Week in Ethereum News

Eth R&D protocol call (All Core Devs)

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade

Pectra-devnet-4: launched; 20% offline (10% Grandine & 10% Erigon)
Weekly testing call #9: fusaka-devnet-0 planned for ~2 weeks time & ssz-devnet-0 launched
EIP2537 BLS precompiles:
- Feedback wanted on planned EIP2537 usage & need for subgroup checks
- EIP2537 BLS breakout: discussed removing subgroup checks & precompiles are underpriced

Fusaka (Osaka + Fulu) upgrade

PeerDAS breakout #10: continuing to debug peerdas-devnet-3, unfinalized for over a week
EOF implementers call #60: discussed ERC721 support using EXTCODE/HASCODE, EXT*CALL return codes and EOFCREATE hashing

Layer 1

Giulio Rebuffo (Erigon): proposal to raise the gas limit via EIP7783
ProbeLab Hermes: GossipSub listener & tracer for libp2p
Péter Szilágyi: Geth prototype of ExEx (Reth Execution Extensions)
Ephemery testnet incentives for genesis validators, infrastructure & client implementations

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 ~52% majority
- Consensus layer: Prysm 37% & Lighthouse 33.4%
- Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality
Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe

Client Releases

Consensus layer:
- Besu v24.10.0: adds support for blobs in multiple transactions to engine_getBlobsV1 and Ephemery testnet support
- Prysm v5.1.2: hotfix for v5.1.1 to recover from panic; v5.1.1: experimental state enabled by default and adds IDONTWANT support
Execution layer:
- Nethermind v1.29.1: improved memory usage on Linux and improved OP Stack sync
- Teku v24.10.2: hotfix for v24.10.x preventing startup on Windows

Layer 2

EIPs/Standards

EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
- EIP7788: Dynamic target blob count
- Informational EIP7790: Parameter recommendations for controlled gas limit increase strategy
RIPs (rollup improvement proposals):
- RIP7789: Cross rollup contingent transactions
ERCs (application layer):
- ERC7786: Cross-chain messaging gateway
- ERC7787: Soulbound degradable governance

Stuff for developers

Underhanded Solidity contest: Gerard Persoon solo winner with fallback from transient storage
OpenZeppelin Contracts v5.1: adds P256 & RSA signature validation; MerkleTree, CircularBuffer & Heap data structures; StorageSlot, ReentrancyGuardTransient & SlotDerivation utilities; updated Arrays, Base64, CREATE2, Strings & Math
Guide to invariant testing using Recon Builder for scaffolding a Foundry project
Echidna v2.2.5: adds Cancun support, warns if an assert isn’t hit in assert mode, adds cheat codes and collects coverage during deployment
Pcaversaccio white hat frontrunning: Bash script using Foundry cast & chisel to secure funds from compromised wallets

Security

Radiant Capital $50M exploit on Arbitrum & BSC via compromised devices of 3/11 signers; revoke approvals on all chains

Ecosystem

Vitalik on Ethereum improvements being considered:
- Proof of Stake (the Merge): single slot finality, 1 ETH staking, single secret leader election, faster transaction confirmations, 51% attack recovery, increasing quorum threshold for finality and quantum resistance
- Scaling (the Surge): data availability sampling, data compression, generalized Plasma, maturing L2 proof systems, cross-L2 interoperability and scaling L1 execution
Propose Devcon satellite events

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

Onchain stats

Fees (via ultrasound.money):
- Gas: 5.3 to 111.8 gwei, 16.4 gwei average; zero net issuance at 24.3 gwei
- 6k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $2,436 – $2,671, currently $2,641, all time high $4,878
ETHBTC: currently 0.039 (Flippening at ~0.164)

Notable at app layer

General

END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News

(new/changes in bold)

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Week in Ethereum News
October 19, 2024