Weekly Roundups - 2023

As ever, I wish we had more discussion around here about app developments on Ethereum rather than… whatever the depressive topics have been the past few days.

In the spirit of being the change I want to see in the world let me plug Gearbox V3. Basically Gearbox is a leverage application that removes the leverage component from the underlying application and allows you to apply leverage using Defi legos on their own. Think of it like ‘modular Defi’. The key insight that enabled leverage is that when you borrow funds, the funds aren’t given to you, they are held in escrow by the protocol so you can’t just run off with them. Now, there’s no sense having the protocol just hold onto borrowed funds. The reason you’re borrowing is to do something. So, since you aren’t being given the funds the protocol has to do that something on your behalf.

For older leverage applications, the something they would do on your behalf was the application. You could use dydx and get leveraged price exposure to an asset but the leverage was tightly coupled to a dex. This leads to liquidity fragmentation. While the nature of the price exposure mechanism changed with apps like GMX, perps still tightly couple the liquidity source for leverage with their application. By contrast, Gearbox allows you to execute leveraged strategies that actually execute against Curve or Uniswap.

To execute a strategy with Gearbox you put up your collateral, borrow the funds required to execute your strategy, and then execute it using a plugin to any Defi application they support. For example if you wanted to go 3x long, you could put up 1x collateral, borrow 3x whatever you’re shorting, swap to 3x of your long asset using any supported Dex, and hold that position while paying interest on the borrow. When plugged into something like Aave this also let’s you do fancy stuff like profit from interest rate spreads or leverage your way into a Curve LP Yearn pool which auto compounds rewards back to you. The potential here is open ended and incredible.

Gearbox v3 does a few cool things. First it allows borrowers to have better granularity on which position is secured by which collateral. The basic idea is they create a smart contract with your name on it that is executed according to a strategy you configure. Second it enables lenders to underwrite their own risk and choose what types of risk their funds are exposed to. This is a common trend I’ve seen lately in Defi. We are steadily moving away from pooling everyone into the same risk bracket and moving towards programmable money where everyone can adjust their own risk.

If you have time I’d suggest you dig in or you know, try it yourself. It’s far more fun to focus on exciting things happening at home than to focus on narrative noise from CT and bring it here.

u/Defacticool shares their experience getting phished so you don't have to

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x07344545d7b3e3ce7032dc5319ee9e3dbce291bcdbe3b798982055bb7b6a6567

Alright so got hacked for the first time

Well “hacked”, I accidentally approved something in metamask that allowed them to take all my eth and one NFT.

Like 24k USD worth in total, which isnt the end of the world luckily enough. Luckily my main stack isnt on this adress.

I got fooled because I was trying to do the Frame airdrop and when looking at their twitter (the correct twitter) a fake frame account with a check mark (thanks for that Elon) were in their replies and I wasnt observant enough.

idiotic of me, but anyway

I still want to utilise this adress to claim airdrops and the like but I obviously cant do so when I have this hanging over it. I’m looking at the approvals checker on etherscan but cant find any approvals I did today or any access given today, so this fraudulent acces/approval isnt there.

Does anyone else know how I do/how I should do to remove their access to my address?

Thanks for any help

Edit: Also I suppose it doesnt matter now so for any interested sleuths heres my address for your perusal: 0x139373F9FFeDCf909518096fC165f3b87fD7046C

After looking over it it doesnt seem like I have any offending approvals. Is it possible for a phisher to have some other kind of access still?

