Week in Ethereum News, December 16, 2023
Eth News and Links
Dencun (Cancun + Deneb) upgrade (meta EIP7569)
Latest all core devs – consensus (ACDC) call video. Notes from Christine Kim:
Devnet-12: Prysm joined, MEV-Boost being tested
Goerli shadow fork 1: syncing started
Discussions on SSE block event for block propagation times, slashable message propagation and GossipSub IDONTWANT control message
Dencun interop testing call video
Tim Beiko’s core devs update: Dencun upgrade EIPs, EIP process changes and Prague/Electra planning
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 31.98% is far too close to 33.3% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
Execution layer: Geth ~84% supermajority, could possibly cause a chain split
Consensus layer: Prysm 41% & Lighthouse 34%, any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe
Layer 1
Yoav: ERC4337 (account abstraction) vs EIP3074 (execution abstraction)
Vitalik: enshrined zkEVMs at Layer 1, tradeoffs and design challenges
Ethernets.io (node crawler): ~17k nodes found, 60% not accepting connections
Monitoreth.io (consensus layer dashboard) updated with ISP & staking entities distribution
For Stakers
EthStaker: DVT home staker program, pilot reimbursing hardware costs of new stakers
Client releases
Consensus layer:
Lodestar v1.12.1: patch for v1.12 block root errors (post-mortem)
Teku v23.12.0: adds checkpoint-sync-url option and performance improvements
Execution layer
Nethermind v1.24.0: not downgradable, improvements to headers database
Research
Timing games: cost of artificial latency in PBS
Layer 2
Arbitrum One sequencer & feed stalled during surge in traffic
90% of transactions were inscriptions
RollCall (L2 standards) call video: discussed RIP7212 (secp256r1 precompile), RIP7560 (native account abstraction) and EIP3074 (AUTH & AUTHCALL)
EIPs/Standards
EIPs:
Meta EIP7577: Versioning scheme for EIPs
RIPs (Rollup Improvement Proposals):
RIP7212: Precompile for secp256r1 Curve Support (moved from EIPs)
ERCs (application layer):
Stuff for developers
Foundry:
Forge-std v1.7.4: adds Balance, Extcodesize, Extcodehash, Extcodecopy as account access kinds and new cheat codes to delete snapshots
Polygon deployment & upgrade libraries (JavaScript), Forge Chronicles (creates JSON & markdown deployment log), Storage Delta (compares storage layouts) & Deployer Kit (generate deployer contracts for upgradeable contracts), beta
Create an AMM in Vyper using Ape (Python contract dev framework)
Code MASTER: create AST mutators
EVMole v0.2.0 (function selector extractor): adds extracting function arguments
Ponder (dapp backend framework): index events, generate GraphQL API, local dev server with hot reloading, implemented in TypeScript
FUZD: commit/reveal system, executes delayed transactions decrypted at execution time, alpha
OpenZeppelin Defender v2, public beta, new modules: Code (analysis of PRs), Audit (track issues & resolutions), Deploy, Monitor, Incident Response, Actions & Access Control
Security
Ledger Connect Kit library supply chain attack, drainer injected into dapps
OKX DEX $370k exploit, deprecated contract compromised
Hypr bridge exploit, contract reinitialized, built on fork of OP Stack develop branch
Cyfrin Updraft security & auditing course (22 hours)
Ecosystem
ETHIndia hackathon finalists
Onchain stats
Gas fees (via ultrasound.money): 16.9 to 346.6 gwei, with 41.7 gwei average
Zero net issuance currently at 21.9 gwei
15k ETH net burn this week
ETHUSD: $2,161 - $2,385, currently $2,223
ETHBTC: currently 0.053 (Flippening at ~0.16)
Notable at app layer
ENS root being transferred to the ENS DAO
Coinbase wallet buy/send USDC for free on Layer 2
Synthetix ends SNX inflation
Job Listings
Senior Operations Security Expert wanted by EF
ZK circuits engineer sought by EF Privacy & Scaling Explorations team
Job listings: $600 for four issues (75 character limit). Pay using 3cities. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
SEC denied Coinbase’s petition for crypto rules; SEC Republican members disagree
Tether freezing wallets on OFACs list
KuCoin settlement with New York: cease operations in the state, refund users & $5.3M penalty
Four people charged for laundering proceeds from “pig butchering” crypto investment scams
Coinbase International Exchange spot ETH-USDC for non-US institutional clients
General
S&P Global Ratings stablecoin stability assessment
BIS tighten stablecoin criteria in 2022 proposal that banks can hold up to 2% in crypto
Twitter XSS vulnerability: attackers could have taken over accounts
Arecibo: implementation of SuperNova
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Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-december-16-2023
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Jan 15 – EF’s Next Billion fellowship cohort 4 deadline
Feb 2-4 – ETH Cinco de Mayo hackathon (Cholula, Puebla)
Feb 3 – Ethereum Lima Day
Feb 23-Mar 3 – ETHDenver BUIDLWeek & hackathon
Mar 13-14 – ETHLatam (San Pedro Sula, Honduras)
Mar 15-17 – ETHGlobal London
Mar 19-21 – ETH Canal (Panama City, Panamá) conference & hackathon
Mar 21-24 – ETHTaipei conference & hackathon
Mar 27-30 – ETH Bucharest hackathon & conference
Mar 29-31 – ETH Seoul
Apr 5-26 – ETHGlobal Scaling Ethereum (virtual)
Apr 5-7 – EthereumZuri.ch conference & hackathon
May 3-5 – ETHGlobal Sydney
May 21-23 – DappCon (Berlin)
May 24-26 – ETHBerlin
May 31-Jun 2 – ETHPrague conference & hackathon
Jul 8-11 – EthCC (Brussels)
Jul 12-14 – ETHGlobal Brussels
Aug 23-Sep 13 – ETHGlobal ETHOnline (virtual)
Sep 20-22 – ETHGlobal Singapore
Oct 18-20 – ETHGlobal San Francisco
Nov – ETHGlobal DevCon
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