Week in Ethereum News, August 10, 2024

Eth News and Links

All core devs

• All Core Devs - Consensus (ACDC) #139:

  • Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade:

    • Pectra-devnet-2: a few client issues, tested recovery from non-finality

    • Pectra-devnet-3: expected soon with EIP7702 (set EOA account code) 

    • Weekly testing call: starts Monday

    • EIP7594 PeerDAS: sampling to be ignored on next PeerDAS devnet

  • Node monitoring using discv5: 42% of nodes use Lighthouse, 36% in US, 50% in data centers

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade, likely targeting Q1 2025

• consensus-specs v1.5.0-alpha.4: fixes off-by-one in MaxEB consolidation processing

• PeerDAS:

  • PeerDAS without peer sampling (SubnetDAS) proposal, minimal form of DAS which can be shipped in a few months

  • PeerDAS breakout #5

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

• 🚨 Lido at 28.8%, still too close to 33.3% threshold

• Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org): 

  • Execution layer: Geth ~55% majority 

  • Consensus layer: Prysm 36%

  • Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality

• Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe

Layer 1

• Flashbots: TEE-Boost, proposal for validators to accept TEE proofs directly from block builders, reduce & eventually remove relays in MEV-Boost

Research

• BRAID: multi-proposers by running multiple consensus processes in parallel, early stage

Client Releases

• Consensus layer:

  • Lighthouse v5.3.0: faster beacon node startup, improved block proposal reliability, improved validator client broadcast and gossipsub IDONTWANT support

  • Lodestar v1.21.0: docker image changed to debian, adds execution layer client info to graffiti and performance improvements via napi-rs BLST bindings

  • Teku v24.8.0: updated metrics, requires Java 21+

• Execution layer:

  • Erigon v3.0.0-alpha2: adds OtterSync fast sync by downloading state via BitTorrent, improves chain tip performance and reduces disk footprint

  • Reth v1.0.4: RPC fixes and resolves IO deadlock edge case during sync

Layer 2

• Arbitrum Orbit chains bridged USDC as gas token

• Mode, Zora & Metal upgrade ownership changed to Optimism Foundation & security council

EIPs/Standards

• ERCs (application layer):

  • ERC7750: Decentralized employment system

  • ERC7751: Wrapping of bubbled up reverts

  • ERC7752: Equity token

  • ERC7753: Algorithmically generated NFT

  • ERC7754: Tamperproof web immutable transaction 

Stuff for developers

• Solhint v5.0.3: adds imports-order rule to sort Solidity imports topologically & alphabetically

• Viem experimental adds EIP7702 (set EOA account code) support

• Rindexer (EVM indexing): adds streaming data & chatbot support

• Rainbow wallet extension impersonation mode

• Tbl: CLI to read/edit Parquet files

Security

• Ronin bridge $12M exploit via uninitialized parameter after upgrade, MEV bots front ran, funds have been returned, $500k bounty

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Job Listings

• Sablier are hiring a Business Development Lead and Frontend Engineer

• EF seek a European/Civil Law qualified Legal Counsel

Job listings: $600 for 4 issues (75 char limit).  Pay using 3cities.  Questions? abcoathup at-gmail

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Onchain stats

• Fees (via ultrasound.money): 

  • Gas: 0.8 to 701.7 gwei, 10.3 gwei average; zero net issuance at 23.9 gwei 

  • 10k ETH net issuance this week

• ETHUSD: $2,197 - $3,004, currently $2,601, all time high $4,878

• ETHBTC: currently 0.043 (Flippening at ~0.164)

Notable at app layer

• Zora secondary market for mints via hybrid ERC1155/ERC20 on Uniswap

• Safe social recovery module by Candide

Regulation/business/tokens

• SEC subpoena 3 crypto VCs in fishing expedition

• SEC loses to Ripple: judge sets fine at $125M, SEC had asked for $2B

• New York Fed: Tornado Cash sanctions analysis

General (Defcon edition)

• Gubsheep: programmable cryptography

• Dark Skippy: malicious signing device can leak secret keys in transaction signatures

• Sinkclose AMD CPU vulnerability, run code in System Management Mode, requires kernel access

• GhostWrite direct CPU bug in vulnerable RISC-V CPUs

• Garuda and Pari: fast & small SNARKs via equifficient polynomial commitments

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END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News

Editor: @abcoathup
Follow @WeekinEthNews for the most clicked links
Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-august-10-2024

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Upcoming Dates of Note

(new/changes in bold)

• Aug 15-17 – Ethereum Uruguay hackathon & conference

• Aug 23-Sep 13 – ETHGlobal ETHOnline virtual hackathon

• Aug 23-26 – ETHTokyo hackathon & conference

• Aug 29-31 – ETHAccra hackathon

• Aug 31 – Underhanded Solidity contest deadline

• Sep 5-8 – ETHWarsaw conference & hackathon

• Sep 9-15 – ETHSafari (Kenya)

• Sep 12-14 – NapulETH (Napoli)

• Sep 13-14 – Ethereum México

• Sep 20-22 – ETHCapeTown hackathon

• Sep 20-22 – ETHGlobal Singapore hackathon

• Sep 26-27 – ETHMilan conference

• Oct 4-6 – Ethereum Kuala Lumpur conference & hackathon

• Oct 4-6 – ETHRome hackathon

• Oct 17-19 – ETHSofia conference & hackathon

• Oct 17-20 – ETHLisbon 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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