Edit 2: The offending transactions seem to have been these ones, in this chronological order:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4b7a6c41aed26af4280b24c7da787b0b5732a43e34bf81d6cea79c02857c2bed

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8c374ec10e5254289a4c224e6dfae6c0a76a0466f0ab4bf7d803844f05c421f3

What I’m worried about now is that the scammer can repeat some function in order to drain my adress again in the future, if I fill it with some ETH for gas for example

If anyone with that are above my hobbyist level of ability could help tell me if anything in these transactions point to this being repeatable I would greatly appreciate it! (or just point me in a helpful direction would be really nice too)

u/haurog has a post about wallet security and phishing protection which you simply can't miss

There have been too many people being scammed out of some of their crypto holdings with the recent frame airdrop. The frame airdrop is legit, there are just too many fake claim websites wanting your money. If you use the network please consider installing/enabling transaction previews. These help you understanding what you are actually signing before it gets broadcasted:

Either use:

Rabby Wallet which has this included in their wallet already. It is on the very paranoid side, so maybe you start clicking the warnings away automatically after some time.
Use Metamask snaps which provide this. I shortly tested Wallet Guard which does the job. I am sure there are other good options in their security section: https://snaps.metamask.io/explore/
Install an additional extension like pocket universe or fire. I use both of them in parallel for many months now. Every time I receive a signing request they pop up and inform me about what I am going to sign.

All of these solutions put another actor in your signing process which could get attacked. Be aware of that. I am also not sure how much information is shared with whom in all these solutions. The additional extensions have served me well in the last months in combination with the frame wallet. I think the Rabby wallet is the most user friendly one, but a bit too paranoid for my taste, especially if you are using very new protocols.

I tested all of these solutions on my go-to scam website I found some time ago, a tornado cash fork, which wants to steal all my funds. All of the above solution told me exactly what I sign and Metamask even wanted to prevent me from visiting the scam site.

u/Qwertybop1 shares a big moment they're celebrating on-chain!

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xde92b790ebd82fa73b69b3f1d32d1f5b3d11649971da43e20593c7e7099a0fba

We got married onchain yesterday!

u/strawdar summarises the new ETH research proposal

So if I’m reading this proposal correctly:

Beacon stakers would no longer receive MEV rewards
MEV relays would sort of be replaced by execution ticket markets. This opens up the possibility to introduce burn on what today is MEV rewards.
Block builders would buy execution tickets and run execution proposers

EDIT: I think I’m making some assumptions on number 3, because the proposal says this is orthogonal to PBS. So number 3 could involve multiple parties or it could not.

EDIT2: Before stakers get up in arms about MEV rewards going away, this proposal would open up a new avenue for speculation on execution tickets: “Explicitly defining an execution proposer lottery allows validators to participate only by choice. If they like the idea of flipping a coin and getting a high-value slot, they are free to buy execution tickets.”

EDIT3: More stuff is sinking in now. You could in theory choose to run your validators in a mode similar to today by configuring them to purchase an execution ticket for each upcoming slot, but the cost of that ticket will be market driven while today they are essentially distributed uniformly and randomly.

u/krokodilmannchen has the latest on the ETF front

Latest on the ETF front: issuers have until next Friday to amend their filings. The SEC wants cash create only, and AP agreements. Whoever gets these done, will get a “go”.

Also, Blackrock will seed with $10m on January 3rd (subject to change).
Also, they have an Ether ETF filing. ;-)

u/masterRoshi9 shares a grounded investment thesis

If you frequent crypto Twitter and are feeling doubt about ETH, and FOMO or anger over Solana, it’s worth checking yourself and asking why you’re invested the way you are, and why you feel like that way. Personally speaking the vast majority of my stack is, has been, and will remain ETH because I can hold it and sleep well at night expecting it to go up over time with minimal downside risk relative to other crypto assets. It has arguably the best fundamentals of any asset, not only in crypto, but in any market. On short time horizons it won’t always or even often perform the best, especially in a bull market where narratives rule the day, but it will provide the best risk adjusted returns imo, and wealth preservation can be just as difficult if not more, than capital appreciation. I’m still buying.

