Week in Ethereum News, March 12, 2022 - thanks to Starbloom Ventures for making this issue possible!
Eth News and Links
Mainnet execution layer
Execution Layer PoW switch off named Paris, site of first major community organized conference
Nethermind's full pruning, run a pruned node with ~100Gb of storage
Verkle tree single client testnet demo video
Proof of Stake consensus layer
PoS implementers call video [first 15 mins]. Notes from Ben Edgington
Latest What’s New in Eth2
Kelvin open sources unedited Eth2 Book
Nimbus v22.3.0: run as a Windows service, config file for command line options and lower CPU, bandwidth & memory usage
Lodestar v0.34.1: make block proposing flow resilient to errors
Lighthouse task list before PoW can be switched off
Prysm quality approach: static analysis checks, unit & fuzz tests, common spec tests and code review; recommends trying a minority client for Kiln
Wagyu Key Gen v1.2.0: supports generating keys for Kiln & Kintsugi testnets
Paper on PoS fork choice attacks results in spec patch for an edge case in an equivocation balancing attack; protocol not vulnerable to avalanche attack
PoW switch off
Kiln testnet launched, transitions to PoS next week.
Help test PoW switch off, the biggest change in Ethereum’s history
Get Kiln Ether, deploy contracts and send transactions
The amount of testing impacts when PoW switch off is ready
Guide to run Geth+Teku, Geth+Lighthouse, Geth/Nethermind+Lodestar or Geth+Prysm
Kiln v2.1 spec: optimistically import any post-merge block, add QoS for transition config endpoint and clarifications of Engine API spec
Validator withdrawals meta-spec proposal using a push architecture
merge-devnet-5 transitioned & switched off PoW, no issues found testing with zombie miners
EIPs/Standards
EIP4881: Deposit Contract Snapshot Interface
EIP4885: Subscription Token Standard for NFTs and Multi Tokens
EIP4886: Proxy Ownership Register
EIP4895: Beacon chain push withdrawals as operations
Layer2
Arbitrum gas pricing change adds momentum and targets 80% full so gas price changes faster but more gently
DefersiFi adds bridge to Arbitrum
Argent zkSync mobile wallet out of beta
Argent X (StarkNet) v3: migrate assets such as briqs from v2
StarkNet’s proposed account abstraction design
Optimism’s proposed Cannon fault proof; Norswap’s Cannon explainer
Optimism multi-client plan to decentralize & remove upgrade keys
Vitalik’s explainer of the tradeoffs between EIP 4488 (simple calldata gas reduction) and EIP4844 (new data blob transaction type) to drastically lower transaction costs for rollups
This newsletter is made possible thanks to Starbloom Ventures!
Starbloom Ventures is an early-stage venture fund founded by Evan Van Ness to invest in the future of web3.
Our first publicly announced investment is Karma, which is building an on-chain reputation system for web3 participants. Check out the reputation leaderboards for ENS and Gitcoin delegates.
Stuff for developers
Hardhat for VS Code extension: Solidity code completion, code navigation, formatting and quick fix suggestions; public beta
ethers.js update & v5.6.0: adds CCIP Read for ENS resolvers, ENS wildcard and Cloudflare Worker support
WalletConnect v1.7.4: fix event listener registration
Multicall3: aggregate results of multiple constant function calls
PRBProxy v2.0.0 (multiple calls in one transaction): improved gas efficiency
Chainalysis oracle for sanctions screening in Solidity and JavaScript
Solwaifu: bytecode ERC20 for minimal gas use, unaudited
Ethsig-rs: Cloudflare worker enables Sign In With Ethereum for services
Run a local version of StarkNet Voyager block explorer
web3-starknet-react: inspired by web3-react
Damn Vulnerable DeFi (CTF) Foundry version
evm-puzzles: interactive version, improved bytecode display and evm.codes playground links
EVM golf challenges by the Ethernaut
NFT randomness: algorithms & techniques for less predictable minting
Contract memory explainer
DevPill.me: blockchain development guide
Security
Bacon Protocol $1 million reentrancy exploit, bug was found in patch
The Idols Marketplace vulnerability, rescued ~58 ETH & NFTs that were at risk, reported by samczsun
EF vulnerability disclosures for execution & consensus layer clients
Optimism self destruct inflation postmortem
Ecosystem
10 million ETH in staking deposit contract
Wen Merge? Superphiz predicts June
Etherscan labels Gnosis Safe contracts created by proxy factory
Enterprise
Stripe adds crypto support: on/off ramps, KYC & identity verification, fraud prevention and carbon offsetting
Application layer
Yuga Labs (BAYC) acquires CryptoPunks & Meebits, plans to give NFT holders commercial rights
Gem (NFT marketplace aggregator) integrates LooksRare
Quixotic (Optimism) & Stratos (Arbitrum) NFT Launchpad, no-code NFTs for free to mint projects
Andre Cronje terminating front ends April 3; Yearn unaffected
DefiSaver’s automated MakerDAO vault payback to avoid liquidation for mStable, Rari and Yearn yield farming strategies
Job Listings
Status is hiring! Communications Director & Creative Strategist. All jobs
Devcon needs a front-end web developer
EF’s Privacy & Scaling Explorations team seek a ZKP Security Engineer, L2 Security Engineer and a Marketing Ops Manager
eVerse is hiring a lead blockchain engineer for its social video platform
Mark Cuban seeks a web3 front-end developer. Send a work sample to apply.
Nomic Foundation hiring Rust Tech Lead & Ethereum Tech Lead
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
US President Biden’s crypto executive order: asks Treasury to make policy recommendations, mitigate systemic & illicit use risks, promote US leadership, equitable & safe access and explore CBDC
US FINCEN: large scale sanctions evasion using crypto not practicable
UK FCA orders shutdown of crypto ATMs as none are registered
Ormeus Coin promoters charged with fraudulent securities offerings
EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus & Jet-Coin owners/operators charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering
Analysis of DEX aggregators
General
Twitter available via Tor
The Verge: The many escapes of Justin Sun
Vitalik: barycentric evaluation tutorial
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-march-12-2022
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
Mar 11-20 – Ethereum Rio
Mar 15 – deadline for ETH University student project grants
Mar 15 – Cryptocurrency Class starts (virtual)
Mar 16 – submission deadline for Underhanded Solidity Contest
Mar 17-18 – ETH Austin summit
Mar 24 – Gitcoin Grants Round 13 ends (support Week in Eth News)
Mar 29-31 – ETHDubai
Apr 7-9 – ETH Portland hackathon
Apr 18-25 – Devconnect (Amsterdam)
Apr 22 – deadline for EF academic grants round
Apr 22-24 – ETHAmsterdam
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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