Week in Ethereum News November 23, 2024

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade

Client testing call #13: pectra-devnet-4 not finalizing, plan to deprecate next week and pectra-devnet-5 spec discussion, PeerDAS & EOF will rebase once spec released
- Reminder: Mekong testnet live, app/wallet devs & stakers can test Pectra upgrade
Consensus-specs v1.5.0-alpha.9
Toni Wahrstätter: blob fee market, proposal to increase blob count & reduce execution layer payload size via EIP7623 (increase calldata cost) and analysis of other potential changes

Fusaka (Osaka + Fulu) upgrade

Layer 1

EIP4444 (history expiry) implementation plan: pre-merge data expiry planned for May 1 using Portal network, EIP7801, ERA & Erigon torrents
Anders Elowsson: issuance reward curve, could reduce to a new curve over 1-2 years
EIP7732 ePBS:
- ePBS breakout #13: discussed withdrawals when building on empty blocks and how staking pool operators can become builders
- Potuz: case for ePBS in Fusaka upgrade
Péter Szilágyi (Geth) taking a sabbatical

Research

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

🚨 Lido at 28%, still too close to 33.3% threshold
Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
- Execution layer: Geth ~43% & Nethermind ~36% (estimate based on 74% self reported data)
- Consensus layer: Prysm 35%
- Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe

Client Releases

Execution layer:
- Geth: v1.14.12: changes in tracing & signing, database optimizations, RISC-V docker images and removes personal RPC namespace & unlock flag
- Reth v1.1.2: payload fetching improvements, bug fixes and OP Stack Holocene upgrade support

Layer 2

EIPs/Standards

EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
- EIP7819: Create delegate
- EIP7822: EVM modular arithmetic extensions
- EIP7823: Set upper bounds for MODEXP
ERCs (application layer):
- ERC7820: Access control registry
- ERC7821: Minimal batch executor interface
- ERC7824: State channels with account abstraction

Stuff for developers

Reminder: Devcon faucet, claim testnet ETH for Mekong, Sepolia & Holešky using Zupass
Trail of Bits: AI Solidity code completion evaluated, best commercial: Claude 3 Opus & best local: DeepSeek Coder
Prolog on Ethereum: prototype integrated with revm alongside R55
Solchip8: CHIP-8 (interpreted language from 70’s 8-bit microcomputers) emulator contract
Devcon CTFs:
- Immunefi ETH Escape: challenges open to all for 2 weeks
- BuidlGuidl CTF game: 12 Solidity challenges

Ecosystem

EF internships 2025: 12 weeks, research or software engineering, apply by December 9
ETHGlobal Bangkok hackathon finalists

Enterprise

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

Onchain stats

Fees (via ultrasound.money):
- Gas: 5.9 to 48.0 gwei, 13.0 gwei average; zero net issuance at 24.3 gwei
- 8.4k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $3,053 – $3,419, currently $3,320, all time high $4,878
ETHBTC: currently 0.034 (Flippening at ~0.164)

Regulation/business/tokens

Alex Pertsev remains in pre-trial detention
SEC’s dealer rule struck down by District court as SEC exceeded statutory authority
SEC Chair Gary Gensler stepping down January 20
”Dutch” sentenced to 5 years & “Razzlekhan” to 18 months for laundering BTC from Bitfinex 2016 hack
21Shares adds ETH staking ETP in EU

General

END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News

(new/changes in bold)

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