Crypto && Coffee 072
- 7 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- The mempool depth dropped to 100 blocks early on April 12th, 2021 which was the lowest it had been since February 8th, 2021.
- The momentum to activate Taproot continues after full discussion on the tradeoffs between MTP vs. a set block height. Some compromise was reached with the following PR gaining traction and support among core developers.
- Bitcoin Core merges in a patch that adds a network field to RPC which can help identify nodes on various networks (IPv4, IPv6, I2P, etc.).
- Lightning Labs merges an update which enables LND to receive spontaneous AMP (Atomic Multi-Path) payments and send them by crafting the appropriate request using SendToRoute.
- Lightning Labs releases their latest newsletter diving into all things streaming with social sats, rewards, and more.
Ethereum:
- The Go Ethereum team releases Geth v1.10.2 with various bug fixes in preparation for the Berlin hard fork which is scheduled for block 12,244,000.
- The Berlin hard fork is estimated to occur at ~3:53 AM PDT, April 15th, 2021.
- This past week’s ETH2.0 Implementers Call went over client updates for Prysm, Teku, Lodestar, Lighthouse and Nimbus. In addition, planning is still taking place regarding the Altair hard fork for the Beacon Chain will take place sometime in June or July.
- Tim Beiko shares that the first devnet for testing integrations of the London hard fork is now up! Test EIP-1559 transactions are flowing!
- Ben Edgington publishes what’s new in ETH2.0 including updates on The Merge, Altair Beacon Chain fork, Rayonism, and further research on validators.
- Prysmatic Labs releases ETH2.0 client, Prysm v1.3.7. This minor release has a few bug fixes and includes changes to the default cryptography library with updates for the Altair hard fork.
- ConsenSys releases ETH2.0 client, Teku v21.4.0. This includes fixes to an error which would cause blocks to fail import, new validator metrics, and further optimizations.
- Sigma Prime releases a full update on Lighthouse, their ETH2.0 client.
Other Chains:
- 1inch introduces the 1inch Network, a collection of strong and composable DeFi instruments, which together enable users to maximize the financial opportunity of web3!
- RenVM has surpassed $4B USD in total cross-chain volume, with close to 6M rewarded to network participants.
- Immutable announces the first layer-2 for NFTs on Ethereum. Powered by StarkWare their platform can now allow for instant trades with up to 9,000 TPS (transactions per second).
- The Electric Coin Company announced Halo Arc for Zcash, a product suite to launch the next generation of Zcash. It includes updates to zcashd, the ECC Reference Wallet apps and wallet SDKs. Halo Arc leverages two upcoming improvements including Network Upgrade 5 (NU5) and unified addresses. Both NU5 and Halo Arc are anticipated to activate on October 1st, 2021.
- THORChain contributors announce the multichain chaosnet, MCCN, is now live! This enables cross-chain swaps between Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Binance Chain networks.
- 0x DAO is now live on mainnet! The smart contract has been funded with 2M ZRX and the DAO will initially only control the community treasury and not upgrades to the core protocol.
- Tendermint acquires DeFi liquidity innovator B-Harvest, creator of Gravity DEX, the first interchain DEX created for the Cosmos Hub.
- dYdX shares that the UNI-USD and AAVE-USD perpetual markets are now live on layer-2!
- Value DeFi announces a major partnership to bring native BTC liquidity to Binance Smart Chain!
- Monero shares the announcement of Haveno, a Monero-based DEX for trading XMR for fiat and other cryptocurrencies.
- Ribbon Finance launches Theta Vaults, a way to earn yield on ETH through running an automated covered call strategy with one click.
- Injective Protocol announces the integration with Harmony to launch a diverse array of interoperable derivatives. The addition of Harmony will also utilize Harmony’s BSC bridge as Injective is already integrated with Binance Smart Chain as well.
- zkSync shares zkPorter, an engine for mass adoption which is coming with EVM-enabled zkSync 2.0 later this August.
- Ren now makes forking RenBridge much easier through the advancement of RenBridge v2.1 by removing any centralized system for order storage and addition of Firebase.
