Week in Ethereum News November 2, 2024

Eth R&D protocol call (All Core Devs)

• Consensus layer focused protocol call (ACDC #145):
  
  • Pectra upgrade:
    
    • Pectra-devnet-4: testing going well
    • Mekong testnet: Pectra public testnet live with devnet-4 spec
    • Pectra-devnet-5: minor spec changes merged, still finalizing spec
    • EIP7742 uncouple blob count between CL/EL: agreed simple change to blob base fee calculation but would be asymmetric if target increased to 4 with max 6 blobs per block
      
      • Symmetric blob base fee adjustments could be made in Fusaka upgrade with PeerDAS 

Pectra (Prague + Electra) upgrade

• Weekly testing call #11: fusaka-devnet-0 with EOF still ~1 week away

Fusaka (Osaka + Fulu) upgrade

• PeerDAS breakout #11: peerdas-devnet-3 died after a 100k slot reorg, peerdas-devnet-4 planned for end of November, will rebase on Pectra
• EOF implementers call #61: spec change discussions

Amsterdam upgrade

• Kaustinen-7 (Verkle testnet) live, use lodestar-quickstart to sync locally

Layer 1

• Terence: blob transactions in FOCIL (Fork-Choice enforced Inclusion Lists) using execution layer blob pool
• GossipSub potential improvements for large message handling

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

• Lido at 27.8%, still too close to 33.3% threshold
• Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
  
  • Execution layer: Geth ~52% majority
  • Consensus layer: Prysm 37% & Lighthouse 33.3%
  • 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:
  
  • Nimbus v24.10.0: improvements to sync & validator client scalability
  • Teku v24.10.3: improvements to GossipSub publishing & IDONTWANT usage

For stakers

• Validator penalty simulator: visualize slashing & inactivity penalties on a single validator
• Rocket Pool Saturn 0 upgrade: 8 ETH mini pools with no RPL required

Layer 2

• Base fault proofs live, to become a stage 1 rollup final step is using a security council for upgrades
• Blob burn simulator: visualize the impact of blob usage on ETH burn

EIPs/Standards

• EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
  
  • EIP7799: System logs
  • EIP7801: eth/70 – sharded blocks protocol
  • EIP7804: Withdrawal credential update request
  • EIP7805: Committee-based Fork-Choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL)
• ERCs (application layer):
  
  • ERC7798: Tap to pay
  • ERC7802: Crosschain token interface
  • ERC7803: EIP712 extensions for account abstraction

Stuff for developers

• Argot collective: dev tools including Solidity & Sourcify spinning out of EF as a non-profit with 5-10 years of funding
• Vyper (language) security: audit coverage for key parts of codebase & ABI decoder fuzzer
• Tornado Cash (rebuilt): Foundry project with latest versions of Circom & snarkJS, for educational purposes
• Swiss knife contract diff: compare verified contracts across chains using Etherscan API v2
• Based agent: create AI agent using Coinbase developer platform & OpenAI
• CTF:
  
  • Bank challenge: sequence of 5 Solidity challenges using Foundry

Security

• Security Alliance (SEAL) wargames drill scenario template

Ecosystem

• More Vitalik explainers on Ethereum roadmap:
  
  • Reduce storage & complexity (the Purge): history expiry, state expiry and feature cleanup
  • Fix everything else (the Splurge): EVM improvements, account abstraction, EIP1559 improvements, verifiable delay functions (VDFs) and obfuscation + one-shot signatures
• Evan’s dumbing down of Vitalik’s roadmap explainers: the Merge & the Surge
• ETHSydney hackathon projects 

Enterprise

• Shift4 enabling merchants to accept crypto, converted & settled in fiat, pilot Q4, rollout 2025
• UBS asset management launches tokenized investment fund

Job Listings

• Executive Director for Enterprise Ethereum Alliance

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

Onchain stats

• Fees (via ultrasound.money):
  
  • Gas: 2.4 to 39.2 gwei, 8.8 gwei average; zero net issuance at 24.3 gwei 
  • 11.6k ETH net issuance this week
• ETHUSD: $2,434 – $2,720, currently $2,514, all time high $4,878
• ETHBTC: currently 0.036 (Flippening at ~0.164)

Notable at app layer

• Synthetix proposal to acquire Kwenta after spinning it out in 2020
• Limit Break wrapped native: updated WETH deployable on EVM chains with same address 
• Tee_hee_he: AI agent on X run in TEE
• Wallet security ranking: mobile & browser wallets evaluated against a checklist

Regulation/business/tokens

• Immutable received Wells notice from SEC
• US Treasury: crypto & Treasury markets presentation, benefits/risks of tokenizing Treasuries 
• Roman Storm trial moved to April
• Temporary restraining order filed against Aragon for ANT redemption
• Panama foundation vs Cayman-BVI explainer for token launches
• Layoffs: Consensys 20%, Kraken 15% & dYdX 35%

General

• Lottie player (JavaScript animation) supply chain attack injected wallet drainer
  
  • 1inch amongst impacted projects
• MrBeast onchain activity analyzed
• M2 (UAE exchange) $13.7M stolen from hot wallets

END OF SERVICE: plan to deprecate Week in Ethereum News

Editor: @abcoathup
Follow @WeekinEthNews for the most clicked links
Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-november-2-2024

(new/changes in bold)

• Nov 6 – Gitcoin Grants 22 ends
• Nov 12-15 – Devcon 7 – Southeast Asia (Bangkok)
• Nov 15-17 – ETHGlobal Bangkok hackathon
• Dec 4-5 – Columbia CryptoEconomics workshop (New York)
• Dec 6-8 – ETHIndia hackathon

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