Week in Ethereum News, August 24, 2024

Eth News and Links

Eight years of Week in Ethereum News

All core devs

• All Core Devs - Consensus (ACDC) #140:

  • Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade:

    • Pectra-devnet-2: client teams debugging issues including a few bad blocks, currently not finalizing

    • Pectra-devnet-3: plan to launch next week

    • EIP7251 max effective balance: correlation penalty update, fixes overflow

    • EIP7594 PeerDAS: 

      • EIP7742 uncouple blob count between CL & EL: general support for including in Pectra

      • Blob limits per transaction discussion

  • Fulu named as next consensus layer upgrade and Fusaka (Fulu + Osaka) for combined upgrade

  • Probelab: Gossipsub analysis

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade

• Pectra testing call #1

• Consensus specs v1.5.0-alpha.5: target for peerdas-devnet-2

• PeerDAS breakout #6: 

  • Peerdas-devnet-2: launch in the next week

  • Peerdas-devnet-3: rebase to Pectra, launch in 2-3 weeks

• EOF Implementers call #56: 

  • Frangio: ERC721/1155 need ISCONTRACT and upgradeable proxies could be bricked by EOF contracts not able to DELEGATECALL a legacy contract

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

• 🚨 Lido at 28.6%, still too close to 33.3% threshold

• Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org): 

  • Execution layer: Geth ~52% majority (Lido reduced Geth usage by 20% in Q2)

  • 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

• Toni Wahrstätter: 

  • Timing games economies of scale, 30% validator share can delay 0.8s longer than 5% share

  • Reorgs analysis: trending down, mostly occurring in slot following epoch transitions

• Xatu consensus layer p2p tables: libp2p gossipsub beacon attestation, beacon block & blob sidecar

• Nethermind: execution layer client performance via engine_NewPayload response times

• ePBS p2p market: allows small builders to participate in the market

Client Releases

• Consensus layer:

  • Prysm v5.1.0: bug fixes, remote signer public key persistence and experimental support for multiple beacon nodes

• Execution layer:

  • Besu v24.8.0: stack handling update & RPC service improvements

For Stakers

• Somer Esat’s staking guides updated to add Reth execution layer client

Layer 2

• Offchain Labs roadmap: Stylus, BoLD, censorship timeout, decentralized sequencer, fast withdrawals, chain clusters, multi client support, adaptive pricing and zk hybrid proving

• L2Beat optimistic rollup fraud proofs, comparing Arbitrum, Cartesi & Optimism

EIPs/Standards

• RIPs (Rollup improvement proposals):

  • RIP7759: Layer 2 transaction fees

• ERCs (application layer standards):

  • ERC7757: Instinct-based automatic transactions

  • ERC7758: Transfer with authorization (ERC3009 update)

  • ERC7760: Minimal upgradeable proxies

Stuff for developers

• Hardhat roadmap: OP Stack simulation & Solidity tests in v3, followed by portability via WASM, external EDR API, improved Solidity debugging and simulation of more L2s  

• Remix v0.53.0: generate proofs in Circom compiler plugin

• SOLX: transpile TypeScript to Solidity in Foundry tests & scripts

• web3.py v7: redesigned WebSocketProvider & new AsyncIPCProvider with subscriptions, class based middleware, batch requests and more ABI utility methods

• Brontes: analytics pipeline to identify MEV, built on Reth

• Noble-post-quantum (JavaScript): implements final FIPS 203/204/205 specs

• CTFs:

  • 5/9 Tardis: past Curta CTFs to play locally

• Scaffold-ETH 2 extensions hackathon, submit by September 2

Security

• Whale $55M phishing attack, ownership of Maker vault changed

Ecosystem

• Vitalik: fundamentals are actually crazy strong right now

• Etherscan token standard checker: check if contract is ERC20/721/1155 compliant

• Ethereum Uruguay hackathon projects

Enterprise

• Sony Block Solutions Labs (Sony joint venture) Soneium: planned OP Stack rollup 

• State Street partner with Taurus to provide digital asset products to institutional investors

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Job Listings

• Sablier are hiring a Business Development Lead and Frontend Engineer

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: 0.6 to 27.2 gwei, 1.5 gwei average; zero net issuance at 23.9 gwei 

  • 17k ETH net issuance this week

• ETHUSD: $2,565 - $2,797, currently $2,767, all time high $4,878

• ETHBTC: currently 0.043

Regulation/business/tokens

• US Treasury removed unhosted wallet rule

• Coindesk: token theater, US employees claimed geoblocked airdrops 

• Prometheum (Gensler favorite) plans to treat UNI & ARB as securities in custody service

General

• Vitalik: plurality philosophy

• 🎂 Eight year anniversary of Week in Ethereum News

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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-24-2024

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Upcoming Dates of Note

(new/changes in bold)

• Aug 29-31 – ETHAccra hackathon

• Aug 31 – Underhanded Solidity contest deadline

• Sep 2 – Scaffold-ETH 2 extensions hackathon 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

• Dec 6-8 – ETHIndia hackathon

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