Eth News and Links
Mainnet execution layer
- Vitalik’s roadmap for scaling rollups, calldata expansion (EIP4488/90), then ~4 shards (similar scale of Altair upgrade), then N shards (committee secured) and then data availability sampling to complete sharding rollout
- Latest core devs call video. Notes from Tim Beiko:
- Update your node for Arrow Glacier upgrade
- Kintsugi devnet 2 next week, aiming for December “final devnet”
- Discussion on lowering cost of rollups (EIP4488 vs EIP4490), attempt to prototype and decide if upgrade can be shipped before PoW switch off
- Geth released details of DoS vulnerability via malicious snap/1 request, fixed in v1.10.9; run geth version-check to check for published vulnerabilities
- Geth v1.10.13: fixes log retrieval for old archive nodes, legacy transaction filtering in tx pool & snap sync crash with malicious packets
- Nethermind v1.12.0: upgraded to .NET v6.0, supports Apple silicon
- Overview of witnesses and role they play in stateless Ethereum
- History expiry AMA, options are one-time expiry of PoW history a few months after PoW switch off and/or regular rolling expiry (EIP 4444)
EIPs/Standards
- EIP4469: Wrapped metaverse token
- EIP4488: Transaction calldata gas cost reduction with total calldata limit
- EIP4490: Second transaction data gas cost reduction
- EIP4494: Permit for ERC721 NFTs
Proof of Stake consensus layer
- Danny Ryan’s Finalized PoS update: Kintsugi sprint first devnet launched then broken, stakers must update for Arrow Glacier upgrade
- consensus-specs v1.1.6: critical upgrades to fork choice and minor iteration on Kintsugi specs
- Lodestar (Typescript) proposed its first mainnet block, fifth consensus client
- Tutorial to run Nimbus with Nethermind on Kintsugi devnet
- Weak subjectivity sync approaches to get state rather than out of band
- State of research: censorship resistance under block proposer/builder separation; Vitalik argues for a hybrid model
- mev-boost: first version of Flashbots middleware open-sourced
- Proposal for a non-middleware Flashbots with consensus clients
Layer2
- Polynya’s explainer of rollup-centric scaling roadmap
- Aztec (zk rollup) private network is more private than privacy mixers
- Estimate of tokens trapped on mainnet due to high gas prices
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Stuff for developers
- OpenZeppelin Contracts v4.4: GovernorSettings to manage settings via proposals, PaymentSplitter supports ERC20, VestingWallet for ETH/ERC20
- Remix IDE v0.20.1: editor changed to Monaco (used in VSCode)
- Remix analytics: 24k visits a day & 800k deployments in October
- Hardhat v2.7.0: adds FIFO mode to Hardhat Network’s mempool and customizable coinbase address
- Ganache v7.0.0 beta.1: local blockchain (formerly ganache-cli), beta.0 added zero-config mainnet forking using Infura
- Otterscan v2021.11.03: visual transaction trace tool, requires Erigon update
- ERC721Loanable: extension to loan NFT for up-front premium, proof of concept
- Sourcify (source code verification) supports Optimism & Boba Network
- Verify with Sourcify using Hardhat, drag & drop Hardhat output to Sourcify, select contract and verify
- Verifying Etheria (early NFT project) contract from 2015 on Etherscan, Solidity v0.1.6
- Storage slot discovery: modify state such as token balances by poking balanceOf view function
- Beginner: Solidity mapping vs array
- eth-tools: APIs to sign, verify, send & call, using CloudFlare workers and MetaMask provider
- StarkNet practical lessons learnt from implementing a project
- Using BigQuery datasets to analyse Ethereum data
- MultiFaucet: (testnet faucet) adds Rinkeby & Arbitrum testnets
Security
- Unlock contract upgraded using compromised private key on xDAI and Polygon, 50k Unlock tokens stolen
- Wolf Game reentrancy vulnerability with ERC721 safeTransferFrom, staking and claiming rewards were paused
- Aave v2 and xSUSHI vulnerability (similar to Cream) post mortem
- Secureum (auditing bootcamp) course material: blog posts, videos, assignments and quizzes
Ecosystem
- EIP1559 burnt 1 million ETH in 109 days
- Ethburned.wtf shows how much an account has burnt, supports ENS
- Suggestion to revive Finney as a currency unit due to unit bias
- MetaMask supports GridPlus Lattice1 hardware wallet
Application layer
- UMA event based expiry KPI options: expire when KPI metric met or when the time runs out
- Pika Protocol (perpetual swap exchange): guarded launch on Optimism
- Ondo Finance liquidity as a service, alternative to liquidity mining campaigns
- Synthetix roadmap to merge debt pools on mainnet and layer 2
- The Infinite Machine book to be made into a movie funded via NFTs
Job Listings
- Kwenta seeks a talented Solidity Engineer to join as a Core Contributor
- ethereum.org team is hiring a Product Designer
- Nethermind 1-3 month internship program
- Ethereum Foundation hiring a Research Engineer for PoS consensus layer
Reach people experienced with Ethereum. $420 for two issues (~75 character limit), payable in ETH/DAI/USDC to abcoathup.eth. Questions? abcoathup at-gmail
Regulation/business/tokens
- US federal agencies plan to provide crypto policy clarity for banks [PDF] in 2022
- US Comptroller: banks must have adequate controls in place before engaging in crypto activities
- US Senate banking committee requests information from stablecoin issuers
- Implied volatility of an asset using Uniswap v3 pools
- Kain Warwick’s origin story of yield farming
- Citi to hire 100 people for blockchain and digital assets division
General
- Ethereum Foundation and UNICEF partnership update
- Locally Testable Codes with constant rate, distance, and locality
- SNARK-based VDF implementation
- ECFFT algorithm explainer
- NFT is Collins Dictionary word of the year
Follow @WeekinEthNews to find out what the most clicked links are. Follow @evan_van_ness and @abcoathup to get most of the week’s news in real time.
Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-november-27-2021
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
- Dec 1-16 – Gitcoin Grants Round 12
- Dec 3 – PoW switch off second community call
- Dec ~8 – Arrow Glacier upgrade block 13,773,000
- Jan 24-26 – Science of Blockchain Conference (Stanford University)
- Feb 17 – Schelling Point (Denver)
- Feb 18-20 – ETHDenver
- Mar 28-30 – ETHDubai
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