- Sommelier shares what Uniswap V3 means for their architecture and validators.
- The Ren Report illustrates that the 7-day moving average of mints across RenVM are up from 70 to 181 BTC per day. This is a ~260% increase in the daily moving average.
- Filecoin introduces MetaMask Snaps with Filecoin, a special developer release that contains basic support for Filecoin via a prototype to enable developers to build web3 sites with Filecoin.
- Phoenix Wallet, a Bitcoin and Lightning Network enabled wallet, has graduated from testnet to mainnet! It is now live!
- DApp developers are now able to easily and reliably query Avalanche’s on-chain data with their applications via The Graph’s subgraphs.
- Elixir Market is announced! Users can now trade bitcoin-focused NFTs using the Lightning Network.
- Kava Labs announces that their protocol upgrade, Kava 5, which is built on the Cosmos SDK will allow users to borrow against multiple cryptocurrency assets and earn staking rewards.
- In cooperation with 1inch and DigiByte communities, the public can now yield farm renDGB on 1inch!
- The latest Zcash metrics show that the Sapling privacy set is now about 3x larger than it was a year ago.
- Samczsun, researcher at Paradigm, publishes a guided walkthrough of the swap challenge from Paradigm CTF 2021.
- Instadapp announces they are live on Polygon! Users can interact with Aave on Polygon through Instadapp with fast confirmations for fractions of a penny.
- Matcha now has five new liquidity sources including MarkerDAO, Kyber Network, Saddle Finance, SmoothSwap, and Component Finance.
- Augur releases a waiting list for Augur AMM and Layer-2 updates.
- Nomadic Labs shares their latest activities from Q1 of 2021 in the Tezos ecosystem including the Florence protocol proposal, adoption, and support.
- Hermez Network, the ZK-Rollup based Ethereum protocol, moves ahead with listing WBTC, WETH, XAUt, UNI, SUSHI, COMP, BAL, YFI, and LINK.
- OpenMinter is announced! OpenMinter is a Tezos based open-source DApp framework for enabling the creation and collection of NFTs.
- Ren’s Cross-Chain Pool is now live on Rari Capital. renBTC, renFIL, ETH, DAI, and USDC can now be supplied and used as collateral to borrow any of the other assets in the pool.
- At an ENS workshop earlier this week, developers demoed the first MVP of ENS’s Layer-2 support, showing how an ENS name can be resolved on Optimism.
Mainstream Recap:
- Coinbase is now listed on Nasdaq. As a nod to Satoshi, they asked F2Pool to add the following coinbase message to block 679187.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a notice last Friday that it had begun evaluating the WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust, which was first filed last month with Cboe BZX Exchange.
- Mempool, an open-source blockchain explorer received a $125,000 development grant from Square Crypto and Gemini.
- ConsenSys raises $65M to accelerate convergence of DeFi and web3 applications on Ethereum. Global financial services firms J.P. Morgan, Mastercard, and UBS invested alongside leading blockchain companies including Protocol Labs, Maker Foundation, Fenbushi, The LAO, and Alameda Research.
- Charlie Noyes and Dan Robinson of Paradigm Research publish a thesis on Cosmos and their pitch for interoperability.
- Kraken shares that Alekos Filini has been named the first beneficiary of their donation to the Brink Bitcoin research and development center.
- Reuters shares that a senior Bank of Japan official notes that a group of the world’s seven major central banks has scope to set common rules and platforms for their own digital currencies that could lay the groundwork for more efficient cross-border payments.
- CoinDesk reports that State Street, the second-oldest bank in the US, is providing the infrastructure for a new bank-grade trading platform for digital assets set to go live mid-year.
- Rick Caruso’s real estate company announced last week that it will begin accepting BTC as rent payment as its residential and retail properties.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are heading over to Brooklyn, NY for a cup of 1320 from City of Saints Coffee Roasters. This blend is composed of Latin American coffees roasted to a darker profile. Once brewed, this cup yields a bold flavor of dark chocolate and roasted marshmallows! Sip up and enjoy!!
Jake Tarnow
Not Your Average Engineer