Week in Ethereum News
December 31, 2021

Eth News and Links

Mainnet execution layer

  • Akula client preview, written in Rust, can currently run alongside Erigon to sync, full validation from genesis in < 24 hours, enterprise-friendly Apache 2.0 license
  • History of account abstraction and EIP4337 proposal
  • Archive node running on Raspberry Pi 4, using Erigon. Also running a Nimbus staking client on same device

EIPs/Standards

  • EIP4610: ERC721 Delegator Extension 

Proof of Stake consensus layer

  • Dankrad’s proposed new sharding design: adds a transaction type with sharded data as call data, allows tight integration between Layer 1 & 2, higher computing requirements for block builders
  • Consensus specs v1.1.8: sets Bellatrix as upgrade name & new test vectors
  • StakeWise Metro: allows external node operators

Layer2

  • Huobi Global adds ETH deposit and withdrawals on Arbitrum
  • Argent zksync wallet integrates ZigZag exchange, flat $1 trade & network fee
  • #L222 is the “official” hashtag for Layer 2 adoption in 2022 🦆
  • Proposal for efficient zk-EVM arithmetization from ConsenSys Applied R&D

This newsletter is made possible thanks to NEAR!

NEAR

NEAR has launched Simple Nightshade sharding to pave the way for greater throughput!

Simple Nightshade has four different state shards.  For devs and users, it’s important to note that NEAR treats cross-contract calls the same regardless of whether two contracts are on the same shard.

Early in 2022, phase 1 will introduce chunk-only producers, who only validate one shard and allow for further decentralization via more validators.  Full Nightshade is scheduled for q3 2022 and will feature full sharding of both state and processing.

Learn more about what’s going on in NEAR in the community-driven NEARweek newsletter.


Stuff for developers

  • Solidity Language Server explainer: every IDE with Language Server support can support Solidity out of the box
  • Foundry forge run command, runs single file contract as a script, supports cheatcodes, mainnet forking and debug logs
  • Fuzzing complex projects with Echidna, example uses Sushi’s BentoBox
  • Advanced optimization tips for Yul & Solidity 
  • OpenZeppelin Nile v0.3.0 (StarkNet projects in Cairo): deploy accounts and send transactions, mainnet & Görli compatible
  • ShortString: immutable bytes32 can be used for short strings (Solidity doesn’t support immutable strings), convert back to string in a view function
  • erc721-drop: NFT drop template with constants for supply cap and price, uses Solmate, Solidity test with Foundry, AGPL v3 license
  • Captcha-protected NFT distribution using an off-chain signing service
  • merkle-airdrop-starter: scripts, contracts and frontend, for an airdrop

Security

  • Polygon lack of balance/allowance check postmortem, 9 billion MATIC was at risk, 800k MATIC stolen, $2.2 million + 500k MATIC bounties paid
  • Bent Finance postmortem, rogue dev upgraded to contract with hard coded balances, funds returned

Ecosystem

Enterprise

Application layer

  • Aelin deal coordination protocol live on Optimism
  • Real World Asset market live, built on Centrifuge and AAVE
  • Sperax algorithmic USD stablecoin beta live on Arbitrum
  • Tokenized Time: buy, sell and trade time, proof of concept
  • briq composable blocks to construct NFTs, alpha on StarkNet
  • Cryptopunks decentralized market beta, MIT license
  • Movement: 3D browser based gallery for an address/ENS
  • Gnosis Guild’s Zodiac bridge module allows a DAO on one network to control assets and interact with systems on another network
  • Paris Hilton adds ENS to Twitter

Job Listings

Reach developers experienced with Ethereum.  $600 for four issues (~75 character limit), payable in ETH/DAI/USDC to abcoathup.eth on mainnet, Arbitrum or Optimism.  Questions? abcoathup at-gmail


Regulation/business/tokens

General

  • Web3 is self certifying: authorship of content is proven with cryptographic user identifiers & content-addressed data
  • LastPass warns some users of unusual login attempt, due to credential stuffing, some alerts triggered in error
  • T-mobile notifies small number of customers their SIMs were swapped
  • Halo2-franchise-proof: experimental port of Vocdoni voting anonymizer zk circuit to the ZCash Halo2 proving system which doesn’t have a trusted setup

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-december-31-2021


Dates of Note

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