Eth News and Links
Eth1
- Tim Roughgarden economic analysis of 1559 video
Eth2
- Latest what’s new in eth2
- Vitalik’s sharding and data availability sampling proposal.
- Genesis block depositor POAPs now available
- BitQuery’s eth2 graphQL API; there’s also web3j’s Eth2 Node API in Java
Layer2
- Fuel’s optimistic rollup is live on mainnet with a CLI release for devs. UTXO ETH/token payments at 500 transactions per second
- Connext cross-layer2 network going live this week in first stage of three-stage rollout over 6 months
This newsletter is made possible thanks to Matcha by 0x!

Matcha aggregates liquidity across decentralized exchange networks to offer you the best price on every token swap.
Now you can trade 1000+ DeFi tokens on Matcha!
Stuff for developers
- EthGlobal’s 2020 developer survey
- Testing storage slots in upgrading to USDC v2
- Paul Berg’s Multisol tool to make verification easier
- Boilerplate for Eth frontends, just give it ABI JSON file
- WalletConnect v1.3.2 – client bundle size cut in half, paging for iOS links
- StarkWare releases Cairo toolchain to prove general computation – compiler, VM, tracer/debugger, IDE
Security/incidents
- Cover Protocol hacked. Attacker found a new liquidity mining pool and exploited a logic bug to inflate COVER tokens. Main hacker kept ~$5m. GrapFinance also exploited it, sold the COVER for 4350 ETH and sent the ETH back.
- One of the Parity hackers is cashing out
- Andre Cronje unveiled yCredit collateralized lending which he said could be “economically exploited.” It then immediately got exploited
- Testing generalized frontrunner conditions
Ecosystem
- Gastrology: estimate gas price from your own node (or via Avado run your own cloud)
- EF’s Ecosystem Support December grantee roundup
Application layer
- Opyn v2 is live with ETHUSDC European-style options, adds auto-exercise feature
- Neolastics: simondlr’s randomly generated neoplasticism inspired digital art on a bonding curve
- More than $15b in DeFi this week, currently at ~$16.5b, with Maker leading the way at $3.4b locked (no link)
- Associated Press will publish US Senate runoff results to Ethereum
Regulation/business/tokens
- Exchanges have all delisted XRP for US customers, except Kraken (no link)
- US federal regulators appear to be pressuring exchanges to delist “privacy coins”: Bittrex, Shapeshift
- Reminder: don’t forget to submit a comment about Mnuchin’s anti-crypto regulation. Deadline is Jan 4 at midnight. You can even leave a comment anonymously.
General
- Vitalik: 2020 endnotes on crypto and more
- Bunz, Chiesa, et al: Recursive proofs through generalized accumulation scheme
- Gurkan, Jovanovic, et al: Aggregatable Distributed Key Generation
Job Listings
- Nexus Mutual: experienced Solidity dev in Euro timezones
- SigmaPrime is hiring a blockchain security engineer
- 0x looking for devs of all types and a Matcha marketing manager
- Trail of Bits is looking for a technical editor/writer
Want your job listing here? $250 per line (~75 character limit including spaces), payable in ETH (or 250 DAI or 250 USDC) to evan.ethereum.eth. Questions? thecryptonewspodcast at-gmail
If you’re wondering “why didn’t my post make it into Week in Ethereum News,” then please put it on an Ethereum subreddit; emails/DMs are not part of my workflow.
Please click the following if you’re interested in sponsoring the newsletter.
Follow @WeekinEthNews and @evan_van_ness on Twitter.
Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-jan-3-2021/
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
- Jan 4 – Deadline to leave public comment on Mnuchin’s anti-crypto regulations
- Jan 15 – Feb 7 – ETHGlobal’s Market Make hackathon
- Jan 22 – Feb 21 – EthIndia’s EtherPunk hackathon
- Feb 5-12 – EthDenver (virtual)
- Apr 6-8 – EthCC4 (Paris)
Did you get forwarded this newsletter? Sign up to receive it weekly