EthHub Weekly #195

ZKOPRU live on testnet, Perpetual Protocol v2 launched, Lemma on mainnet, Euler live on testnet and much more!

Dec 06, 2021

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

🎂 Happy Birthday to the Beacon Chain

This week was the Ethereum Beacon Chain’s first birthday (on December 1st) and what a first year it has been. There’s been over 8 million ETH staked, over 250,000 validators spun up, the Altair network upgrade went live and work on The Merge is progressing swimmingly. If you want a deeper recap on the Beacon Chain’s first year, you can read my piece here.

Have a great week everyone!
- Anthony

News of the Week

⚖️ Gensler Hedges on Classifying Cryptocurrencies as Securities in Response to Senator’s Questions

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler is keeping mum on new guidance for crypto tokens.

After a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee in September, the committee's leading Republican, Sen. Pat Toomey, wrote Gensler a series of follow-up questions on cryptocurrencies.

In responses released on December 3, Gensler stuck to the broad interpretation of existing laws and the Howey and Reeves tests that he has promulgated since taking office. Effectively, Gensler argues that the SEC does not need to specify which crypto assets are and are not securities, as those laws and court cases established broad parameters — an attitude that has ruffled many in the crypto industry.

Following up on questions from the hearing, Toomey asked Gensler to "identify the specific characteristics that distinguish a cryptocurrency that is a security from one that has been deemed a commodity."

😔 Crypto Exchange BitMart Confirms Hack Resulting in Loss of $150 Million in Crypto

Crypto exchange BitMart said late Saturday that it has suffered a hack, resulting in the loss of $150 million worth of crypto.

Security researchers PeckShield originally estimated that the exchange had been hacked for $100 million.

Founder and CEO Sheldon Xia later confirmed the incident, writing on Twitter: "We have identified a large-scale security breach related to one of our ETH hot wallets and one of our BSC hot wallets. At this moment we are still concluding the possible methods used. The hackers were able to withdraw assets of the value of approximately USD 150 millions."

Xia went on to write that the exchange is "conducting a thorough security review" and that all withdrawals are suspended until "further notice."