Eth News and Links
Eth1
- Nethermind v1.9.39 – update if you’re using Nethermind for your eth2 staking
- A writeup of some Nethermind (written in .NET core) performance improvements
- EthereumJS VM v5 – now a monorepo, supports all forks, all written in TypeScript, all APIs work with JavaScript Promises
- Latest core devs call. Beiko’s notes: hashing through what goes in Berlin fork; SSZ out. In line with the past, most likely Berlin will be EIPs 2929, 2930, 2718, 2565, 2315.
- EVM384 update: 384-bit arithmetic in EVM. Final pairings done, runtime better than wasm and almost as fast as Rust.
- Alexandria state network update: PoC ready by end of year to serve the header chain
- Code merkleization benchmarks
EIPs/Standards
- ERC3135: exclusive claimable token
Proof of Stake launch
- We are way over the minimum stake necessary to launch (60% more at time of writing). Proof of stake chain launches Dec 1 at 12pm UTC
- if you’re staking, make sure you have the latest release: Lighthouse, Nimbus, Prysm, Teku (the latest release could change between now and then!) and join the discord for your client. Discord links to make sure you stay up to date
- Somer Esat’s staking guides with Ubuntu updated for mainnet: Lighthouse, Nimbus, Prysm, Teku.
- Staking with docker
- Some security best practices
- Use “ntp” with the setting “tinker panic 5” in ntp.conf
- Vitalik’s stats on genesis block validators
- Given the genesis block we can now calculate the absolute minimum return stakers will receive (because there’s a 4 validators per epoch limit to how quickly new stakers can join)
Proof of Stake plans
- A proposal to put mainnet state (“eth1) on the beacon chain
- Ideas around withdrawal: dirt simple withdrawal, simple withdrawals, excess balance transfers
Layer2
- Loopring zkrollup smart contract wallet, available in an Android app and with rewards for holding balances on their rollup
- Hermez’s massive migrations mechanism to prevent rollup centralization
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The means and tools for securing your contracts are available today. Use the latest releases of Slither, Echidna, and the Building Secure Contracts guidebook to level up your security knowledge.
Stuff for developers
- Using redwoodjs to create an Eth app because redwood is built for graphQL
- Random number generation in Solidity with Chainlink’s VRF tutorial
- OpenZeppelin Contracts v3.3, adds timelock, supports Solidity v0.6 and v0.7
- A guide for devs new to Ethereum. Also check out the Eth dev onboarding session on Dec 4
Security
- Answers and explanations for all Damn Vulnerable DeFi challenges
- More Damn Vulnerable DeFi walkthroughs (#2-4) from Peter Kacherginsky
- A full postmortem from 88mph on the bug that let an attacker steal 100k, and the bug that allowed them to steal it back using Taichi to avoid getting frontrun
Ecosystem
- Flashbots: an org gaimed at democratizing miner-extractable value. They’re building tools to understand MEV and a geth fork PoC to auction transaction ordering
- Ethereum Foundation gives $2.4m to q3 grant recipients
- Vids from EthOnline and EthBerlin
- Twitter bot of text messages found in calldata
- Eth123, an ecosystem portal from Sparkpool
Enterprise
- Polish city concludes trial with SmartKey’s Ethereum-enabled locks so emergency services can enter without permission
- Svensson: blockchain to simplify complex business processes
Application layer
- Coinbase’s Dai price got pushed upward causing $85m in liquidations from Compound farmers who were overleveraged
- Aave hits a billion in flashloans, all in 2020
- Ideamarket is on rinkeby testnet; Twitter accounts on bonding curves where the interest from deposits goes to the owner of the twitter account
- GnosisDAO to govern Gnosis’s treasury and products that will incorporate futarchy as its governance mechanism
- 2020 American presidential election? Prediction markets were right
- Week in Andre Cronje: Deriswap, an attempt to consolidate liquidity. To that end, a blizzard of mergers and acquisitions: Cream v2, Pickle, Cover. Andre’s explanation of each of those three
Regulation/business/tokens
- Ehrsam: governance minimization
- Mintable doing NFT-governed DAO to thwart flashloans
- Chinese federal government seizes billions from Plustoken scam
- Trump’s spy chief asks SEC to be more crypto-friendly to counter China
- SEC proposal to let web2 network participants get equity
General
- Cloudflare post mortem on the Byzantine fault that caused cascading failures and substantial outage
- Ziggy: a quantum-secure STARK signature scheme
Job Listings
- Aztec’s hiring! Join ZK’s cutting edge with the private L2 from PLONK’s creators
- 0x looking for devs of all types and a Matcha marketing manager
- Chainlink Labs has 40+ openings across all departments
- Nexus Mutual: experienced Solidity dev in Euro timezones
- Trail of Bits is hiring blockchain security devs & cryptography analyst
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
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Permalink for this week’s issue: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-november-29-2020/
Dates of Note
Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):
- Dec 1 – Proof of stake launch
- Dec 2 – Gitcoin CLR matching round starts
- Dec 3 – Ethereum in the Enterprise: Asia Pacific 2020
- Dec 4 – New to Ethereum dev onboarding
- Dec 22 – Deadline to apply for proof of stake community grants
- Feb 5-12 – ETHDenver (virtual)
- Mar 2-4 – EthCC4 (Paris)
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