Week in Ethereum News, September 9, 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:
Testing continues on devnet-8
Devnet-9 planned for Tuesday September 19
EIP4844 blobs per block: big block analysis presented, no changes to 3/6 (target/max) yet
Proposed addition to Dencun (open for community input): max epoch churn limit as a short term fix to validator set size growth, discuss on ACDE whether to include in Dencun
Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH
🚨 Lido at 32.4% is 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 & Lighthouse 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
Mempool dumpster: exports transactions from EL node transaction pools in Parquet & CSV format
MEV-Boost:
Strong builder identity: proposal to combat imposter attacks (Titan had an imposter)
Prestwich: proposers & builders could collude on gas limit to minimize base fees
Whisk devnet: proof of concept Single Secret Leader Election (SSLE) on fork of Lighthouse + Geth
For Stakers
Staking directory: adds info for liquid staking on network share & self-limit pledges
Client releases for Holešky testnet
Consensus layer:
Execution layer:
Besu v23.7.2
Erigon v2.49.0
Otterscan v2.0.0 alpha: adds in-node token indexers
Research
Terence’s EIP4844+ (ideas for extending blobs after Dencun upgrade): erase code to increase target/max blobs to 6/12 and apply data availability sampling
PeerDAS: data availability sampling approach reusing p2p components to scale without DHT
Barnabe: inclusion list games, builders may be incentivised to stuff blocks and proposers may try to bribe/extort each other
Layer 2
Base delay in block production for 45 minutes
Barry Whitehat’s Plasma Free proposal: free transactions but if data is unavailable users need to make a forced transaction (users online assumption)
EIPs/Standards
EIPs
EIP7514: Add max epoch churn limit
ERCs (application layer):
ERC7507: Multi-user NFT extension (ERC721 extension)
ERC7508: Dynamic onchain token attributes repository
ERC7509: Entity component system
ERC7510: Cross-contract hierarchical NFT (ERC721 extension)
ERC7511: Minimal proxy contract with PUSH0
ERC7512: Onchain representation for audits
ERC7513: NFT-bound modularized contract (ERC1155 extension)
Check out web3 Builders Podcast
Check out Will and Evan’s interviews with the honest actors of Ethereum: Austin Griffith, Ameen Soleimani, and Vitalik Buterin (part 1).
Or listen to our weekly news show. On this week’s episode: Lido attempting to add backdoor onchain governance to Ethereum, Bitcoin mining adjustment and declining security budget, and Rune’s announcement of a far-off Maker appchain.
Stuff for developers
Foundry:
RareSkills: gas optimization guide
Guide to Vyper compilation pipeline
Ape-roll: weiroll (operation-chaining/scripting language) client for Ape Framework
ApeWorX cHaOSneT (beta): paid testnet service with simulated activity using bots
Heimdall-rs v0.5.3: increased decoding accuracy and adds flag to help decode transactions with non-standard byte sizes
Privacy playgrounds (wiki): hidden information mechanics for onchain games
Security
Stake (gambling) $41 million stolen from mainnet & sidechain hot wallets; FBI blames Lazarus
GMBL Computer on Arbitrum ~$1 million exploit via referral system
FloorDAO 40 ETH exploit via backlog of rebases
Ecosystem
Paper on privacy pools (authors include Vitalik & Ameen Soleimani): users can prove regulatory compliance without revealing their entire transaction history
ERC4337 (account abstraction) grant recipients
Hackathon projects: ETHWarsaw and Ethcon Korea
Onchain stats
Gas fees (via ultrasound.money): 7.8 to 88.9 gwei, with 15.7 gwei average
Negative issuance currently at 20.4 gwei
3.6k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $1615-1653, currently $1635
ETHBTC: 0.0627-0.0636, currently 0.0631 (Flippening at ~0.16)
Notable at app layer
USDC native on Optimism & Base
Kain proposes Synthetix experiment with expansion, on Base with ETH collateral
Kevin Owocki returning to Gitcoin
Nouns DAO fork #0 started (fork explainer: enables 20%+ to exit their share of the treasury together)
TryENS: create a temporary ENS subdomain, expires after 48 hours
Hashmarks: fading SVG NFTs that require refreshing using the physical sculpture
Vaults.FYI: find the best yield (with or without farming incentives) for your assets
Job Listings
EF are hiring a Senior Operations Security Expert
ZK circuits engineer sought by EF Privacy & Scaling Explorations team
Job listings: $600 for four issues (75 character limit). Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
CFTC:
DeFi regulation by enforcement against Opyn (despite blocking US IP addresses), Deridex & 0x
Commissioner Mersinger dissent
Commissioner Pham calls for a US regulatory sandbox
International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) DeFi policy recommendations
IMF and FSB policies for crypto assets, warns against blanket bans
Ark Invest & 21Shares apply for spot Ether ETF
General
Crypto wealth report: 22 billionaires, 182 centi-millionaires & 88,200 millionaires
Google’s Threat Analysis Group warns North Korea targeting security researchers
Blastpass: iPhone zero-click exploit, update your Apple devices
Proton mail vulnerability disclosed, fixed
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-9-2023
Upcoming Dates of Note
(new/changes in bold)
Sep 10-12 – Ethereum Singapore hackathon & conference
Sep 11-13 – DappCon (Berlin)
Sep 15 – Protocol Berg (Berlin)
Sep 15-17 – ETHChicago conference & hackathon
Sep 15 – Holešky testnet genesis
Sep 18-23 – ETHSafari (Kilifi Kenya)
Sep 21–24 – Pragma & ETHGlobal New York
Oct 5-6 – ETHMilan conference
Oct 6-8 – ETHRome hackathon
Oct 6-27 – ETHOnline (ETHGlobal) virtual
Oct 13-15 – Ethereum Kuala Lumpur conference & hackathon
Oct 21 – Ethereum México
Oct 22-24 – ETH Hong Kong
Oct 27-29 – ETH Miami festival & hackathon
Oct 27-29 – ETH Vietnam
Oct 27-29 – ETH London hackathon
Oct 28-30 – Paradigm CTF
Oct 31 – Road to Devcon grants deadline (max $1k for local meetups)
Nov 3-5 – ETH Lisbon hackathon
Nov 3-5 – ETHBrno
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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