EthHub Weekly #186
OVM 2.0 is coming, Connext NXTP now live, Visa building a layer 2, Aave Arc gears up for launch and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
[Sponsored] DeFi users, you no longer need to pay expensive and unpredictable interest rates on your ETH-backed loans. Liquity, an immutable and governance-free borrowing protocol, allows you to borrow interest-free against your ETH. Loans are paid out in LUSD — a USD pegged stablecoin, and need to maintain a minimum collateral ratio as low as 110%. Get started here.
🥩 The Merge is Coming
Many of you will already be aware of what ‘The Merge’ is but for those who aren’t, feel free to read this piece here. Though what I wanted to briefly talk about here is that the merge is indeed coming faster than people think. Now that work on Altair is done (going live on the eth2 mainnet on October 27th), all the core researchers and developers are focused on the merge with devnets being spun up shortly (which will lead to testnets). At this point, it’s roughly expected that the merge will happen end of Q1 2022/early Q2 2022 but, as always, take this date with a grain of salt!
Have a great week everyone!
- Anthony
News of the Week
⚖️ Virgil Griffith Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy Charge in North Korea Sanctions Case
Virgil Griffith, the Ethereum developer charged with violating U.S. sanctions law, has pleaded guilty in an agreement with federal prosecutors.
Griffith pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act last Monday in a New York courthouse. The plea deal could see him serve between 63 and 78 months in prison. He will be sentenced in January 2022.
Brian Klein, Griffith’s attorney, said in a statement, “Virgil is deeply remorseful. Setting aside what happened, he has made important contributions to society that we will raise with the court. He also has many wonderful qualities, and no one should define him by this mistake.”
😬 CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, TradingView Now Blocked in China
Three of the most popular crypto market data sites have now become inaccessible for users based in mainland China.
CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and TradingView are currently all blocked by China's internet firewall, according to tests run by The Block. Search results on Greatfire.org, an online tool for checking sites censored by China's Great Firewall, also show that the three sites are 100% blocked as of press time.
It's not clear when exactly they became inaccessible but users started to notice the blockage early Tuesday morning China time.
It appears that these data sites did not actively cut off Chinese IP access but rather it was a move by China's internet censorship agency. "As far as we know, we didn't block proactively," CoinGecko co-founder TM Lee told The Block.
Project Updates
Finalized No. 29
Altair upgrade scheduled for October 27th on the consensus layer with information on the merge interop specs and coming devnets.
ChainSafe Launches NodeWatch.io
NodeWatch is a node explorer to gleam insights about Ethereum Consensus nodes such as sync status, regional info, and client diversity metrics.
OVM 2.0 is Coming
OVM 2.0 will be deployed to the Kovan testnet on October 14th with mainnet coming on October 28th.
Visa Building Payments Network
The Ethereum-based layer 2 payments network would use state channel technology and is first focused on CBDCs but can be generalized for other assets.
Connext NXTP Now Live
NXTP is now live on mainnet with support for networks Arbitrum, Polygon, xDai and others.
Flashbots v0.4 Released
This version introduces mega bundles which lets Flashbots innovate faster, support more bundles and will lead to new searcher strategies and more miner revenue.
Mirror Crowdfunds Go Public
Mirror has opened up its crowdfund feature to the public so that anyone can now use the platform to raise money.
Context Introduced
Context is a new service that makes it easy to see what’s happening on Web3. It’s now in open beta.
Layer3 Raises $2.5 Million
The round was led by ParaFi Capital, along with support from Electric Capital, Lattice Capital, 6th Man Ventures, and Red Beard Ventures + angels.
Utopia Introduced
Utopia is a modern system for managing contributor payments, expenses, and more for your DAO, built right on top of Gnosis.
Greenwood Router Introduced
Greenwood is a protocol for borrowing cryptocurrency and it currently supports Aave and Compound with support for Cream, Fuse, Kashi and more coming soon.
OpenOrgs.info Updated
New features included a split treasury view (liquid and vesting), more details about the treasury itself, which assets are in the treasury and more.
Introducing Ethereum IDM
Etherescan’s IDM (Input Data Messages) feature allows you to generate a chat history of selected addresses and share it with the world.
Cryptotesters Academy Launched
This academy has tutorials on the most basic things a beginner needs to know to start their DeFi journey.
Gelato Raises $11 Million
The Series A round was led by Dragonfly Capital with participation from ParaFi Capital, Nascent, IDEO and angels.
Aave Arc Gears Up for Launch
Aave Arc, a permissioned version of the popular DeFi lending platform Aave, is getting ready for its first deployment.
Angle Protocol Raises $5 million
The round was led by a16z with participation from Fabric Ventures, Wintermute, Divergence Ventures and others.
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
Coming to Consensus - The Daily Gwei
Fax Machine Maximalists - The Daily Gwei
Prysmatic Labs’ Statement on Client Diversity - Raul Jordan via PryLabs
Proofs of Custody - Dankrad Feist
Below the Surface of EIP-1559 - T via Data Always
Paths Forward for Monolithic Chains - Polynya
A 23.7 Million Dollar Ethereum Transaction Fee Post Mortem - Konrad Strachan via DeversiFi
Modular vs Monolithic Sharding & Zk-Monolithic - Liberosist
Podcasts
China's Crypto Ban... Why Now? | Sahil Bloom - Bankless
Misc
ERC 4337: account abstraction without Ethereum protocol changes
Rollup-centric ethereum with sharding or rollup-centric sharding?
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Full-Stack Developer - mStable
Communications Lead - UMA
Senior Product Designer - Status
Business Development Associate - Perpetual Protocol
+1000’s more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
EthHub Weekly #186
Wanted to send $5 as a thank you, but network fees are like $6+ 😂