Crypto && Coffee 090
- 7 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- Bitcoin Core v22.0rc2 release candidate has been tagged for the next major version of the full node implementation and its associated wallet software. This next release will have major changes with support for I2P connections, removal of support for version 2 Tor connections, and enhanced hardware wallet support.
- Bitnob integrates and joins the Lightning Network!
- Coinlend adds support for Lightning payments!
- BitGo shares that they will be switching the default change output to Native SegWit for their wallets.
- This week Bitcoin Optech focuses on Signature adaptors for their weekly series in all things Taproot.
Ethereum:
- The Go Ethereum team announced that on Tuesday, August 24th, 2021 Geth will issue a hotfix to a high severity security issue.
- Ethereum Foundation shares their Research and Development Roundup for the past few months!
- Solidity v0.8.7 has been released! This upgrade introduces support for the London upgrade including various improvements to Yul to EVM code transformation, SMTChecker and more.
- ConsenSys deep dives into the path to Proof of Stake (PoS) for Ethereum and how the upgrade will fundamentally change the Ethereum chain and network.
- Ben Edgington shares the latest in ETH2.0 with focus on Altair, The Merge, updated tooling and more!
- The Go Ethereum team just released the latest version of Geth v1.10.7. This includes post-London tweaks and potentially breaking API upgrades.
- Vitalik Buterin shares his thoughts on Moving Beyond Coin Voting Governance.
- Prysmatic Labs releases v2.0.0-rc.0! This update is a required upgrade for all pyrmont nodes and not intended for the current mainnet.
- Pyrmont testnet Altair hard fork will occur at 12:00 UTC on August 19th, 2021.
- Ethereum Foundation shares how to write and deploy NFTs.
Other Chains:
- Polygon merges with rollup platform Hermez Network in a 250M MATIC deal. Hermez will be absorbed into the Polygon ecosystem under the name Polygon Hermez, where it will become a part of Polygon’s line of products, including Polygon SDK and Polygon Avail.
- Chainlink’s industry-leading decentralized oracle network is now running live on Arbitrum One. This is the initial integration which provides native support for the various USD-denominated Chainlink Price Feeds, on Arbitrum.
- Nethermind released a demo where one can compile a Solidity ERC-20 contract to Cairo and deploy directly to StarkNet!
- The 1inch Network continues to expand with the 1inch Aggregation Protocol being deployed on Optimism’s mainnet! 1inch users can already start migrating assets to the Optimistic network through Optimism Gateway.
- DeversiFi has formally launched its widely anticipated DeversiFi governance token (DVF) network governance mechanism in a move aimed at empowering users to shape the future of Ethereum layer-2.
- zkSync v2.0 is making steady progress! The Yul-LLVM compiler for zkEVM has now been fully open-sourced.
- Co-founder and CEO of StarkWare, Uri Kolodny shares that StarkEx settled 617K transactions over Ethereum in the past week. That is 7.2% of Ethereum’s layer-1 capacity. Layer-2 is slowly rising.
- XMR <-> BTC atomic swaps are live on mainnet!
- Mempool just shipped v2.2.1 which contains the new difficulty adjustment widget on the dashboard and other various minor enhancements.
- The seventh upgrade on Tezos and the third this year, Granada, took place last week on August 6th, 2021! The upgrade successfully activated and reduced gas consumption and block times. The recent growth in Tezos this year includes more than 10M total contract calls, 1,200% increase in activity, and over 200K NFTs minted.
- Samczsun publishes The Dangers of Surprising Code which dives into the pitfalls and concerns of compatibility between various ERC-NNN contracts, hashmasks, and more!
- The Electric Coin Company published another article on what it would mean for Zcash to move towards Proof of Stake (PoS). Steven Smith, their VP of Engineering dove deeper in a thread after holding an AMA.
- Lyra receives a $1M contribution from the synthetixDAO.
- Slingshot introduces fractional Pudgy Penguins trading with Fractional and Polygon.
