Week in Ethereum News, September 25, 2021 - thanks to GridPlus for making this issue possible!
Eth News and Links
Mainnet execution layer
December upgrade proposed as difficulty bomb delay only, named Arrow Glacier
Erigon v2021.09.04: reimplements transaction pool as separable (separate process/computer and multiple processes for one node)
Nethermind v1.11.3: performance optimization in JSON-RPC and transactions broadcasting
EIPs/Standards
Proof of stake consensus layer
If beacon chain consensus fails, stakers run the risk of incurring large penalties (~%75 of their balance) if they use a majority client/cloud provider/staking service and won’t be bailed out!
Client diversity estimate from block proposal data using block attestation fingerprinting, Prysm is ~65%
Altair upgrade of the beacon chain set for epoch 74240, October 27
Latest What’s New in Eth2
PoS implementers call. Notes from Ben Edgington: sync committee issues resolved
Proto’s visualization of debugging performance of 200k+ validators on Prater testnet
Wagyu: GUI to create and restore validator keys (offline), testnet only
Feist-Khovratovich technique for computing KZG proofs fast
Layer2
An exhaustive list of projects on Arbitrum (caveat emptor, as always)
Avoid long optimistic rollup withdrawal delays: use Celer cBridge 2.0 with improved user experience and LPs have option not to run a cBridge node
Aztec increases caps to 30 ETH, 100k DAI and 2 renBTC for private transactions on its zk rollup
Bitfinex directly supports bridge to DeversiFi (StarkWare-based layer2), starting with USDT
Solidity to Cairo transpiler switched from transpiling EVM opcodes to using a combination of Solidity & Yul AST
Censorship resistance: Arbitrum and Optimism users can force transactions to layer1 whilst StarkWare layer2s use app specific mechanisms
Geohot returns: cannon, on chain interactive fraud prover
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Stuff for developers
Ganache v7.0.0 alpha.1: local blockchain (formerly ganache-cli), London EIP1559 support
web3.js v1.5.3: fix for sending legacy transactions on London networks
Discussion on whether Solidity libraries should behave like contracts
Hardhat Ignition: deployment system for structuring, automating, and distributing contract deployment setups, in development for 2022
eth-hooks (TypeScript): commonly used hooks such as balances, provider, contract loader and ENS resolver, from scaffold-eth
gas-estimation: MyCrypto EIP1559 library, uses last 10 blocks from an Ethereum node
Moloch v3 proposal (codenamed Baal): adds Compound-style delegation, DAO controlled share and loot transferability
nile (for Cairo): compile and manage artifacts for StarkNet projects, install Cairo language
Guide to create ERC20 payment splitter using OpenZeppelin & Hardhat
Full Knowledge User Proofs: pattern using call data with a user proof than paying gas to read from storage
Guide to using GitHub with Remix
Beginner: first Solidity contract using Hardhat with tests & verification
MyCrypto’s guide to creating a profile pic NFT
Security
Detection of an NFT drop, using on chain and off chain information, same was detected for Time NFTs
pNetwork bridge $12 million exploit, event logs for attack contract processed in error by Rust code on pNetwork’s bridge client, only one BSC bridge exploited
Ecosystem
MEV impact on gas prices, increases for priority gas and during high volatility non-priority gas but reduces the waste from pre-Flashbots
Proposed Sign-in With Ethereum workflows
Ethereum culture: don't take ourselves too seriously; differentiator is legibility of research for wider understanding and tech/social infrastructure
Binance, Gemini, Kraken, Bittrex, Bitstamp, Gate and BlockFi wasting money by still sending legacy transactions rather than EIP1559
Twitter thread of common scams in the NFT ecosystem
Enterprise
Case for enterprise devs to deploy to public Ethereum: faster setup with lower cost, immutable and composable
Crosschain Layered Architecture (work in progress) to better allow for technology and infrastructure reuse, with greater interoperability
Quorum Key Manager, consolidates account and private key management
TIMEPieces (sold out in 1 minute): NFTs include digital TIME magazine subscription
Application layer
DAI with custom bridge live on Arbitrum
Maker adds Gelato Network’s DAI/USDC Uniswap v3 LP as collateral, test debt ceiling of 10 million. Replace the PSM while earning fees
Uniswap v3 layer2 graduates to beta, adds Optimism and Arbitrum network selector
1inch live on Arbitrum
Synthetix deprecating selected synths on layer1, transitioning to layer2
Saddle virtual swaps, low slippage trades for sBTC, sETH and sUSD
Argent adds personal web page with NFT gallery for wallets
Snoop Dogg reveals Cozomo de’ Medici as alt NFT account and is launching metaverse on the Sandbox
Twitter adds tip jar for Ethereum addresses on iOS with plans to add authentication of NFT ownership
Proposal for how RAI could detach from USD to something non-fiat
Job Listings
Ethereum Foundation: Product Owner, Privacy & Scaling Explorations Research
Lambda School hiring Subject Matter Expert to build Ethereum curriculum
Team Lead for the Ecosystem Support Program at the Ethereum Foundation
Reach people experienced with Ethereum. $345 per line (~75
character limit), payable in ETH or DAI/USDC to abcoathup.eth. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
US Treasury moves to regulate stablecoins
Coinbase not launching USDC lending product after SEC warnings
Mainnet speaker served with subpoena by US SEC
Chris Dixon: tokens are a new digital primitive, whilst still in skeuomorphic era of web3, starting to see native applications that couldn’t have existed before
Pillars of decentralized HR: onboarding & offboarding, employee review, decision making, conflict resolution and employee contracts
People’s Bank of China lists banned activities including crypto currency exchange and provision of services by overseas exchanges
Sparkpool says it is banning Chinese miners
JPMorgan: strong preference for Ethereum versus Bitcoin by institutional investors based on CME futures
General
Bloomberg: Flashbots profile
Brave’s STAR protocol (distributed Secret Sharing for Threshold Aggregation Reporting): k-anonymity in data collection
US IRS spending millions to crack hardware wallets
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-september-25-2021/
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
Sep 30 – NFT Fest Australia (virtual)
Oct 1-3 – EthAtlanta enterprise-focused hackathon & keynotes
Oct 18 – ENS online workshop
Oct 20-21 – LisCon (Lisbon) sold out
Oct 22-24 – ETH Lisbon hackathon
Oct 27 – Beacon chain upgrade to Altair epoch 74240
Oct 28-29 – ETH Portland hackathon
Nov 1-4 – NFT.NYC sold out
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