Ethereum News and Links
Layer 1
- [eth1] Eth1 roadmap q&a video and notes
- [eth1] Alexey Akhunov on the Eth1 workshop, and parts two and three
- [eth2] eth2 spec v0.2.
- [eth2] Vitalik: “If you followed the 1.0 release process back in 2014-15, the spec is arguably more significant than a testnet”
- [eth2] Soleimani/Slipper/Tsui report on Eth2 implementation sparked lots of chat.
- [eth2] Ben Edgington responded to this report in What’s New in Eth2: “It’s not wrong, it just kind of misses the point…. Rather than throwing in the towel by reverting to old-school ways of working, I would dearly love to see more good thinking on how we might do decentralisation better. There is certainly scope for doing better, this I do agree with.”
- [eth2] Justin Drake on Eth2 timelines: “2019, 2020, 2021 for phases 0, 1, 2 respectively.”
- [eth2] More Justin: “Phase 1 is significantly simpler than both phases 0 and 2. I expect it to come relatively soon after phase 0. Phase 1 can provide scaling by being the data availability layer for L2 execution engines…. The hard part of phase 1 is getting libp2p/gossipsub production-ready.” Parts of phase 1 and 2 are being worked on in parallel with phase 0.
- [eth2] Speaking of phase 1 networking: Why libp2p? a networking layer explainer from Parity
- [eth2] Vitalik is bullish on the Eth2 roadmap: “My latest position is that the current quadratic beacon chain architecture is all we’ll need for a long long time. Maybe forever.”
- [eth2] More on what’s in the Eth2 roadmap in the latest Eth2 implementer call notes
- [eth2] Logic and economics around how long to process a stake withdrawal
- [eth2] Lighthouse dev update. Sets expectations for q1 testnet: cross-client public testnet, may only be short-lived. This update was particularly readable even for non-Eth2 experts
- [eth2] Yeeth dev update
- [eth2] Rocketpool has a beacon chain simulator they’ll use for a staking pool test, with RPL rewards for testers.
- [eth2] Eth2 implementer workshop notes and video
- [eth2] A short and high level overview of the Beacon Chain, eth2’s phase 0
- If you’re a developer who wants to know how Eth2 will affect your code, ask your question here.
Layer 2
- LeapDAO (fka ParsecLabs) Plasma testnet: More Viable Plasma, single operator for ERC20 & 721 tokens
- Streamr teases their “Monoplasma” ETHDenver demo to pay many addresses, but no details yet. Sounds a bit like Nick Johnson’s multisends with one-time addresses or RicMoo’s Merkle AirDrops
- A proposed POA sidechain like xDAI for mili-Eth. The mEth chain.
- Privacy and scaling problems of layer2 watchtower services
- state channel dev updates: Celer, Connext, Magmo
Client releases – get ready for the fork!
- Parity v2.3.2-beta and v2.2.9-stable fixing a JSONRPC vuln that allowed attacker to crash node
- EthereumJS VM v2.6.0 (Petersburg/Goerli)
Stuff for developers
- Solidity graph debugger v2. Rewritten with new UI and API
- Formal Verification explainer series, pt 2: proving the correctness of a token in KLAB
- Graph Explorer launches with Dharma, Compound, Uniswap, ENS, Origin, Decentraland, and Livepeer as partners, so devs can explore data on all those projects.
- Getting started with the Görli testnet. Etherscan now supports Goerli.
- Getting started with EthPM and web3.py
- Taylor Monahan: building user confidence, not dapps
- Vuethereum: a Vue.js frontend library. And a vue.js Solidity IDE
- ENS Manager supports EIP1577 contenthash
- LimePay: enable your users to execute Eth transactions with fiat
- Groundhog Network: subscription crypto payments for merchants, who can also convert to fiat.
- Build your own embeddable frontend on Dether for in person fiat transactions
- Upgradeability is a Bug. This used to be a more common theme of debate.