- StarkWare publishes their Cairo whitepaper! This dives into the Cairo architecture and how Cairo proofs are created.
- Rainbow shares a beginner’s guide to layer-2 networks and how to use Rainbow with networks such as Optimism, Polygon, and Arbitrum.
- Balancer launches MetaStable Pools to further pool liquidity.
- Cosmos-based Emeris beta is now live! Emeris is the interface for the Cosmos Gravity DEX.
- Yield farming and trading for renDOGE/ETH pairs on Quickswap are now live!
- Gnosis shares how Gnosis Safe is helping users mitigate Miner Extractable Value (MEV).
- Dave White and Dan Robinson of Paradigm publish Power Perpetuals which introduces a new derivative type which provides global options-like exposure without the need for either strikes or expiries.
- Oasis’ first on-chain vote to upgrade the network is taking place currently. Voting for the upgrade will end at epoch 7876 which is expected to occur on August 24th, 2021 at 12:00 UTC.
- Lyra introduces the Lyra Launch Council, a community elected group that will oversee the launch of the protocol and token.
Mainstream Recap:
- BitMEX Research discusses the need for Proof of Liability and shares how UK-based Coinfloor provides a full solvency report each month.
- 20 days until Bitcoin becomes legal tender in El Salvador.
- Coinbase publishes an article stating that USDC is the largest regulated stablecoin in the world.
- Binance announced the appointment of Greg Monahan, former U.S. Treasury Criminal Investigator, who joins the organization as Global Money Laundering Reporting Officer (GMLRO).
- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that Poloniex LLC has agreed to pay more than $10M to settle charges from operating an unregistered online digital asset exchange in connection with its operation of a trading platform that facilitated buying and selling of digital asset securities from July 2017 through November 2019.
- Dune Analytics raises $8M in their Series A led by Union Square Ventures. Redpoint Ventures also participated in the round with existing investors Dragonfly Capital and Multicoin Capital.
- Samczsun performed a whitehack rescue on SushiSwap’s MISO platform. Full audit log here. Mudit who contributed to the response and recovery shared more details as well.
- An Aave fork on BSC, Maze Protocol, was exploited with a majority of the funds being returned. The attacker exploited the borrow method which allowed them to initiate loans under users’ collateral.
- Binance has been ordered by the London High Court to trace the perpetrators of a $2.6M hack.
- Mean Finance discovered a bug in their protocol related to a rounding error on some swaps within the protocol.
- Yearn’s security team identified an issue in Curve Bribe v1 and whitehacked the contract, successfully recovering $117,565 or 99.8% of the funds. The funds will be donated to a newer version.
- With news of some exchanges exposing the identities of their VIP clients, Kraken states that they will never breach the confidentiality of their relationships with clients for marketing purposes.
- Jay Graber, former Zcash developer, announces that she will lead BlueSky, an initiative started by Twitter to decentralize social media.
- Powerbridge announces that they plan to invest and engage in cryptocurrency mining for Bitcoin and Ethereum with planned operations globally.
- CoinDesk reports that TaxBit raised an additional $130M via their Series B that valued the startup at $1.33B.
- Fun article from Bloomberg, 50 Years After Going Off Gold, the Dollar Must Go for Crypto.
- Crypto derivatives platform, Delta Exchange, introduced it’s “Enhanced Yield Product” that will simplify the process of BTC and ETH options trading.
- FTX announced a $150K/year three-year commitment to Brink Technology, a not-for-profit organization to support the Bitcoin community through developer grants!
- Dolce & Gabbana will debut its NFT collection on the luxury marketplace UNXD later this month in a bid to bridge the physical with the metaverse.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are jumping down to Rancho Cucamonga, CA for a cup of Crazy Goat from Klatch Coffee. This blend yields flavors of dark chocolate, spice, and toffee. Sip up and enjoy!!
Jake Tarnow
Not Your Average Engineer