Crypto && Coffee 117
- 6 minsTechnology Recap:
Bitcoin:
- Olaoluwa Osuntokun - aka roasbeef, CTO of Lightning Labs, has publicly published a set of draft BIPs for Taro, a Taproot Asset Representation Overlay. Taro uses the Taproot script tree to commit to extra structure metadata which enables the representation and transfer of assets on Bitcoin.
- Cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken, announces that all clients are now able to use the Lightning Network.
- Ruben Somsen posted a proposal to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list exploring non-interactive private payments with no on-chain overhead.
- Devrandom shares thoughts on blind signers in Bitcoin and Lightning Network.
- Spiral shares their Quarterly update for Q1 2022 with focus on adoption of LDK (Lightning Development Kit) and BDK (Bitcoin Development Kit).
Litecoin:
- Charlie Lee shares an update on MWEB signaling. Soon after, F2pool started signaling for MWEB on March 31st, 2022.
- David Burkett publishes his latest progress update on MWEB bug fixes.
Ethereum:
- The Merge is coming sooner than you think! It has already occurred on the Kiln testnet and the Kintsugi testnet. It will then happen on the existing public testnest like Ropsten and Goerli before full mainnet launch.
- Vitalik Buterin shares what could have happened to Ethereum had different considerations and decisions had been made.
- Solidity v0.8.13 has been released! This version includes fixes to an important bug surrounding encodingCall() on the ABI.
- Trenton Van Epps of the Ethereum Foundation goes into detail on unburnt fees on the Execution Layer post Merge.
- Geth v1.10.17, Politari, is now out! This release contains foundational improvements in preparation for The Merge.
- Trenton Van Epps gives his thoughts on The Merge and GPU miners.
- The Ethereum Cat Herders release their latest update with focus on Kiln testnet, mainnet shadow forking, and all the latest EIPs.
Other Chains:
- Aave V3 is now here! V3 brings groundbreaking new features including increased capital efficiency and enhanced decentralization capabilities.
- Nethermind shares how to use Shamir’s secret sharing technique to securely share mnemonic keys which are often used to secure crypto wallets.
- StarkWare introduces the first version of the StarkNet Bridge: StarkGate Alpha!
- A series of Tezos protocol proposals in 2022 will focus on high-throughput use-cases and expanded smart contract functionality.
- Cosmos’ Theta upgrade went live on testnet recently which brings with it Cosmos SDK v0.45.1, Interchain Account Module, and IBC v3.0.0.
- Uniswap Labs proposes a template for cross-chain deployment proposals via the Uniswap Governance Forum.
- Solid article on Terra and whether it can escape the common “coupon coin” curse.
- Optimism dives into their solution to provide better reliability and hardening of metrics around their entire infrastructure.
- Keplr wallet has released a full UX/UI redesign!
- Argent dives into Account Abstraction which will make self-custody a viable option for mainstream audiences and improve security.
- Lyra Alpha has begun! The first 100 Alpha traders can now access the Avalon testnet and explore the next iteration of Lyra.
- As of March 28th, 2022, veBAL is live on the Balancer ecosystem, enabling a new veBAL governance system.
- Electric Coin Company releases their Transparency Report for Q3 of 2021!
- CoWDAO closes a $23M investment round which will leverage CoW Protocol as the primary price finding layer for all digital assets on EVM-based chains.
- Kobi Gurkan announces the launch of Celo’s Plumo protocol which serves Plumo proofs, a WASM library to verify the proofs, and a JavaScript library to fetch and trustlessly verify on-chain data.
- Arbitrum announces that Aave V3 has launched on their platform as well, allowing lending/borrowing via ETH, DAI, USDC, USDT, LINK and more.
- Harmony shares that Aave V3 is now live on their protocol as well.
- Fantom Foundation announces the support of Aave V3 on their protocol with unparalleled speed and extremely low fees.
- Equilibrium announces a strategic partnership with StarkWare to continue building core infrastructure for StarkNet tooling.
- Tatum opens Celo’s entire NFT ecosystem up to developers in a push to build better NFT dApps!
- Matcha shares how the number of users executing trades on Optimism is rising!
- Opera Crypto announces that they are adding support for several major blockchain ecosystems including Solana, Polygon, StarkEx, Celo, Nervos Network, Impact DAO and Bitcoin.
- The Zcash Foundation share’s their March Newsletter with focus around Zebra, FROST v03 spec, community grants, and more!
- Ocelot Labs proposed that Celo should become a layer-2 ecosystem through Celestia.
- Breez Technology gives an update on their full suite of products now ranging from allowing multiple apps, a single node for deployment and more!
- Matchbox DAO is announced which presents the first iteration of Solve2Mint in Cairo!
Hacks | Vulnerabilities | Exploits:
- The Ronin Bridge was exploited due to a failure to remove authenticated third-party access controls via signature validation for 173,600 ETH and 25.5M USDC.
- InverseFinance was exploited due to a price oracle manipulation bug allowing INV to be used as collateral to drain assets from InverseFinance. The exploit resulted in $15.6M being stolen in the form of 1,588 ETH, 94 WBTC, 4M DOLA, and 39.3 YFI.
- BasketDAO announces a vulnerability in the BMIZapper smart contract. All users and developers should revoke app approvals for the contract.
- Daniel Von Fange shares that the Compound Finance codebase has a reentrancy bug that was disclosed last November. The base vulnerability is a reentrancy attack similar to what we saw with CREAM. Please note that this is only exploitable if a token is listed by Compound and that token allows reentrancy. Be aware of forked versions of these smart contracts as the vulnerabilities come with the forked code!
Mainstream Recap:
- Bitcoin Magazine shares that the UST stablecoin treasury has bought over 30,000 BTC worth nearly $1.5B.
- MacroStrategy has purchased an additional 4,167 bitcoins for ~190.5M at an average price of ~$45,714 per bitcoin. As of April 4th, 2022, MicroStrategy hotels 129,218 bitcoins acquired for ~#3.97B at an average price of $30,700 per bitcoin.
- Lightning Labs raises $70M in their latest funding round to bring low-fee stablecoin and asset transfers to the Lightning Network through Taro.
- Blur has raised an $11M seed round led by Paradigm to build the best NFT marketplace for pro traders.
- a16z announces their investment in LayerZero, a cross-chain communication protocol designed to alleviate the current limitations of omnichain activity.
- MacroStrategy, a subsidiary of MicroStrategy, closed a $205M bitcoin-collateralized loan with Silvergate bank to purchase BTC.
- River Financial announces that River Mining is here! This launch entails seamless, investment-grade bitcoin mining for retail investors.
- The Litecoin Foundation has partnered with Antpool to form the digital currency research lab, LTC Labs. The organization will focus on the research and information of anonymous transactions, dApps, evolution of digital currency, and wallets.
This Week’s Cup of Coffee:
This week, we are headed to Oakland, CA for a cup of Darkroom from Highwire Coffee Roasters. This roast yields a blend of coffees from Ethiopia, Guatemala and Indonesia, delivering a syrupy body with notes of cocoa and caramel. Sip up and enjoy!!
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