Week in Ethereum News, September 23, 2023 - check out web3 Builders Podcast
Eth News and Links
Dencun (Cancun + Deneb) upgrade
Latest all core devs – consensus (ACDC) call video. Notes from Christine Kim:
Devnet-9 planned for September 27, will include KZG ceremony values if ready
Public testnet upgrade order changed: Goerli to be first as it’s deprecated, allows testing 3/6 (target/max) EIP4844 blobs, ideally before Devconnect
Dencun testing call video. Notes from Terence
Consensus-specs v1.4.0-beta.2: adds EIP7514 (max churn limit) and fork-choice rule proposer boost adjustment
Prague + Electra upgrade
Terence: Electra focus should be improving consensus layer stability, inclusion list, increasing max effective balance (EIP7251) and improving fork choice
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 32.23% still far too close to risky 33.3% 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
ERC4337 (account abstraction) meeting notes
State of verifying p256 curve onchain
Guide to adding a precompile into Revm (and Reth), example adds P256VERIFY
MEV-Boost integrated builders dominate CEX/DEX arbitrage due to advantages from latency
For Stakers
Using retirement funds (IRA in US) to fund solo staking
Client releases
Execution layer:
Research
EF Cryptographers: VDFs are dead…for now?
Single Secret Leader Election (SSLE): addressing Whisk bootstrapping problem using the target group and XTR & CEILIDH
Mike Neuder: ePBS in-protocol designs, out-of-protocol proposals and open questions
Private PEPC-DVT using BLS blinded multi-signatures
Layer 2
Pessimism by Base: monitoring system for OP Stack
Canto and Palm plan migrations to zk rollups using Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK)
Optimism RetroPGF Round 3 applications are open, 30 million OP will be distributed
EIPs/Standards
EIPs
ERCs (application layer):
Lido is a systemic threat to ETH: interview with Danny Ryan
Lido is a systemic threat to Ethereum. You won't want to miss this episode with Danny Ryan. (Watch on YouTube)
Danny also covers the death of VDFs, EIP7514 (max epoch churn limit) and EIP7251 (increase max effective balance).
Stuff for developers
Holešky testnet genesis rescheduled for September 28
Truffle & Ganache are being sunset, devs can migrate to Hardhat
Foundry:
Rivet (developer wallet) adds log & calldata decoding
Tstore-template: Foundry template with custom solc binaries that support transient storage opcodes in inline assembly
Emily: Solidity library for credible commitments
Speed Run Ethereum updated to Scaffold-ETH-2, can use Hardhat or Foundry
Alchemy University Learn Solidity: 11 browser based lessons
OP Viem: viem extension for OP Stack networks
TLSNotary (alpha release) enables privacy-preserving data provenance & portability
Security
Balancer frontend attacked via social engineering of .fi domain registrar
Proposed onchain representation for audits (ERC7512)
Ecosystem
Rainbow browser extension: includes watch mode with impersonation
Patrick McCorry: enablement of MEV and morality of extracting
ETHChicago hackathon projects
Enterprise
PayPal USD stablecoin available on Venmo
Onchain stats
Gas fees (via ultrasound.money): 6.3 to 329.3 gwei, with 12.9 gwei average
Negative issuance currently at 20.7 gwei
6k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $1,577 - $1,666, currently $1595
ETHBTC: currently 0.06 (Flippening at ~0.16)
Notable at app layer
Cacti-chat (web3 chatbot) live, beta
Anon Aadhaar: anonymously prove Aadhaar (Indian) identity
DeFiSaver automates using Liquity to earn Maker DSR interest
GammaSwap: onchain options of Sushi pools, live on Arbitrum. Market makers can hedge AMM LP positions
Vampire attacking CEX: Infinex to allow traders to earn an airdrop from derivative CEX trading history
Optimism Airdrop 3 directly distributed to users who delegated
Job Listings
Senior Operations Security Expert wanted by EF
EF Privacy & Scaling Explorations team seek a Technical Project Coordinator
Logos Nomos is hiring a Distributed Systems Applied Researcher
Job listings: $600 for four issues (75 character limit). Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
Coinbase campaign to get the 52 million Americans owning crypto to ask Congress to pass clear & sensible legislation
FTX sues SBF’s parents to recover alleged fraudulently transferred & misappropriated funds
General
Virgil Griffith moved prisons, new address to write to him
Nansen data breach via a vendor, some email addresses, password hashes and blockchain addresses exposed
More Apple zero-days, update your devices
Revisiting hardware acceleration for zk proofs
Follow @WeekinEthNews to find out what the most clicked links are. Follow @abcoathup and @evan_van_ness to get most of the week’s news in real time.
Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-september-23-2023
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Sep 28 – Holešky testnet genesis (rescheduled)
Sep 28 - Oct 3 – Huffathon challenges & hackathon (virtual)
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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