Week in Ethereum News December 7, 2024

Eth R&D protocol call (All Core Devs)

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade

Client testing call #15: Mekong testnet deposit processing fixed and Pectra-devnet-5 spec discussions
Pectra system contracts for consolidations, withdrawals & block hash lookup; used instead of precompiles, implemented in Assembly

Amsterdam upgrade

Stateless implementers call #28 (formerly Verkle): file based approach for preimage distribution and implementation in progress of EIP7736 leaf-level state expiry

Layer 1

For stakers

Slashing event: 21 validators slashed for attestation violation
SOLO: proposal for liquid staking using portion of stake unlikely to be lost, without needing governance, trusted hardware or permissioned operator sets

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

🚨 Lido at 28.1%, 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

Consensus layer:
- Lighthouse v6.0.0: hierarchical state diffs (on-disk tree states) for more compact archive nodes, downgrading requires resync
- Nimbus v24.11.0: faster forward sync, experimental light client-based sync (testing only) and fixes config mismatch errors for unscheduled upgrades

Layer 2

Arbitrum Connect: interface for users to force include transactions during sequencer downtime

EIPs/Standards

EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
- EIP7830: Contract size limit increase for EOF
- EIP7833: Scheduled function calls
- EIP7834: Separate metadata section for EOF
ERCs (application layer):
- ERC7831: Multi-chain addressing
- ERC7832: Sustainable NFT collections
- ERC7835: wallet_transmitCrossChainIntents method
- ERC7836: Wallet call preparation API

Stuff for developers

Foundry: forge build 10-36% faster compilation, forge coverage 2x faster
Hardhat v2.22.17: adds Solidity v0.8.28 support
Ape v0.8.21 (Python contract framework): faster console launch & auto fork chains
Frangio: Solidity learnings & working on EVML (EVM language)
Tornado Cash reference manual: architecture, Circom circuit, Solidity contracts and client side proof generation & verification
eth_simulateV1 explainer: standardized approach for multicall via JSON-RPC
Rotki balance scanner (Vyper): query ETH/token balances, deployed on mainnet & L2s
Drift (create cached contract calls): adds hooks
Safe owner manager: manage Safe multisig owners & thresholds in bulk

Security

Vestra $500k exploit on mainnet
Clipper (DEX) $460k exploit on Optimism & Base
Spectral Syntax v2 $200k exploit on Base via infinite approval
ETH Rangers, $25k stipend from EF for public goods security work, December 20 deadline

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

Onchain stats

Fees (via ultrasound.money):
- Gas: 4.5 to 202.4 gwei, 20.2 gwei average; zero net issuance at 24.1 gwei
- 2.7k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $3,543 – $4,089, currently $4,022, all time high $4,878
ETHBTC: currently 0.04 (Flippening at ~0.164)

Ecosystem

Enterprise

Wyoming stable token commission: request for qualifications to support state issued USD backed stablecoin, deadline December 12

Notable at app layer

Vitalik’s ideal wallet: cross-L2, secure from users & wallet devs, private transfers, store private data, secure chain access & keystores
ENS DAO grants: $12-50k for public goods projects

Regulation/business/tokens

Paul Atkins to be nominated as SEC Chair; David Sacks to be White House AI & crypto czar
Coinbase obtained FDIC’s requests for banks to pause crypto activities
Alex Mashinsky (former Celsius CEO) pleaded guilty to fraud

General

END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News

(new/changes in bold)

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