EthHub Weekly #113

Immutable X introduced, Yield Protocol announced, TranslationsDAO announced, POAP details next steps and much more!

May 11, 2020

Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)

🎙️ EthHub Discord Rebooted

The Ethereum community is growing at a rapid pace and there are a lot of new people coming onboard that have many questions around all crypto-related topics. So, to help educate these people, we cleaned up the EthHub Discord channel with the aim of turning it into more of a community learning hub. It’s been quite active lately with lots of questions around eth2 and staking - feel free to hop in and ask your own!

Eric and I participated in 2 panels at Ethereal’s Virtual Summit last week - the ETH is Money Panel (watch here - timestamped) and we interviewed ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin as part of a live Into the Ether podcast! Eric also joined WhalePool for a live interview.

Gitcoin is hosting the ‘New York Blockchain Week Hackathon’ in may. If you’re a developer and feel like hacking on something new, you can register here.

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

🤔 Sidestepping Telegram, Devs and Validators Launch Fork of TON Blockchain

TON Labs, a startup that helped Telegram run the test network for the Telegram Open Network (TON), launched its own version of the blockchain Thursday, with the support of professional validators. Called Free TON, the fork comes after the group decided not to wait until Telegram is able clear the regulatory hurdles it faces before it can officially send TON live.

The initiative is supported by 13 validators and used code maintained by TON Labs. During a Zoom call livestreamed on YouTube, the genesis block of the new blockchain was generated, effectively marking its existence.

"The network must not be censored, it must go to the world," TON Labs CTO Mitya Goroshevsky said on the call.

To distinguish itself from the original TON project, this forked version is named Free TON, and its tokens are called "ton crystals," not "grams," as Telegram’s were dubbed.

⛏️ Ukraine’s Nuclear Power Plants May Start Mining Crypto

Ukraine's Ministry of Energy believes that using power plants for crypto mining could be one of the best ways to take advantage of a current energy glut.

Cryptocurrency mining is a contemporary and efficient way to use excess energy, Ukraine's Ministry of Energy argued in a May 6 statement published on Facebook. According to the post, local nuclear plants have generated the surplus due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The bureau is now looking to apply progressive solutions to avoid wasting energy as part of the government’s course toward digitalization championed by president Volodymyr Zelensky. Leaving the situation unchanged might create “conditions for corruption offenses, which will ultimately be paid at Ukrainian citizens’ expense”, the ministry warns.

Crypto mining, in turn, could prove to be one of the efficient solutions.

Project Updates

Eth 2.0 Dev Update #49 — “Multiclient Testnet + Security Audit”

Exciting update from PryLabs this week going over the recent multiclient testnet progress (3 clients in sync!) as well as the regular updates from the team.

Eth2 quick update no. 11

Rewards doubled for the phase 0 bounty program, an overview of the Schlesi multi-client testnet, and updates on preparations for v0.12 of the spec.

Introducing Immutable X

Immutable X is a decentralized, non-custodial exchange that scales trading on the Ethereum network with instant settlement and zero gas fees.

Introducing Strike — Decentralized Perpetual Swaps for Every Asset

Strike is a decentralized perpetual swaps trading protocol for every asset with Uniswap-inspired Automated Market Makers (AMMs) and a built-in Liquidity Reserve which backs and secures the AMMs.

The Synthetix.Exchange L2 Demo Now Live

This week, Synthetix and Optimism announced a new demo of Synthetix.Exchange on OVM (Optimistic Virtual Machine), a Layer 2 (L2) scaling solution. This integration demonstrates the power of OVM to deliver high-speed Ethereum transactions to supercharge the Synthetix trading experience.

Introducing OpenRaise

OpenRaise is an effort to bring the DAICO and bonding curve token models to life by enabling organizations to run accountable fundraising campaigns.

Liquidity Announced

Liquity is a new decentralized borrowing protocol designed to generate unprecedented liquidity against Ether as collateral.

Yield Protocol Announced

Yield is building yTokens, a new DeFi primitive, on Ethereum. The first token supported by the protocol will be yDAI, which will enable fixed-rate borrowing and lending in the Dai stablecoin with ETH collateral.

POAPs Next Chapter

In this article, the POAP team dives into two new features that they’re working on - POAP Vote and POAP Chat.

Primitive Protocol Enters Alpha

For their alpha release, the Primitive team have built two contracts that are meant to make interactions with the Prime simple. Primes are options that need a counter-party to provide the ‘underlying’ asset, which every Prime wraps into it. They’ve designed a liquidity pool to serve as a counter-party.

Kyber Ecosystem Report #14

A packed update from Kyber this week going over all of their growth, integrations, partnerships and more for the month of April.

Uniswap V2 Contract Audits Finalized

Now that the contract have been audited and formally verified, the launch of Uniswap V2 should be happening very soon!

Loopring 3.5 is Code-Complete and Ready for Review

Loopring 3.5 is an intermediate upgrade over the current 3.1 version which is being used by Loopring Exchange in production.

Introducing TranslatorsDAO

TranslatorsDAO is a DAO dedicated to the translation of Ethereum related content.

OroPocket Integrates with Matic Network

OroPocket enables investment in gold & silver with as little as 1 cent. The project will now be making sure of Matic network for speed, scalability and more.

Community Member Spotlight

This week we’re highlighting the great work of Afri!

Afri has been an active and long-time Ethereum community member. His previous roles included hardfork coordinator for Ethereum and a moderator of /r/ethereum. These days, Afri is helping out the eth2 effort by managing the multi-client testnet Schlesi, working on the Goerli eth1 testnet, and he recently founded Byzantine Fault - a distributed ledger technology & decentralized database think-tank.

Keep up the great work Afri!