EthHub Weekly #115

Gitcoin announces KERNEL, quarterly EF update, RAI whitepaper published, Uniswap v2 on mainnet and much more!

May 25, 2020

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

[SPONSORED] Matic Network, the leading Ethereum Layer 2 platform, is transitioning to the public mainnet!

Matic Network is a scaling solution that aims to provide a generalized Layer 2 platform which offers various approaches to Ethereum developers to scale their DApps for large-scale usage. For the initial phase, Matic has launched its hybrid PoS + Plasma sidechains on top of Ethereum which is already gaining huge traction - making Matic one of the fastest growing DApp platforms in the space.

Matic has already welcomed more than 40+ DApps onto their platform, including VR metaverse projects such as Decentraland and Somnium space, leading games like Blocklords, BattleRacers, and Light Trail Rush, as well as decentralized social networks such as Sapien and much more.

Matic has also been a prolific contributor to Ethereum education globally. Matic has conducted more than 100 hackathons to date, not only in India but worldwide, as well as contributing to EthGlobal hackathon EthIndia. With a scalable Layer 2 like Matic on Ethereum, applications have everything on Ethereum to build products ready for mass adoption.

🌳 Gitcoin Announces KERNEL

KERNEL is an 8-week, invite-only program for top tech talent looking to build relationships, products, and companies in blockchain and Web 3.

100 talented peers from around the world will join the KERNEL this June, and will be surrounded by leading mentors from the Web3 community. Gitcoin’s goal is to provide KERNEL Fellows with opportunities to learn, build relationships, and provide funding opportunities for the products they build, both from Web 3 companies and investors.

We’re big fans of Gitcoin at EthHub and we think this is an awesome opportunity to get involved with the Ethereum/web3 ecosystem. You can apply to be part of this program here.

The weekly recap podcast will be delayed by roughly 24 hours this week due to scheduling issues - sorry for the inconvenience!

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

🤯 Colombia, Deloitte, ConsenSys Sign On to WEF’s ‘Blockchain Bill of Rights’

The World Economic Forum revealed its Presidio Principles on Friday, a “blockchain bill of rights,” according to the nonprofit focused on fostering diplomacy and international business partnerships. The document includes signatories from the Government of Colombia, Deloitte Consulting LLP, ConsenSys, Electric Coin Company, CoinShares and the United Nations’ World Food Program, just to name a few.

“We supported the creation of the Presidio Principles – as well as guidelines and design principles for public institutions – because we wanted to ensure that progress can continue rapidly and responsibly, ensuring that basic characteristics like security and data privacy are secured for our citizens,” Victor Munoz, Colombia’s presidential advisor on economic affairs and digital transformation, said in a press statement.

Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin encouraged crypto startups to become signatories and join the WEF’s open dialogue. In a press statement, he said he hopes “all builders of Ethereum-based projects – and across the blockchain landscape – will sign on to demonstrate their commitment to the users of their systems and applications.”

Indeed, Aya Miyaguchi of the Ethereum Foundation was involved. Greg Medcraft of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Delia Ferreira Rubio of Transparency International also contributed to the project.

💰 BlockFi Suffers Data Breach

BlockFi said an attacker got hold of users’ data by compromising an employee’s phone and taking control of the person’s phone number through a SIM swap attack.

The New York-based crypto lending platform announced in a memo to users on Tuesday that a hacker – whose identity remains unknown – gained access to some of its retail marketing systems for just over an hour early on May 14.

“On May 14, there was a data incident at BlockFi that exposed certain client account information for a brief period of time. While no information was accessed that would enable the intruder to access your account or your funds, we believe it is in the interest of transparency to share the following details with you, and all of our other clients who were potentially affected,” reads the memo.

BlockFi said the hacker accessed confidential data, such as names, dates of birth, postal addresses and activity histories. Other sensitive account information including bank account details, social security and tax identification numbers, passport and driver’s license numbers and photo scans, were not affected in the data breach, the company said. User funds were also not affected.

💳 Company That Sued FTX and Ripple Now Sets Its Sights on BitMEX

BMA LLC, the Puerto Rican company that three weeks ago filed a lawsuit again Ripple, has accused the BitMEX derivatives exchange of orchestrating the largest financial crime in American history.

The little-known firm, formerly known as Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement and controlled by Pavel Pogodin, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Saturday, alleging that HDR Global Trading, the parent company of BitMEX, perpetrated a vast racketeering conspiracy designed to reap billions in illegal profit.

This plot featured wire fraud, money laundering, unlicensed money transmission, interstate transport of stolen property and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, BMA alleges.

In a statement, an HDR spokesperson said the company was aware of the complaint, “which is clearly rehashed from information culled from the internet,” and that it would be defending itself “vigorously against this spurious claim.”

