Week in ETH News, December 6, 2020 - this issue made possible by Matcha from 0x!

🚀 Proof of stake successfully launches

Eth News and Links

Eth1

• Leading game theorist Tim Roughgarden publishes his positive analysis of 1559

• Latest eip1559 implementation call. Beiko’s notes, with a path to mainnet

• A code merkleization explainer

Proof of Stake launches successfully

• The Beacon chain launched, with the first block graffiti reading “Mr F was here” (beaconscan, beaconchain) and the network participation rate quickly reaching an astonishing 98-99% (beaconchain, beaconscan)

• Meanwhile the deposit contract is over 1m ETH, so now more than 1% of all ETH is locked for staking. That number is only going to go up, right now that puts annual staking rewards at 14.6%. That means the network is continually increasing its decentralization

• There have been 3 slashing events, all by stakers (and a pool known as Ankr) running their keys on multiple machines. This was already a known bad idea! Slashing is bad, going offline is very insignificant in comparison

• Before genesis, Prysmatic published slashing prevention tips. It emphasized that you should never run your key in multiple places.

• Pre-launch what’s new in eth2

• Superphiz: hold off on staking with trusted pools/exchanges

Proof of Stake plans

• Latest eth2 call. Notes from Ben and Mamy

• Shift computing costs from end of epoch to mid-epoch

Layer2

• Loopring’s AMM is live on their zkrollup (though limited to LRC/ETH for now)

• Golem’s latest release uses Zksync zkrollup for transfers

• Deversifi’s validium (off-chain data held by committee) upgrades to StarkEx v2 which includes fast withdrawals and a Turing-complete STARK proof language, though non-conformant ERC20 tokens (OMG, USDT) won’t work for another month

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Stuff for developers

• Solidity Underhanded Contest winners

• Exploring eth2 attestation rates with chaind

• 4byte.directory now has event signatures

• Video from latest dev onboarding call

• Infura buys anysender and releases it as Infura transactions (relayer that auto-bumps gasprice) on testnet

• “Decentralized Github” Radicle’s first public release

• A (non-audited) package of code for using different oracles

• RicMoo’s ethersJS update; eip712, React native testing

Security and incidents

• Ethernaut updated to Solidity v0.6 and web3js v1.2.7

• Rari had a logic error leading to an overflow; fixed and no funds lost

• Saffron had a bug where SFI got locked for 8 weeks

• 15k hacked from Sushiswap

• CP3R rug pulls for $11m

Ecosystem

• Vitalik updates his version of Ethereum’s roadmap with progress bars

• Johoe’s “mempool statistics” now includes the Ethereum transaction pool

• Ethereum passes Bitcoin in node count

Enterprise

• Visa partners with Circle to help card issuers integrate USDC so you can spend USDC with your card

• Baseline as a service demo day on Dec 10

• Layer2 knocks down barriers for enterprise to use mainnet

Application layer

• Aave v2 is live. Native credit delegation, gas optimizations, swap collateral, fixed and variable rate borrowing

• Nexus Mutual unveils cover for some centralized custodians

• 1inch now submits your transactions directly to miners to avoid some frontrunners

• this week’s yearn m&a: Sushi and Akropolis

• Paradigm’s Uniswap problems: liquidity providers can beat impermanent loss

• A gas futures token launches on UMA so you can hedge gasprices going up

Regulation/business/tokens

• Messari report: Eth2 is the evolution of the cryptoeconomy

• Canada’s Ether Cap becomes first public company to stake ETH

• S&P to issue Dow Jones branded crypto indexes next year

• A fund buys OmiseGo from Omise/Synqa

• Congressional Democrats all-in against crypto this week: 1) left-wingers propose STABLE Act regulations against stablecoins and running a node. 2) House Banking Committee chair Maxine Waters asks Biden to repeal OCC’s crypto-friendly rules

General

• MyCrypto Winter returns; an advent calendar with security tips (and prizes!)

• Shapeshift’s FoxCrypt: one time message encyption

• Phone apps sell your location data to everyone

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Job Listings

• Circle is hiring! Please check us out: https://www.circle.com/en/careers

• Linum Labs is hiring a CTO & a Fullstack developer (Remote)

• 0x looking for devs of all types and a Matcha marketing manager

• Expand Chainlink Labs’ presence as the Head of Sales

• Trail of Bits is hiring blockchain security devs & cryptography analyst

Want your job listing here? $250 per line (~75 character limit including spaces), payable in ETH (or 250 DAI or 250 USDC) to evan.ethereum.eth. Questions? thecryptonewspodcast at-gmail

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Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

• Dec 17 - Gitcoin grants matching ends (here’s Week in Eth News)

• Dec 22 - Deadline to apply for proof of stake community grants

• Feb 5-12 - ETHDenver (virtual)

• Mar 2-4 - EthCC4 (Paris)

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