Week in Ethereum News, September 7, 2024

and

Sep 07, 2024

Eth News and Links

CFTC regulation by enforcement & EF Research AMA

All core devs

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade

Pectra testing call #3
EOF implementers call #57: discussed EIP7761 ISCONTRACT & alternatives to support ERC721/1155 safe transfer
PeerDAS breakout #7: blob proofs could take up to 1 second to compute

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

🚨 Lido at 28.4%, still too close to 33.3% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
- Execution layer: Geth ~52% majority
- Consensus layer: Prysm 36%
- Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe

Research

Client Releases

Execution layer:
- Erigon v3.0.0-alpha3: 30% reduction of latest state, 2x reduction in chaindata, 2x less RAM & prune doesn't impact chain-tip performance; resync required

Layer 2

Arbitrum Stylus live on Arbitrum One & Nova, adds Web Assembly VM, write contracts in languages that compile into WASM such as Rust, composable with EVM contracts
Base plan to increase gas target by 1 Mgas/s weekly towards goal of 1 Ggas/s
- Blobspace saturation projected for February
Matter Labs (ZKsync) laid off ~16% of team

For Stakers

Geth node on Banana Pi BPI-F3 RISCV board, consensus clients struggle to run currently

EIPs/Standards

EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
- EIP7762: Increase MIN_BASE_FEE_PER_BLOB_GAS (to speed up price discovery)
ERCs (application layer):
- ERC7763: App keys for fully embedded accounts
- ERC7764: Buyer-seller negotiable pricing

Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.8.27: require with custom errors, caching of optimized IR for faster compilation and parser support for transient storage variables
Scaffold-ETH 2 extensions hackathon finalists
EVMole v0.4 (function selector extractor): improved accuracy of function state mutability extraction and improved speed for Python & JavaScript
Supersim: simulate interoperable OP Stack Superchain locally
CTF Challenges: Uniswap V2 ERC4626 vulnerable vault

Security

Penpie $27M exploit on mainnet & Arbitrum via reentrancy
L2 DAI deployer compromised allowing attacker to deploy contracts on other L2s with same address as DAI on Optimism & Arbitrum
Vyper compiler added to EF bounty program

Ecosystem

Job listings: $600 for 4 issues (75 char limit). Pay using 3cities. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail

Onchain stats

Fees (via ultrasound.money):
- Gas: 0.4 to 53.4 gwei, 3.2 gwei average; zero net issuance at 24.0 gwei
- 16k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $2,165 - $2,548, currently $2,233, all time high $4,878
ETHBTC: currently 0.041 (Flippening at ~0.164)

Notable at app layer

Euler v2 live, modular lending, use vaults as collateral in other vaults
Lextek v0: onchain legal forms live on Base, starting with SAFE & DEAL (escrow & invoicing)
Snapshot v2: discussions view, delegate dashboard and improved voting/proposal UX, beta
Atomic: exercise challenges live on Base, stake USDC, log Strava workouts & claim stake

Regulation/business/tokens

CFTC regulation by enforcement:
- Dissent by Commissioner Mersinger & Commissioner Pham of Uniswap enforcement for not blocking leverage tokens
Kalshi won against CFTC to list prediction market for control of US congress
Galois Capital settled with SEC for using a disclosed non-qualified custodian when the SEC won’t approve custodians
FBI: North Korea targeting crypto projects via social engineering

General

Vitalik: glue & coprocessor architecture, central glue (high generality but low efficiency) shuttles data between coprocessors (low generality buy high efficiency) e.g. EVM & precompiles
EUCLEAK: Infineon ECDSA side-channel vulnerability, requires physical access, impacts some YubiKeys
Notes on extractable witness encryption for KZG commitments and efficient Laconic OT

END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News

(new/changes in bold)

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