Vitalik: degen communism [posted April 1], chaos aligned with common good, e.g. memecoin issuance to charity, public goods funding, fork out concentrated players, land value taxes and Harberger taxes on IP
XZ Utils (compression library) backdoored, v5.6.0/1 impacted, found after logins via ssh 0.5s slower
END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News
Editor: @abcoathup
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Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-april-6-2024
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Apr 12-14 – ETHDam (Amsterdam) conference & hackathon
Apr 16-18 – EY Global blockchain summit (London)
Apr 19-21 – ETH Tallinn hackathon
Apr 20-21 – ETHDubai conference & hackathon
Apr 23-May 7 – Gitcoin Grants 20 (application deadline Apr 16)
Apr 26-28 – ETHBoston hackathon & conference
May 3-5 – ETHGlobal Sydney hackathon
May 10-11 – ETH Bratislava conference & 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
May 31-Jun 5 – ETH Belgrade hackathon & conference
Jun 14 – EF EIP4844 data challenge deadline
Jun 21-23 – ETHKyiv hackathon & 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
Aug 23-26 – ETHTokyo hackathon & conference
Aug 29-31 – ETHAccra hackathon
Sep 5-8 – ETHWarsaw conference & hackathon
Sep 9-15 – ETHSafari (Kenya)
Sep 12-14 – NapulETH (Napoli)
Sep 20-22 – ETHGlobal Singapore hackathon
Oct 4-6 – ETHRome
Oct 17-19 – ETHSofia conference & 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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