EthHub Weekly #187
The Merge updates, Altair mainnet announcement, Optimism to donate $1mil to public goods, Flashbots Protect announced and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
đźÂ The Merge ComETH
The âMerge Interoperability Eventâ attended by various Ethereum core researchers and developers wrapped up last week and culminated in a devnet. This is absolutely incredible progress and it means we may get The Merge sooner than most people expect - though again I would cautious against getting too excited just yet - Iâm sure weâll get more clarity on exact timing soon enough!
Donât forget to check out this livestream I did with David Hoffman from Bankless - we spoke in-depth about âmodular blockchainsâ and how they are quite literally a paradigm shift in how crypto-networks will be built going forward.
Have a great week everyone!
-Â Anthony
News of the Week
âď¸Â Department of Justice Announces Crypto-Focused âEnforcement Teamâ
A senior U.S. Department of Justice official said Wednesday that the department is forming a "National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team" focused on cybercrime and money laundering.
Unveiled during the Aspen Cyber Summit, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the goal of the initiative was to "protect consumers."
"We want to strengthen our capacity to dismantle the financeable ecosystem that enables these criminal actors to flourish and to profit from what they're doing," Monaco remarked. Her statement at the Aspen event was live-streamed.
đ¤Â Circle Continues to Face Investigation From SECâs Division of Enforcement, Filing States
The Securities and Exchange Commission continues to investigate the stablecoin-focused crypto company Circle, according to a regulatory filing from October 4.
As spotted by CoinDesk reporter Danny Nelson, Circle first received what it called an "investigative subpoena" from the SEC's Division of Enforcement back in July. The subpoena was first disclosed in an S-4 filing dated August 6 and submitted to the agency by Circle as part of its bid to go public via a special-purpose acquisition vehicle, or SPAC. Much of the coverage at the time focused on Circle's stated plan to become a kind of bank.Â
"In July 2021, we received an investigative subpoena from the SEC Enforcement Division requesting documents and information regarding certain of our holdings, customer programs, and operations. We are cooperating fully with that investigation," Circle said in its filing at the time.
The same language was included in a new filing made public on Monday.Â
Project Updates
Altair Mainnet Announcement
The first network upgrade for the consensus layer (eth2), Altair, will be hitting mainnet at epoch 74240 which is scheduled to occur on October 27th, 2021 at 10:56:23am UTC).
Whatâs New in Eth2 - 8 October 2021
Altair is coming, Rocket Pool delayed, tales from The Merge workshop and more updates in this weeks eth2 recap.
The Aperture - Vol. 1
The Aperture series will provide regular development updates on the Portal Network which is an in progress effort to enable lightweight protocol access by resource constrained devices.
$1 Million Dollars for Public Goods
In the next month Optimism will give away $1 million to Ethereum public goods for their amazing contributions to the community.
StarkNet Alpha is Coming to Mainnet
StarkNet alpha is launching on the Ethereum mainnet in November and support simular features to those currently available on the Goerli public testnet.
Announcing Flashbots Protect
Flashbots Protect is a suite of tools that makes it easier to use Flashbots for frontrunning protection. The first two Protect products are an API for developers and an RPC endpoint for end users.
Introducing Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is bringing together a small group of talented teams building new projects on Ethereum, and doing a collective sprint until the end of the year. Itâll be running from Oct 18 to Dec 17, and will have a group Discord, weekly calls/demos, and support from some of the most effective builders/operators in the space.
Alchemix Roadmap
In this post, the Alchemix team detail their long-term development roadmap including their layer 2 plans, path to decentralization, the AlchemixDAO and much more.
Merit Circle Raises $4.5 Million
The seed round had participation from DeFiance Capital, Mechanism Capital, Digital Currency Group and more with some angels also joining the round.
Perpetuals on CryptoPunks
With Futureswap V4 youâll be able to trade leveraged perpetuals on CryptoPunks and any other NFTs. This is due to NFTXâs fractionalized NFT marketplace where you can buy and sell NFTs instantly.
Lido Ethereum Staking Dashboard Introduced
Users can now track their Lido staking deposits, daily rewards, average staking APR and much more - at the click of a button.
Introducing FWB Fellowships
This new programs goal is to promote access for exceptional creatives into our community, awarded on the basis of merit, need, and representation.
Introducing Fei v2
Fei v2 brings with it a host of new features including robust peg maintenance, efficient management of risk, liquidity and yield, aligned incentives between TRIBE and FEI holders and more.
Introducing FundMovr: Seamless Cross-Chain Bridging
FundMovr is the Google Maps for the multi-chain world: it helps users move their funds between chains via the best possible route.
Treeverse Raises at $25 Million Valuation
The seed round was co-led by IDEO Ventures and Animoca Brands. Other investors include SkyVision Capital, Stani Kulechov, and several angel investors.
Sky Mavis Raises $152 Million Series B
The round was led by a16z with participation from Paradigm, Accel, Fabric Ventures and many more.
Ideamarket Now Live on Arbitrum
Users can now save substantially on gas fees by using the Ideamarket platform on Arbitrum instead of using it on layer 1.
Loopring Quarterly Update: 2021/Q3
Updates on Loopringâs NFT support, the Loopring Exchange, counterfactual Loopring wallet and more.
Dharma Introduces Cross-Chain Quoting
Dharma now gives quotes for assets users want to buy by checking multiple chains such as Ethereum and Polygonâs PoS chain.
Cryptex Single Side Staking Now Live
Users can now stake and earn CTX rewards - full guide on how to do this here.
Interesting Tweets
Ethereum is actually delivering on the pre-2016 promises of Bitcoin
The Ethereum ecosystem is hiring interns and apprentices, plus offering mentorship
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
The Mega City - The Daily Gwei
The Golden Age of Ethereum - The Daily Gwei
A Vision of Ethereum: 2025 - Polynya
The Case for Clean Money - Rune Christensen
Code is Law and Cultural Code - Viktor Bunin
The Technical Benefits of EIP-1559 - Yuga Cohler via Coinbase Blog
Why ETH Will Hit $20K - Nilo Orlandi via Bankless
Understanding the Polygon Scaling Suite - William Peaster via DeFi Pulse
A Beginnerâs Guide to Ethereum Scaling Solutions - William Peaster via DeFi Pulse
Ethereum Bridges: 4 Months On - Harish Kamarul via Etherscan Blog
RICKS (Recurrently Issued Collectively Kept Shards) - Dave White, andy8052 and Dan Robinson via Paradigm
Argent + zkSync: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System Dream Comes to Life - Polynya
Bonsai Tries: A Big Update for Small State Storage in Hyperledger Besu - Matt Nelson via ConsenSys
STARKs: Verifying complex auto battler calculation on Ethereum â Scaling decentralized games - Killari
Podcasts
David and Anthony on Monolithic vs Modular Blockchains - Bankless
The dYdX Boom | Antonio Juliano - Bankless
Lido: The Liquid Staking Solution for Ethereum 2.0 - Epicenter
How the Greatest Decentralizing Force for Crypto Projects Is the SEC - Unchained
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Mobile Growth Manager - Zapper
Staff Engineer (Full Stack) - Gitcoin
Senior Frontend Engineer - Boardroom
Senior React Native UI Developer - Status
+1000âs more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!