Week in Ethereum News July 15, 2023

Dencun (Cancun + Deneb) upgrade

Latest all core devs – consensus (ACDC) call video. Notes from Christine Kim:
- Dencun updates: devnet 7 had 9k blobs, mostly stable, excludes Erigon; devnet 8 will be spun up after Hive tests pass & a local testnet run
- Next CL upgrade named Electra; proposed Electra EIPs so far: EIP7002 (EL triggerable exits), EIP6110 (supply validator deposits on chain) & EIP7251 (increase max effective balance)
- Discussion on active validator set growth & proposal to cap validator churn limit
EIP4844:
- Latest EIP4844 implementer call. Notes from Terence: devnet 7 blob spamming, devnet 8 planning, blob retrieval endpoint usefulness for L2s & tuning blob gossip parameters
- KZG Ceremony 120k contributions, closes July 23

Layer 1

Erigon updated 2023 roadmap: single major EL upgrade and Caplin (CL client)
Curdleproofs: Go implementation of Whisk for secret single leader election (SSLE)

Client releases

Consensus layer:
- Prysm v4.0.7: optimizations include faster slot 0 block proposal, improved fork choice attestation/aggregation using background routines and reduced lock surface
Execution layer:
- Nethermind v1.20.0: improved logs with color, faster snap sync & improved full pruning
- Reth v0.1.0-alpha.3: hotfix for Grafana metrics

For Stakers

Ethstakers.club beacon explorer, beta, open source using PostgreSQL & Charts.js, MIT license
Intel exiting NUC business

Research

EF Research team AMA, discussions on: EIP7002 (EL triggerable exits), RANDAO manipulation, DVT, EIP7251 (increase max effective balance), SSLE, re-staking, technical roadmap, MEV as a solved research problem, easier staking, upgrades, one-shot signatures, zk, EF, EIP4844, execution sharding and rollups
RANDAO manipulation analysis: no large-scale manipulation detected, manipulators could face social-slashing
Parallel EVM via claim verification: ensure no inconsistencies when transactions are run in parallel
EF Robust Incentives Group posts, papers & talks

Layer 2

Cross-chain communication: different approaches by L2s
Polygon zkEVM vulnerability disclosed (fixed), insufficient validation of division remainders

EIPs/Standards

EIPs:
- Meta EIP7329: ERC/EIP repository split
ERCs (application layer):
- ERC7303: Token-controlled token circulation
- ERC7322: Soulbounds with recoverability
- ERC7331: Private equity

Sablier V2 is a next-generation token streaming protocol that doubles down on our flagship Lockup design.

V2 pushes the boundaries of web3 payment protocols:

Stuff for developers

Foundry:
- Forge-std v1.6.0: adds cheat codes readCallers, deployCodeTo, skip(bool) & assumeAddressIsNot and adds checked_write_int to StdStorage
- Branching tree technique for Solidity tests
- Tip: ABI encode constructor arguments with cast
Hardhat v2.17.0: adds support for solc v0.8.19/20 and Node v20
SSTORE3: library for Code-as-Storage (CaS) pattern, pointer can be packed with other variables
Diffusc: compare upgradeable contract implementations using static analysis & differential fuzzing
Temo: example of block/account/contract functionality in a terminal UI; uses Ape, Anvil & Textual
Curta CTF Ping Pong solution
Private market: demo using zk-snarks to sell private keys, signatures and groth16 proofs
RareSkills: converting algebraic circuits to R1CS
Circom-mutator: mutation testing tool for Circom

Security

Ecosystem

Active validators reach 655k, churn limit increased to 10 activations/exits per epoch
Ethereum.org Q3 website roadmap
Etherscan similar contract search updated
ETHBarcelona hackathon winners

Enterprise

Notable at app layer

Sablier v2 (token streaming): streams represented as transferable NFTs, adds non-linear streams, cliff support, batch creation and third parties can charge broker fees
Safe (multisig) adds ERC4337 support for account abstraction
CoW Hooks: pre & post swap intents can be executed with swaps in single transaction
0age Ret↵rn: onchain generative audiovisual (SVG & Web Audio) NFT [Evan & Andrew minted]
Sound (Music NFTs) open to all artists

Job listings: $600 for four issues (75 character limit), payable to abcoathup.eth. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail

Regulation/business/tokens

SEC vs Ripple summary judgment: institutional sales were securities transactions but programmatic sales & distributions to employees were not
Alex Mashinsky (former Celsius CEO) charged with fraud
Euler hacker apparently arrested and held in French jail
OpenSea spoofer charged with wire fraud
Google Play policy updated to allow use of NFTs within Android apps & games
Bluechip: stablecoin rating agency
Ethereum Q2 results imagined as a quarterly earnings release, fees grew 56% quarter-on-quarter

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General

Multichain bridge CEO & sister allegedly in custody, MPC nodes were run on CEO’s personal cloud server account
Polygon propose MATIC token upgrade, 1% emission for validator rewards on Polygon chains & 1% for a community treasury
Flashbots MEVM: EVM with MEV precompiles to enable rewriting offchain MEV infrastructure as contracts on upcoming SUAVE
Apple WebKit zero-day, arbitrary code execution via malicious web page content
Justin Thaler: 17 SNARK misconceptions
Fiat-Shamir security of FRI & family of FRI-based protocols including Plonky2 & ethSTARK

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(new/changes in bold)

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