Project Updates

Ethereum Foundation 2020 Spring Update

This update focuses on how the Ethereum Foundation aims to help further Ethereum’s progress, on what they’ve been working on in terms of allocations and more, and on why their outlook is brighter now more than ever for Ethereum.

Eth2 Spec v0.12 Released

This spec release adds a bunch of changes to eth2 including adjustments to the inactivity penalty, networking tweaks and more for phase 0 with some notes on the phase 1 and light client specs. If there are no updates or issues, this will be the spec version that eth2 phase 0 will launch with.

Eth 2.0 Dev Update #50 — “Multiclient Testnet Restart + Slasher Improvements”

Bi-weekly update from the PryLabs team that recaps the Schlesi testnet (and gives some info on the next multi-client testnet, Witti), provides a report on the finality issues with the Topaz testnet and much more.

RAI Whitepaper Published

Reflexer Labs published a whitepaper covering the RAI project which aims to build a framework for launching Reflex Bonds, a new category of asset that provides stability relative to its underlying collateral.

Uniswap V2 on Mainnet

Uniswap V2 was deployed to the Ethereum mainnet this week. Both v1 and v2 will be running in parallel (as the v1 contracts cannot be removed) but Uniswap has built a liquidity migration portal to help Uniswap LP’s changeover to v2.

Lodestar Project Update

A brief update from the Lodestar team going over the work they’ve been doing on eth2 over the last few months.

Gnosis Safe Updates

Gnosis Safe Multisig is now available as a desktop app for Linux, MacOS and Windows and also includes a “contract interaction” feature.

Fuel Labs Releases Demo of Reddit Cash

Reddit Cash is a Burner Wallet powered using Fuel’s optimistic rollup for an easy and truly scalable use of Reddit Community Points. The demo lets you transfer, tip and exchange Moons and Bricks tokens.

Introducing defi18n

defi18n is a new project from Mariano Conti that aims to collect translations strings so that Ethereum projects can easily use them on their website or in other copy.

Miksi Announced

Miksi is an Ethereum mixer where all the computation & constructions are done offchain and then proved inside a zkSNARK to a Smart Contract (for the deposit and for the withdraw).

Ethereum Cat Herders Update #21

Ethereum Cat Herders community update is here with another issue to recap the latest in Ethereum developments and other exciting progress in the ecosystem.

Introducing KERNEL

KERNEL is an 8-week program from Gitcoin for technologists looking to build relationships, products, and companies in Web 3.

Tornado.cash is Now Trustless

The operator address for Tornado.cash has been set to 0x00 on all instances (0.1 ETH, 1 ETH, 10 ETH, and 100 ETH), so that from now on, all tornado.cash contracts are immutable and unstoppable.

ETHBTC Synthetic Token is Live

A Synthetic Token to track ETHBTC—collateralized with DAI—has been built using UMA’s Priceless infrastructure. It is available on Uniswap v2.

First Cohort of Chicago DeFi Alliance Participants Announced

The list includes 0x, dYdX, Kyber, IDEX, Opyn, Set Protocol and Synthetix.

MetaCartel is Evolving

MetaCartel is evolving into a DAO incubator. They are doubling down to build the future of DAOs and community driven organisations.

Matic Prepares for Staking

In this update, the Matic team walk through how MATIC token holders can get started with staking once it goes live over the coming weeks.

Baseline Protocol Update

This week, the Baseline Protocol, an OASIS open source initiative, published a demo of multiple companies digitally managing purchase orders and volume discount agreements across disparate systems. The demo uses an approach called “baselining” to prevent data inconsistencies and workflow errors that often lead to problems in revenue recognition.

ZapOuts Now Live

You can now use Zapper to automatically withdraw liquidity from Uniswap pools.

Idle v3.0 Launched

The new platform comes with brand new allocation strategies, new supported protocols & assets, and a new dashboard to monitor and manage your interest-bearing tokens portfolio.

Fluidity Joins ConsenSys

Fluidity, the team behind the Airswap protocol, announced this week that they are being acquired by ConsenSys.

Introducing Pollen

Pollen is a lot of things; a DAO, a DeFi asset pool and a liquidity provider. It uses human capital, governance protocols and perfectly aligned interests to recalibrate and optimise based on market conditions.

Community Member Spotlight

This week we’re highlighting the great work of Stani Kulechov!

Stani is a very active Ethereum community member and is the Founder and CEO of Aave - a DeFi lending protocol that has seen meteoric growth over the last few months. Before founding Aave, Stani completed a Master’s Degree in Law and spent some time as a legal trainee at various law firms.

Keep up the great work Stani!