Week in Ethereum News, February 26, 2022 - thanks to NEAR for making this issue possible!
Eth News and Links
Mainnet execution layer
Erigon v2022.02.04: optimization for getStorageAt & getBalance, auto detect latest, poke function to rebroadcast a transaction
Otterscan v2022.02.03: address page adds ETH balance & contract creation info
Besu v22.1.1: PoW switch off support; QBFT consensus algorithm is production ready for enterprise chains
Proof of Stake consensus layer
Superphiz calls out the two largest staking pools (Coinbase & Kraken) for risking their funds and the network by running over 90% supermajority validators
Coinbase to merely add Lighthouse remote signing in the future
Rocket Pool now runs 1% of validators
PoS implementers call video. Notes from Ben Edgington:
Kiln public testnet expected next week
push vs pull withdrawal designs
Discussed safe block confirmation rule (safe against reorgs)
Latest What’s New in Eth2
Mini-danksharding prototype (data blob transactions): hacked together at ETHDenver, next steps are devnets & draft EIP
Nimbus migration guide using checkpoint sync
Vouch v1.4.0 (multi-node validator) adds Nimbus support
Vitalik: data availability sampling with inner product arguments rather than KZG commitments
PoW switch off
Kiln spec v2: EIP4399 renaming, Engine API auth and heartbeat
Setup local multiclient testnets using Kurtosis; Kurtosis breakout call
Beacon chain withdrawals (will happen post-PoW switch off):
Draft EIP for withdrawals on EVM
Pull style prototype on Geth, work in progress
EIPs/Standards
EIP4841: Expandable Onchain SVG Images Storage Structure
EIP4399: Supplant DIFFICULTY opcode with PREVRANDAO
Layer2
zkSync v2.0 EVM compatible zk-rollup public testnet
Optimism reduces timestamp update interval to 15 seconds
Barnabé: rollup economics, framework for discussions on fees & economic designs
Norswap’s optimistic perspective of optimistic vs zk rollups
Polynya’s state of chains: optimistic rollups will scale faster but zk-rollups will catch up, every chain without validity, fraud & data proofs is dead
Fran (OpenZeppelin maintainer): idea for ERC20 bridge-mintable tokens
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Stuff for developers
Solidity development with Replit (web based IDE)
foundry deploy: deployment script for Foundry, work in progress
Remix beta testers wanted for v0.22 and UX research for product roadmap
Guide for Remix DGit plugin to push files to GitHub
Deploy via MetaMask using Truffle Dashboard, supports Truffle & Hardhat
Cacheable Beacon Proxy: upgradeable proxy with 100 gas overhead
Shrines: ERC20 distribution to weighted list of addresses for fixed gas cost
ETH-Hentai: library for Python of common contracts and utilities
w3: Go package, modular JSON RPC client with ABI support
Sign-In with Ethereum Ruby library (alpha) with Rails examples
Ethereum & StarkNet Data Warehouses: public beta, uses Snowflake cloud
Getting started with TrueBlocks
Dark Forest game replaced upgrade system with EIP2535 (Diamonds)
Dynamic SVG NFT: mint NFT & set SVG, prototype built with scaffold-eth
ethernaut-x-foundry: Ethernaut CTF run locally with Foundry
Security
Polygon PoS consensus bypass vulnerability, required open validator spot with high capital costs, $75k bounty paid
Harry Denley: malicious tokens can abuse events for display on block explorers
NFT phishing attack targeted OpenSea users
Ecosystem
Laura Shin book: The Cryptopians, inside look at the founding of Ethereum, names likely hacker of The DAO
Ethereum Foundation grantees in Japan: zkCREAM, Ryodan, Startrail, w3aio & Famiee
ETHDenver hackathon submissions
Application layer
Yearn live on Arbitrum
Hegic HardCore (options) beta live on Arbitrum
Ooki (margin trading) live on Arbitrum
Request Finance (invoicing & payroll) adds Arbitrum support
Moloch v3 (Baal)
DAOhaus v3 early preview
MakerDAO discussion against burning Maker in favor of growth
Sound Song Splits: artists define collaborator splits when minting tracks
Isotile (NFT metaverse) adds support for NFTs on Arbitrum
Job Listings
EF research hiring Networking Engineer
Nomic Foundation hiring Rust Tech Lead & Ethereum Tech Lead
Roles at Gnosis Sr DevRel Eng. Sr Production/Reliability Eng. DevOps Eng.
Kwenta seeks Frontend Engineer, Solidity Engineer & Marketing Lead
Internship program with Nethermind (1-3 month)
Senior Technical Writer to take ownership & completely redo the Geth docs
Reach developers experienced with Ethereum. $600 for four issues (~75 character limit), payable in ETH/DAI/USDC to abcoathup.eth on mainnet, Arbitrum or Optimism. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
Flexpool halting services in Russia
Ontario Securities Commission (Canada) contacted police over tweets from Coinbase & Kraken CEOs advocating non-custodial wallets
BitMex founders plead guilty in exchange for each paying $10 million fine
General
Coinbase vulnerability disclosed, API allowed trade submission with mismatched source account, $250k bounty paid to Tree of Alpha
Samsung Galaxy phones keystore design found vulnerable to downgrade attack & IV reuse
Remote access via a browser is attack vector to steal credentials & bypass 2FA
Short-lived non-interactive zk proofs
Follow @WeekinEthNews to find out what the most clicked links are. Follow @evan_van_ness and @abcoathup to get most of the week’s news in real time.
Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-february-26-2022
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
Mar 9-24 – Gitcoin Grants Round 13
Mar 11-20 – Ethereum Rio
Mar 15 – Cryptocurrency Class starts (virtual)
Mar 16 – submission deadline for Underhanded Solidity Contest
Mar 17-18 – ETH Austin summit
Mar 29-31 – ETHDubai
Apr 7-9 – ETH Portland hackathon
Apr 18-25 – Devconnect (Amsterdam)
Apr 22-24 – ETHAmsterdam
May 3-8 – spaghettETH (Milan)
May 20 – US Fed CBDC discussion paper feedback deadline
Jun 10-12 – ETHPrague
Jun 20-23 – NFT.NYC
Jun 24-26 – ETHNewYork
Jul 8 – ETH Seattle summit
Jul 19-21 – EthCC 5 (Paris)
Aug 19-21 – ETHMexicoCity
Aug 27-28 – DeFi Security Summit (Stanford)
Aug 29-31 – Science of Blockchain Conference (Stanford)
Sep 12-14 – DappCon (Berlin)
Oct 11-14 – Devcon 6 (Bogotá)
Nov 4-6 – ETHSanFrancisco
Dec 2-4 – ETHTaipei
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