EthHub Weekly #112
Gnosis Safe Apps launched, Everest Registry is live, WBTC added to MakerDAO, ZapperFi announced and much more!
Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
🎙️ Ethereal Week!
The Ethereal Virtual summit is happening this week on May 7th and 8th! Eric and I will be participating as part of the ETH is Money panel at 5:55PM EDT on May 7th alongside Ryan Sean Adams, David Hoffman and Camila Russo as moderator. We’ll also be doing a live podcast with ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin at 7:15PM EDT on Friday May 8th. Go here to check out the full agenda and to register.
Another exciting week for eth2 progress as Afri spun up a multi-client testnet named Schlesi with PryLabs Prysm and Sigma Prime’s Lighthouse clients participating! You can track its progress here.
Glassnode released yet another metric that I requested last week - the Ethereum HODL Waves chart which shows ETH holder behavior over the years. Interesting to note that over 16% (and growing) of the total ETH supply hasn’t moved in 3-5 years (the Ethereum network is just under 5 years old). Ethereans have strong hands!
Finally, the monthly Ethereum update video I do with Alex Saunders of Nugget’s News is live - watch it here.
Okay I promise this is the last thing - just a quick note that my team (Set Labs) are hiring for a Business Operations & Strategy Manager and Senior Back-End Engineer. If you’re interested, you can head here to apply.
Have a great week everyone!
- Anthony
News of the Week
⚖️ Telegram Caves to US Regulators: Delays Blockchain Launch, Offers to Return $1.2B to Investors
Messaging app Telegram postponed the launch of its TON blockchain for a second time on Wednesday, pushing the new go-live date to April 2021 and triggering a costly clawback clause in its agreement with token-sale investors.
According to a letter to investors, Telegram is offering to return up to 72% of each investor's stake. The terms were agreed upon when Telegram first postponed TON's launch in October, following a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charging Telegram with running an unregistered securities sale that raked in $1.7 billion in 2018. At the time, Telegram set a revised launch deadline of April 30, 2020.
The company lost an initial court battle with the SEC, with a U.S. judge ruling Telegram can't launch its blockchain or issue its forthcoming "gram" tokens until the case was resolved. On March 24, the initial preliminary injunction was left in place.
On Wednesday, however, Telegram floated another option for those investors who choose to forego their 72%: They can lend their investment to Telegram until this time next year.
The letter states: "As a token of gratitude for your trust in TON, we are also offering you an alternative option to receive 110% of your original investment by April 30, 2021, which is 53% higher than the Termination Amount."
🤔 Binance Launches Mining Services
Binance announced Monday the official launch of its mining pool service.
In an announcement post, the company said that its initial offering would focus on bitcoin using Full Pay-Per-Share, or FPPS. Under this method, revenue from the block reward – currently 12.5 BTC – as well as at least some of the transaction fees are shared among pool participants. Future offerings will focus on both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake based networks.
"Binance Pool seeks to complement the existing Binance exchange by providing users with mining services. Income from mining can be directly tradable on the Binance exchange, with direct access to P2P platforms," the post explained.
Binance formally unveiled the service at the start of April. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said Friday in a post on Twitter that the pool had discovered its first bitcoin block.
Project Updates
What’s New in Eth2 - 1 May 2020
Lots of testnet updates and news in this weeks edition of Ben’s newsletter along with a suite of research updates.
Introducing Gnosis Safe Apps
Safe Apps allow users to interact with Ethereum applications straight from the Safe Multisig interface. Users are able to customize their own interface by selecting from a list of apps. If an app is not listed in the UI by default, it’s possible to add a custom app by simply putting in the link to that app. Once apps are added, interacting with them will feel like executing any other multisig transaction. If your Safe has multiple signatures required to execute a transaction, those same requirements apply to Safe Apps.
Q1 2020 EIPIP Updates
The EIP Improvement Process (EIPIP) group was created in January 2020, with the first meeting organized on January 15, 2020, to discuss the challenges and mitigation plans for the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP). Since then this group meets every other Wednesday to discuss proposed changes to the EIP process, EIP update, design a path for continuous improvement and other discussions around EIP.
In this post, Pooja from the Ethereum Cat Herders goes over all of the groups achievements for Q1 of this year.
Second-Gen Hardware Wallets & Feature Support
The team at Cobo have released new hardware wallets that are equipped with a Secure Element, QR code air-gapping and other core security features.
Everest Registry Launched
Everest is a universal registry of crypto projects curated by the community. With the launch of Everest, the community can now organize the crypto economy in a decentralized way & share details about dApps, DAOs, funds & more in a composable manner.
Loopring Monthly Update — 2020/04
This post covers r&d updates for all of Loopring’s products, recent metrics for the exchange, media coverage and more.
Loopring also announced a new referral program this week.
Infura April 2020 Update
Infuras multi-client testnet Beacon Chain API beta is coming, they have new web3 tutorials & webinars available and they go over lessons learned from being a data provider to leading Ethereum apps.
Tornado.cash Trusted Setup Ceremony Live
You can now help make Tornado.cash fully trustless by contributing to the setup ceremony by simply heading here.
Nimbus update: May 1
Monthly update from the Nimbus team going over recent testnet work, mobile benchmark results, libp2p updates and more.
TXRX Research Updates
A bunch of updates from the TXRX eth2 research team going over the more technical side of eth2.
Introducing Zapper.fi
DeFiZap and DeFiSnap have merged to create ZapperFi - a new tool to help accelerate the adoption of DeFi.
WBTC Added to MakerDAO
WBTC can now be used within Maker to open Vaults in order to generate Dai at a stability fee of 1%.
MyEtherWallet Integrates with DEX.AG
You can now get the best possible price and liquidity on decentralized swaps, in seconds, on MEW web and MEW wallet app for Android (iOS coming soon).
It’s Time to Renew Your .ETH Names
If you registered a .ETH name back in the early days of ENS when it had vickrey auctions, you will need to renew it or else you will lose it by this August.
dYdX Launches “The Integral”
“The Integral” is a brand new blog that will explore a variety of research topics focused on crypto markets. Read the first piece here.
InstaDApp Launches the DSA Platform
The DeFi Smart Account (DSA) platform provides a single point of integration to access all the DeFi elements.
Oracles.club Launched
This new website allows you to get the most up-to-date data across all of the oracles on Ethereum.
Etherscan Connect: A Beginning
Etherscan connect is a social network built on Etherscan that will allow for users to create profiles, follow others, comment on profiles and more.
OpenBazaar Now Supports ETH
You can now use ETH as a payment option within the OpenBazaar app.
Community Member Spotlight
This week we’re highlighting the great work of Adam Cochran!
Adam is an active Ethereum community currently working as a Partner at MetaCartel Ventures, in Growth & Strategy at DuckDuckGo, is a mod over at the /r/ethfinance subreddit and more. His official website has much more detail on what he’s worked on in the past and where his attention is focused these days - check that out here!
Keep up the great work Adam!
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
The 10k Audit (highly recommended read)
Meet the SAFG: DeFi’s Emergent Framework for Participatory Investing and Protocol Development
Videos
Podcasts
Sustainable Funding for Ethereum with Gitcoin - Into the Ether
Unlocking Access to Capital With Aave Flash Loans - Epicenter
Internet Money with Vitalik Buterin - POV Crypto
Going Bankless with Maker with Mariano Conti - Bankless
Head of UX at Argent Graeme Blackwood on UX and Crypto wallets - Crypto Testers
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
Product Manager - Uphold
DevOps Engineer - MakerDAO
Summer 2020 Legal Intern - Coinbase
+100’s more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
Support EthHub:
Donations (ethhub.eth)