Week in Ethereum News, December 21, 2024
Eth News and Links
Eth R&D protocol call (All Core Devs)
Execution layer focused protocol call (ACDE #202):
Pectra upgrade:
Launch when enough clients are ready, testing locally with Teku & Besu
EIP7840 blob schedule in EL config: added to devnet
EIP7702: chain id changed to u256
EIP2537 BLS precompile: gas repricing finalized & redundant MUL precompiles removed
System contracts: audited, recommended minor changes for EIP2935, audits to be shared in January
History expiry: discussed need for eth/70 protocol to drop pre-merge data
Gossip limit: discussed decoupling gas limit & payload size
eth/69: agreed to not remove new block hashes as used by non-merged chains
EIP7808 reserve tx-type range for RIPs: approved
Resource pricing: working group starting to coordinate repricing efforts
Hardware specs: feedback wanted on commodity node hardware
Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade
Reminder: Mekong testnet live for testing (pectra-devnet-4 spec)
Client testing call #17: tested increasing gas limit to 40M & didn’t hit 10MiB gossip limit
Consensus layer specs v1.5.0-alpha.10
Layer 1
Gas limit increase:
Gas limit signaling dashboard, 20% of validators signalling to increase
Coinbase validators signaling for an increase to 36M
Data Always: role of MEV-Boost relays in reorgs
EIP7732 ePBS breakout #14: rebasing to Pectra, targeting interop for end of January
Terence: inclusion list committee selection approaches compared
Research
Post-Quantum:
Upgrade tasks for quantum resistance: bip32, transaction signing, sender address recovery, precompiles & node discovery
Upgrading to a post-quantum signature scheme such as Falcon via account abstraction, network upgrade or a hybrid
Attester-includer separation: includers (inclusion list creators) rewarded with inclusion fees and have minimal hardware/capital requirements
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 28.4%, still too close to 33.3% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
Execution layer: Geth ~43% & Nethermind ~36% (estimate based on 74% self reported data)
Consensus layer: Prysm 34%
Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe
Client Releases
Consensus layer:
Lighthouse v6.0.1: patch for minor issues in v6
Lodestar v1.24.0: adds engine_getBlobsV1 support to get blobs from execution layer and adds experimental keymanager endpoint
Prysm v5.2.0: QUIC enabled by default, adds engine_getBlobsV1 support and fix for using MEV-Boost with a gas limit increase
Teku v24.12.1: bug fixes
Execution layer:
Besu v24.12.2: hotfix for users of account state overrides in eth_call
Erigon v3.0.0-alpha7: faster eth_getTransactionReceipt and return PrunedError when reading unavailable historical data
For stakers
Ethstaker-deposit-cli v1: generate validator keys, voluntary exit and add a withdrawal address to an existing validator
EIPs/Standards
EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
EIP7843: SLOT precompile
ERCs (application layer):
Stuff for developers
Foundry:
Forge-std v1.9.5: adds get broadcast cheat codes, mock call overloads and count for expect emit/revert
Security
GemPad (launch pad) ~$2M exploit on mainnet, Base & BSC via reentrancy
Security Alliance (SEAL): LastPass users who stored private keys or seed phrases prior to 2023, funds might be at risk
Job Listings
Nethermind: Agentic Internship, Snr Engineer, Fullstack Lead & Fullstack Go
Vyper (Pythonic EVM language) seek a DevRel
Mimic: Tech Lead Engineer
Job listings: $600 for 4 issues (75 char limit). Pay using 3cities. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Onchain stats
Fees (via ultrasound.money):
Gas: 4.7 to 113.8 gwei, 15.2 gwei average; zero net issuance at 24 gwei
6.3k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $3,113 - $4,078, currently $3,458 all time high $4,878
ETHBTC: currently 0.035 (Flippening at ~0.164)
Ecosystem
Deep funding (retroactive grants for open source dependencies):
Models assign relative weights for the value that each dependency provides, spot checked by a human jury
$170k for 40k Ethereum dependencies assigned by models, $40k for best models & $40k for open source models
Etherscan adds account abstraction transactions support (ERC4337 user ops)
r/ethfinance subreddit merging with r/ethereum
Enterprise
Kraken Ink live using OP Stack
Deutsche Bank building L2 using ZKsync tech
Regulation/business/tokens
SEC:
CyberKongz received Wells notice
(Gensler favorite) Prometheum sued Matt Blumberg for defamation
General
Polygon proposal to generate yield from bridged assets abandoned after backlash
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-december-21-2024
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Jan 20 – Ethereum protocol attackathon ends
Jan 24-26 – ETH Pondy (Puducherry) hackathon
Jan 30-31 – EthereumZuri.ch conference
Feb 7-9 – ETH Oxford hackathon
Feb 10-16 – ETHiopia conference & hackathon
Feb 23 - Mar 2 – ETHDenver
Apr 2-5 – ETH Bucharest hackathon & conference
Apr 4-6 – ETHGlobal Taipei hackathon
May 9-10 – ETHBratislava conference & hackathon
May 9-11 – ETHDam (Amsterdam) conference & hackathon
May 9-11 – ETHLisbon hackathon
May 27-29 – ETHPrague conference
May 30 - Jun 1 – ETHGlobal Prague hackathon
Jun 3-8 – ETH Belgrade conference & hackathon
Jun 12-13 – Protocol Berg (Berlin) conference
Jun 16-18 – DappCon (Berlin)
Jun 26-28 – ETHCluj (Romania) conference
Jun 30 - Jul 3 – EthCC (Cannes) conference
Jul 4-6 – ETHGlobal Cannes hackathon
Jul 16-19 – NapulETH (Napoli) conference
Aug 15-17 – ETHGlobal New York hackathon
Sep 26-28 – ETHGlobal New Delhi hackathon
Nov – ETHGlobal Devconnect hackathon
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