Eth News and Links
Eth1
- Update your clients for the Muir Glacier hard fork in early January
- Nethermind v1.3.8 significantly better peer connections stability, can now sync a full node in a few hours. They also have a Beam Sync prototype
- Parity v2.6.7beta and v2.5.12stable. ready for Muir Glacier
- EthereumJS VM v4.1.2 supports Muir Glacier
- Notes from the latest eth1 very long-term sustainability call on the path forward to stateless Ethereum
- How to sync an Ethereum node over TOR
- New version of BlockchainsLLC/Slockit’s Incubed light client now also supports TOR
- Is state growing faster with block gaslimit of 10m? Seems like it, but inconclusive.
- Ethereum on ARM update: run a full node on Raspberry Pi 4, NanoPC-T4, and RockPro64 boards
Eth2
- Latest what’s new in Eth2
- Danny Ryan’s quick Eth2 update – Least Authority spec audit, native nim libp2p, v0.10 spec coming in Jan with standardized BLS
- Latest implementers call. Notes from Ben and Mamy.
- Sigma Prime’s lessons learned from the Lighthouse public testnet. Bitfly/Etherchain put up a block explorer for Lighthouse.
- Prysmatic client update. Better peering, faster syncing, fuzzing the caches. New testnet early Jan
- Ben’s notes from latest networking call
- Dankrad’s primer on data availability checks. Several options on this: FRI as erasure code fraud proof and using polynomial commitment schemes
- cross-shard Eth transfers through a meta execution environment
- Exploring the 2 keys used in Eth2 staking
- How eth2 staking is designed to promote decentralization
Layer2
- Loopring launches the first rollup chain, capacity 1400 transactions per second (not yet 2000-3000 because of operator bottleneck)
- Account-Based anonymous rollup
- Perun’s state channel framework in Go
Stuff for developers
- Solidity v0.6 – “Changes include explicit virtual and override keywords in inheritance, support for try/catch, splitting the fallback function into a receive Ether function and an actual fallback function and limitations on how the length of an array can be changed.” ABIEncoderV2 no longer experimental. Yul optimizer automatically activated.
- Truffle v5.1.5 compatible with Solidity v0.6
- Easier deployment with Truffle Teams with Metamask and hardware wallets
- AirAssembly v0.2, language for STARKs
- Base Circom library
- MythX: the journey from slow Python tool to EVM code analysis platfom
- decentralized source verification repository for better wallet confirmations
- Loredana released an early version of Pipeline, visual IDE
- Austin Griffith’s latest eth.build on transactions and gas prices
- 3 approaches to permissioning in Solidity
- Atomic proxy contract
- Test your code from Java using web3j-unit
- EY’s ERC20 token testing service is in public beta
- how EY reduced Nightfall’s gas costs so drastically by using logs
Ecosystem
- Privacy is here: Tornado.cash v2. 10 ETH and 1 ETH now supported. Also now supports DAI, with USDC and USDT coming. Plus withdrawals 60% cheaper due to EIP1108 in Istanbul. 1000+ anonymity set and anyone can run a relayer.
- Private voting and whistleblowing using Semaphore
- Parity announces plans to assign IP for its Rust client to a DAO. Drama ensued, to put it mildly.
- The Gnosis Safe Multisig launch.
- Social recovery with Argent gets even easier. Plus, Argent’s Ethereum ecosystem 2020 hype video is great
Enterprise
- Tradeshift Frontiers and Monerium first cross-border euro transaction. “Invoices and purchase orders were issued through Tradeshift smart-contracts and settled using Monerium e-money on-chain.”
- Seberino: private blockchains are not pointless because of decentralized administration and complete security histories.
- Hyperledger Besu v1.3.8 better loq query performance
Governance and standards
- Control of the MKR token handed over to MakerDAO
- Synthetix planning to decentralize its governance in 2020
- Deversifi launches its necDAO on DAOstack with 17k ETH in the DAO. Reputation received for locking NEC.
- MetaCartel Ventures: a Moloch extension for-profit dapp investment fund
- EIP2442: LOGQUERY(x) opcode
Application layer
- Buy ads-free Forbes for a week or month using Unlock Protocol
- Affogato is doing a Unisocks-style sale of specialty coffee from Honduras.
- Roll: a “social money exchange” on Uniswap, aimed at online content creators
- Synthetix is now using Chainlink oracles
- Neon District: Every blockchain game is an MMO
- Burner Machine: spin up 3 hours of an anonymous cloud desktop for $1 in crypto
- ETH being down in the market meant every set on Set Protocol is up in Eth terms
Tokens / Business / Regulation
- TheGraph: web3 is going to be the next big platform, and it will start in 2020
- SEC still charging random ICOs with unregistered security offerings
- SEC proposes adding financial sophistication as criteria for accredited investor status
- Proof of use as standard in token launches
- ZimDai: a plan for Dai adoption in Zimbabwe to offer its citizens a hyperinflation alternative
- 1:1 collateralized stablecoin for the Nigerian Naira
General
- PLONK benchmarks vs Groth16 on MiMC and SHA-256
- Byte serialization in blockchains
- Redundancy in Swarm (arxiv paper)
- DeFi explained. A nice primer
- Ethereum for dummies
- Surveillance capitalism: location tracking from your smartphone apps (NYTimes)
- Who should own the internet naming system of the future? ENS as public good
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new in bold):
- Jan 1 – Augur v1 cutoff
- Jan 1-30 – EthIndia online hackathon
- Jan ~2 – Muir Glacier upgrade to delay difficulty increase
- Jan 6-20 – Gitcoin take back the web online hackathon
- Jan 6-21 – Gitcoin grants quadratic matching
- Jan 31 – deadline for EU ledger 200k euro grants for blockchain startups
- Feb 14-16 – ETHDenver
- Mar 3-5 – EthCC (Paris)
- Mar 29-Apr4 – EthLagos
- Apr 3-7 – Edcon (Vienna)
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