Having said that, The recent performance of Solana, and other tokens that are purely speculative bets, is a great example of why it pays to be open minded and why it can be helpful to diversify. I maintain a percentage of my portfolio for speculative bets, trading, gambling, etc. Doesn’t work for everyone, you have to be honest and cut yourself off if you’re just burning capital, but it’s fun, curbs FOMO, and ideally lets me capture some additional upside from narratives or short term plays. I missed Solana, but made some gains on WIF, and had some fun shit posting with friends about it in our own internal group chats. Also have some medium-term holds and narratives I plan to dabble in this bull market.

It’s easy in crypto, especially if you’re on CT, to feel like you’re in a rat race against everyone else, look at gains someone else has made off of something you consider vaporware, and let it upset you. Even easier to let narratives that ETH is dead and that X-coin with no fundamentals is the future of France upset you. Don’t. If you’ve been here for the bear and have been buying ETH then you’re up too. Normies aren’t even here yet. Enjoy the ride. Be happy for newer or smaller participants coming into money for the first time. This is how crypto grows. Most importantly do not feed into tribal hate. Talking down about the ecosystem that just made users money doesn’t attract participants to our ecosystem or encourage learning, it just pits you against them and feeds into negative sentiment. Be welcoming and focus that energy towards more productive endeavors. Learn from Vitalik. It’s impossible to hate a guy that is perpetually positive towards others. And he does an excellent job framing all of crypto as an “us” vs the them, if I do say so myself. https://x.com/matthuang/status/1738810362022232210

In the end I think the Ethereum ecosystem will capture Solana’s moat, but that time is not now. If you too think that time will come, good news, you can position for it. These are my biggest catalysts for ETH this year:

4844 will drastically reduce gas fees for L2s. A world where Arbitrum/Optimism/ZKsync/etc is as cheap as Solana is a level playing field at attracting normies, memes, whatever. New L2s will create new opportunities for airdrops and new apps that take off.
A potential ETH ETF will create a speculative demand for ETH like nothing else. Even if it doesn’t go through people will buy in anticipation
Restaking is the most under-discussed catalyst for ETH the asset. Not only will you have a deflationary asset with native yields, but potentially with ponzy-like yields. If ETH approaches even close to 20% yield from restaking at any point the demand will be massive. Especially if the ETF brings in more traditional investors.

Basically what I’m saying is this: we should all be happy that the bull market seems to be back, and that we all have the opportunity to make money again in the coming year. If you disagree and are still bearish than maybe this post isn’t for you. Either way, enjoy the holidays, and may golden showers rain upon /r/ethfinance dailies every week for the next year!

u/Bob-Rossi reflects on a year of delegate representation

In the spirit of year-end reflection and New Year’s resolutions, I am looking for feedback / suggestions regarding my delegating duties of ARB and HOP I’ve taken on this year. Asking as I’m still relatively new to this and want to improve when I can - don’t be shy or holdback anything in feedback. For some context, my goal has largely been to take on these roles to help get some of the great minds on r/ethfinance a way to feel represented in governance. I’m not sure that has happened to the extent I’ve envisioned, but hopefully I’m making some impact and will grow into that in the future.

Obviously, I have no way to tell who actually delegates to me, but I’m assuming a bulk of the people are those who post here. So figured this was the best place to ask. So in short, do let me know if there are things you think I can improve on or ways you felt I’ve let you down. As well as things I’ve done that you would like to see me keep doing. Even if you aren’t specifically a delegate to me.

Some thoughts / questions of my own:

Voting Transparency — I do try to post DAO updates here both for informational purposes and to keep myself transparent. I know following actually Tally / Snapshot votes is a pain, so I hope this helps. Unfortunately, ARB is a little difficult since the forum links are shadow-banned. I do try to comment in the Arbitrum / HOP forums on my votes where it feels warranted (or on the actual Snapshot votes themselves). No good way around the ARB problem, but I do link the votes and do a summary of decision here to help with that. I also try to wait until a few votes have passed to ‘batch’ my updates and avoid clogging up the daily toooo much, however if people would prefer immediate updates (say, within a few days of the vote ending) I can switch to that.

