Week in Ethereum News, May 7, 2022 - thanks to Starbloom Ventures for making this issue possible!
Eth News and Links
PoW switch off (the Merge)
Tim Beiko’s core devs update on final tasks before the Merge:
a few mainnet shadow forks without issues
clients passing test suites
smooth upgrades on public testnets
Mainnet shadow fork 3 had no major issues
Mainnet shadow fork 4 planned for May 12
Resource list for the Merge
Merge testing leaderboard
Mainnet execution layer
Difficulty bomb starting to show
Erigon v2020.05.02-alpha: improve snapshot download speed, reduce database size by ~120Gb after initial sync
Nethermind v1.12.8: reduce CPU usage & sync time when syncing receipts and optimize transaction execution
Besu v22.4.0: snapsync fix
EIP4444 (limit historical data) next steps: continue work on prototype, demo post-merge
Proof of Stake consensus layer
PoS implementers call video. Notes from Ben Edgington & Christine Kim:
mainnet shadow fork 3 bug free, with a mere config issue
testnet beacon chains to be spun up for Ropsten (permissionless) & Sepolia (permissioned) before end of May to test the Merge
IPv6 discussion
Latest What’s New in Eth2
Lodestar v0.35.0: support consensus-spec v1.1.10 and keymanager API
Prysm v2.1.1: fixes for regressions found in previous version
EIPs/Standards
Discussion on splitting ERCs from EIPs
EIP5075: rateLimit - An outflow limiter for assets
EIP5069: EIP editor apprentice handbook
EIP5065: Instruction for transferring ether
EIP5058: Lockable ERC721
EIP5050: Token interaction
Layer2
Raiden live on Arbitrum
Optimistic rollup price differences due to data compression
Kelvin: potential future hybrid ZK/Optimistic rollup
Polynya: disaggregated blockchain layers
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What’s missing in DAOs? Informed delegates. Why not integrate Karma's credit scores to help your token holders make better choices on who to delegate to.
Stuff for developers
Foundry Anvil: local testnet node, written in Rust, drop-in replacement for ganache-cli or hardhat node
Foundry shorthand for cast and forge commands
MockProvider v2: updated Solidity mocking library, supports Foundry
API3 QRNG: quantum random number oracle on mainnet, Arbitrum & Optimism
Using EIP2535 (Diamonds) with an upgradeable proxy
Twitter profile pic support for on-chain SVG NFTs using accessories
MATT auction: variable-edition NFT auction, uses one transaction; draft
ETK (EVM bytecode assembler & disassembler) v0.2.1: user defined macros, function selector database
Web3.py v5.29.0: external module support
MEV Inspect: JavaScript port of mev-inspect-py
RainbowKit: wallet connection/management library, uses wagmi React hooks
Hardhat-deploy: zkSync deployment support
OpenZeppelin Defender: Optimism support, API to create & manage Relayers and Frame wallet support
OpenSea Stream API: receive marketplace events via websockets; beta
Security
Rari’s Fuse pools $80 million exploit on mainnet & Arbitrum due to missing reentrancy check in exitMarket function
Saddle Finance $10.2 million exploit due to old version of library, $3.97 million rescued by BlockSec
NEAR Rainbow bridge unsuccessfully attacked, watchdog detected attack & created a challenge transaction
Aave v3 price oracle manipulation vulnerability, fallback oracle missing access controls for set asset price, $2.9 billion across Layer 2s was at risk
Multi-block MEV: potential for TWAP oracle manipulation post-Merge
Ecosystem
Tim Beiko’s Ethereum sustainability todos: data availability layer for rollups, Proposer/Builder separation and stateless
CoinDesk: EIP & ERC explainer
Etherscan adds account transaction heatmap
MEV Supply Chain: avoid centralized block building
Application layer
Yuga Labs Otherdeed mint: 55k ETH burnt, gas fees spiked over 5k gwei
Hop DAO: governance token airdrop, 25% bounty for Sybil reports, Sybil attackers encouraged to self report
Uniswap v3 liquidity for ETH/USD deeper than centralized exchanges
Kwenta next price orders live (executes order at the next price update)
ENS one million names created
Job Listings
Status are hiring engineers who focus on incentive design
Vac @ status are looking for protocol engineers
Ethereum Foundation need a People Operations Lead
Status Waku is hiring: TypeScript Protocol/Software Engineer & DevRel
EF’s Privacy & Scaling Explorations team: Web3 Engineer
Ethereum Foundation seek a generalist ecosystem developer
EF Ecosystem Support team: Communications, Analyst & Admin Assistant
Trail of Bits Security Apprenticeship (3 months)
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 SEC doubles the headcount of crypto enforcement unit
BitMEX co-founders to pay $10 million each to settle US CFTC civil case
Yuga Labs Otherside licenses: no commercial rights in Otherdeeds, restricted rights in Kodas which are revocable
Guide to land value tax for virtual worlds & games to avoid speculators
Simon de la Rouviere: Time-As-Platform
Crypto network effects: Sarnoff’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law
General
Yao's Garbled Circuits explainer
Remco: BLS Signatures
0xPARC: zk-ECDSA implementation details
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-may-7-2022
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
May 8 – deadline for EF academic grants round
May 17-20 – EY Global blockchain summit
May 20 – US Fed CBDC discussion paper feedback deadline
Jun 10 – Austin DeFi summit
Jun 10-12 – ETHPrague
Jun 20-23 – NFT.NYC
Jun 24-26 – ETH NYC
Jul 6-8 – ETHBarcelona
Jul 8 – ETH Seattle summit
Jul 19-21 – EthCC 5 (Paris)
Aug 5-7 – ETH Seoul
Aug 18-19 – Ethereum SP (São Paulo)
Aug 19-21 – ETHMexicoCity
Aug 27-28 – DeFi Security Summit (Stanford)
Aug 28 – DeFi San Francisco summit
Aug 29-31 – Science of Blockchain Conference (Stanford)
Sep 1-4 – ETHWarsaw (hackathon & conference)
Sep 6-9 – MCON 2 (Denver)
Sep 12-14 – DappCon (Berlin)
Oct 11-14 – Devcon 6 (Bogotá)
Nov 4-6 – ETHSanFrancisco
Dec 1-4 – ETHDownUnder (Sydney)
Dec 2-4 – ETHTaipei
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Week in Ethereum News, May 7, 2022 - thanks to Starbloom Ventures for making this issue possible!
Love the newsletter! Slight misentry- Besu is an EL client.