- Testing real world upgrades from ZeppelinOS. And what makes a good EVM Package
- 3Box’s Spaces: app-specific data storage, permissioned by users
- web3.js v1.0.0-beta.44
- Embark tutorial: building a decentralized Reddit, pt1
- Buidler beta release. Task runner with plugins for web3.js 0.2.x, web3.js 1.x, Truffle 4, Truffle 5, and Ethers.js
zk
- zkSNARKs in WebAssembly with online demo
- Remco Bloemen’s intro to STARKs
- Starkware: STARK math, part 1
- Eli Ben Sasson conversation with Balaji Srinivasan
- More on Aztec Protocol’s Huff language, which basically macros of EVM assembly opcodes. They wrote it for their library for validating zero-knowledge proofs
- ZCash found a cryptographic vulnerability, kept it secret for almost a year, fixed it with Sapling, and now discloses it. No one thinks an exploitation likely occurred, as only ~12 people ever had access to the MPC transcript necessary to exploit.
Ecosystem
- Afri wants you to vote on upcoming release (fork) names
- ECF 2.0, how it’s restructuring for 2019
- web3 design decision framework
- All the ways ETHDenver is dogfooding
- Despite some reports, EF hasn’t decided to spend 15m on VDFs. It’s half that, under discussion and not an imminent decision. So far EF has funded five figure amounts for VDF researchers.
- In Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, Opera tests letting its users buy Eth instantly in the browser through Swedish exchange Safello.
Enterprise
- Microsoft video on Azure Logic App Connector to Ethereum
- Indonesian farming platform on a private chain
- Bloomberg on JPMorgan’s blockchain payments efforts
Governance and Standards
- A proposal lost in Aragon vote. Things losing votes seems like a good thing to start happening occasionally. (Missed this last week due to Twitter wrongfully banning me)
Application layer
- Reddit is exploring using Ethereum to tokenize karma (eg, r/ethtrader’s donuts)
- Maker to double the stability fee to 1%, pending Feb 12 vote. Also, Dai by the numbers.
- Kyber integrated Uniswap for better DAI/MKR rates
- Streamr and FOAM for pollution monitoring
- VegaRelay: a 0x relayer for volatility markets on Augur
- A Forex relay on 0x
- A guide to Veil’s orderbook
- Grid+ goes live selling electricity for most Texans
Interviews, Podcasts, Videos, Talks
- Taylor Monahan on Into the Ether
- NEAR’s Alex Skidanov sharding research talk
- Latest TCR call
- Latest Curation Markets call
- NuCypher’s Bogdan Opanchuk and John Pacific on Zero Knowledge
- Melonport M1 conf day 2. Day 1 blocked due to copyright.
- Ale Machado and Alex Gladstein on crypto in Venezuela with Brian Armstrong
Tokens / Business / Regulation
- TCR Party – a TCR experiment where you make testnet transactions through Twitter to control membership of a Twitter RT list. Fun to play with, not sybil resistant nor necessarily representative of mainnet
- Collectible NFT art made physical
- Bonding curve playground
- Panvala expands token grants to include scalability
- 0x open sources its legal thinking on decentralized finance
- SEC Commish Hester Peirce speech on how she thinks about cryptoassets
General
- Quadriga was everywhere in the news this week. The founder died, some think he faked his death, they’re behind on payments, and apparently they never had cold wallets anyway? I have no idea, but it’s a reminder that you should take charge of your cryptoassets by having them on private keys that you control.
- Brave browser & BAT on Coinbase Earn
- Convert fiat on AirSwap with Wyre
- Gemini shut down some OTC trading desks when they tried to redeem Gemini’s GUSD dollarcoin
- Kraken acquires futures trading platform
- Facebook has been paying teens to spy on their every mobile move.
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new in bold):
- Feb 14 – Eth Magicians (Denver)
- Feb 15-17 – ETHDenver hackathon (ETHGlobal)
- Feb 27 – Constantinople (block 7280000)
- Mar 4 – Ethereum Magicians (Paris)
- Mar 5-7 – EthCC (Paris)
- Mar 8-10 – ETHParis (ETHGlobal)
- Mar 8-10 – EthUToronto
- Mar 22 – Zero Knowledge Summit 0x03 (Berlin)
- Mar 27 – Infura end of legacy key support
- April 4-5 – Deconomy (Seoul)
- April 8-14 – Edcon hackathon and conference (Sydney)
- Apr 19-21 – ETHCapetown (ETHGlobal)
- Apr 24-26 – Truffle Elevate (Dublin)
- May 10-11 – Ethereal (NYC)
- May 17 – Deadline to accept proposals for Instanbul upgrade fork
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