Week in Ethereum News, September 16, 2023
Eth News and Links
Dencun (Cancun + Deneb) upgrade
Latest all core devs – execution (ACDE) call video. Recap by Tim Beiko. Notes from Tim Beiko and Christine Kim:
Testing continues on devnet-8 and MEV-Boost workflows on kurtosis
Max epoch churn limit (EIP7514) added to Dencun, the maximum new stakers per epoch will be set to 8;
Dankrad: EIP7514 gives time to deal with economic/tech consequences of Lido attackBLOBBASEFEE opcode (EIP7516) for L2 fee calculations added to Dencun
EIP4788 (beacon block root in EVM) being updated with changes from audits
Devnet-9 to include EIP7514, EIP7516 & EIP4788 changes, ACDC to set launch date
Reth intro: EL client in Rust, hoping to join devnet-9
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 32.3% has reduced slightly but still very close to breaching risky 33% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
Execution layer: Geth supermajority, could possibly cause a chain split
Consensus layer: Prysm over 33%, a bug could mean loss of finality
Need more geographic diversity for both stakers and nodes, particularly outside of US/Can/EU
Layer 1
Epoch churn limit increased from 11 to 12 (EIP7514 in Dencun sets to 8 for deposits)
MEV-build-rs alpha: MEV-Boost builder in Rust, extends Reth (EL client)
For Stakers
Lodestar incentive program results, 86 validators to share $25k
Geth node running on NanoPC-T6 ($129 board), synced in 13 hours
Secure-signer (alpha): remote-signing inside hardware enclave
Tor Push: proof of concept for validator privacy, push messages into gossipsub via Tor
Client releases
Consensus layer:
Nimbus v23.9.0: Holešky testnet support and simplified config for remote signers
Execution layer:
Geth v1.13.0: pruning reimplemented using path based storage (needs a resync)
Research
Streamlining fast finality: single proposal and voting phase per slot using strong confirmation
Two-tiered staking: native liquid staking design
EIPs/Standards
EIPs
EIP7516: BLOBBASEFEE opcode
ERCs (application layer):
Stuff for developers
Holešky testnet didn’t launch due to misconfiguration, relaunch expected in two weeks
Hardhat v2.17.3: default EVM set to Paris for solc v0.8.20+ (for L2s that don’t support Shanghai)
Invariant check in modifier skipped if an assembly block directly returns
Overview of minimal proxies: ERC1167 variants and Clones with immutable arguments
ERC4626 conformance: 20% of vaults don’t conform
MinimalAccount (ERC4337): gas-optimized implementation in Huff for benchmarking
ERC deployments: Dune dashboard showing number of deployments for common ERCs
Huff-stack-generator: generate stack comments
Geas (Good Ethereum Assembler): macro assembler for the EVM
Slitherin (custom Slither detectors) v0.3: adds arbitrary call detector
Vyper compiler audit competition
CTFs:
ONLYPWNER: CTF platform with 9 challenges
Curta CTF Murder Mystery writeup and a solution
Secureum RACE #21: 8 question Solidity quiz & answers
Paradigm’s Rust x Ethereum slides & videos: Reth, Foundry, Alloy, Ruint and wagmi/viem & Rivet
ZK Face ID wallet (ERC4337) demo, uses WebAuthn and Halo2 proof
Security
Balancer postmortem of two Linear Pools vulnerabilities: $1M bounty paid for first vulnerability and second vulnerability exploited for $1.2M on mainnet & Optimism
Browsing for bugs: finding a Premia vulnerability with $3M at risk, fixed with bounty paid
Ecosystem
1 year mergeversary 🐼, supply reduced by 300k ETH
MEV-Boost: first year of out-of-protocol PBS
ETHAccra hackathon projects
Onchain stats
Gas fees (via ultrasound.money): 7 to 411 gwei, with 15.6 gwei average
Negative issuance currently at 20.6 gwei
3.9k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $1,541 - 1,653, currently $1642
ETHBTC: currently 0.0616 (Flippening at ~0.16)
Notable at app layer
MetaMask Snaps beta: wallet plugins for transaction security, chat & non-EVM networks
Uniswap UI auto detects fee on transfer tokens
Gaslite: airdrop ETH, ERC20 & ERC721 tokens, including ETH to Friend Tech key holders
Optimism directly distributing unclaimed OP for Airdrop 1
Job Listings
EF Privacy & Scaling Explorations team seek a Technical Project Coordinator
Senior Operations Security Expert wanted by EF
Job listings: $600 for four issues (75 character limit). Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
SEC claims Stoner Cats NFTs are securities: $1 million fine, return sale proceeds & destroy NFTs held by the team
Unanimous Republican dissent from Commissioners Peirce & Uyeda
Jonathan Mann’s this song is a security NFT sold for 6 ETH
DeFi Education Fund attempts to cancel a US patent claiming to invent oracles
Three PayPal dollars: centralized, crypto & savings, with crypto offering better protections than centralized but savings offers deposit insurance & interest
FTX allowed to sell its crypto assets
General
Remove your phone number from Twitter (X) to prevent account recovery by sim swap
Pink Drainer targets users with most profitable attack: Seaport bulk listing signature, setApprovalForAll, upgradeTo, transfer ETH and transferPunk
ZachXBT refund for legal fee donations
Centralized exchange hot wallet thefts: $54M from CoinEx & $2.7M from Remitano
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Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-september-16-2023
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Sep 18-24 – ETHSafari (Kilifi Kenya)
Sep 21–24 – Pragma & ETHGlobal New York
Oct 5-6 – ETHMilan conference
Oct 6-27 – ETHOnline (ETHGlobal) virtual
Oct 6-8 – ETHRome hackathon
Oct 13-15 – Ethereum Kuala Lumpur conference & hackathon
Oct 21 – Ethereum México
Oct 22-24 – ETH Hong Kong
Oct 27-29 – ETH London hackathon
Oct 27-29 – ETH Miami festival & hackathon
Oct 27-29 – ETH Vietnam
Oct 28-30 – Paradigm CTF
Oct 31 – Road to Devcon grants deadline (max $1k for local meetups)
Nov 3-5 – ETHBrno
Nov 3-5 – ETH Lisbon hackathon
Nov 13-19 – Devconnect (Istanbul)
Nov 16-19 – Pragma & ETHGlobal Istanbul
Dec 4-5 – ETHVenice
Dec 8-10 – ETHGlobal ETHIndia (Bangalore)
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