Voting Participation — I do try to vote on everything that comes up, since that is ultimately the fundamental role here. Regrettably, I did miss a few votes over my time doing this. I think about 5 or 6 overall earlier in the summer across both DAOs. No excuses, and I’ve made sure not to miss stuff going forward. I’ll add, the Arbitrum STIP voting I did probably vote in maybe 1/4th of the total pool of candidates. The structure was a major issue IMO, which I brought up in the DAO forums. Expecting delegates to vet and vote on 100+ projects in that timeframe was impossible, and it does sound like future STIP / LTIPs are making note of that. And I’m not sure many delegates did vote in 100% of those (hats off to those who did). Sort of a one-off, but wanted to clarify that situation, and I do wish in hindsight I took a little more time for that.

Calls — I do try to attend the ARB and HOP calls when I can. I work full time, so it’s as schedule permits (although ARB does record the call and HOP has notes). ARB I’ve been admittedly lacking, but I’ve been better having joined the last 2. This is one of my top goals, to have better attendance here. My Q here is this - do people want updates on this type of thing? Is that too much? It sort of goes along the lines of r/ethfinance input as I’ll discuss below.

r/Ethfinance Input — I know sort of the point of being a delegate is so that people don’t have to worry about day to day minutia. However, I do want to feel out people’s opinion on this. For notable / larger / more controversial topics should I try to reach out for input more? Do people rather just me ‘read the room’ and vote that way. I try to vote in a way that is best for the particular DAOs & the Ethereum chain, but again I want to leverage the mindshare that is here to do that as I am still only human. Also, I want to re-iterate that I welcome people to reach out. that doesn’t happen much, so if there are ways people think I can be more inviting, for a lack of a better word, let me know. I’d love to be able to be a bridge between ideas here and ultimately discussion in front of said DAOS.

Updates — Basically, a mis-mash of the above. I want to walk the line as best I can between over and under updating on issues. So thoughts on this would be appreciated!

Twitter — I don’t really like Twitter, but I made one as I can’t stick my head in the sand. I don’t really use it that much… I’d be curious to those who think if I should use it more? I’m thinking maybe just doing updates there as well for those who follow. I don’t want to dive into CT degeneracy, but I probably should use it as a space to get updates out?

And finally, a thank you! There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not aware of the number of people that trust me with this. I know governance isn’t that sexy of a thing, but it’s really cool that people feel they can trust their vote with me and that isn’t lost.

u/lotec needs your help to push Coinbase into diversifying their stake

https://twitter.com/arboraeth/status/1739856214727557241

It would be great if we could give Arbora.eth a bit more publicity for his campaign to have Coinbase switch away from Geth.

u/the_swingman points out the struggle newcomers would have in finding good crypto information

Interesting you’re saying this today, I was just thinking about how lost a newcomer is in this space. Even if they found this subreddit, (could you imagine the lost faith in crypto if they visited r/cc or even r/Ethereum first?) I’m not so sure it would be obvious this is the place to trust or realize this sub is putting out the most critical/thoughtful info/discussion.

Imagine someone out there today (which I’m sure happens everyday) says, today is the day I’m going to get into crypto. Ugh, I’m getting a migraine just thinking about being that person.

Legitimately, im wondering where that person goes. The options are wild. Crypto Twitter, YouTube, reddit, discord, overall asking Google? Ooof. All of those can be very hit or miss with more misses than hits. Even finding coinbase and reading through their learning center can lead you down the wrong path.

There is just so much to comprehend on a fundamental level, then deciphering what is a quality crypto and why? The space is so polarized. For someone brand new, how quick would they learn the differences between ETH and BTC or XRP for that matter, or literally any other crypto. What’s the chances of them learning about LSDs or even the basics of Defi? Where is the drop off on the learning curve for most people?

Thinking about if I was brand new, jumping into “crypto” today, what would be the most helpful thing for me to learn and understand.. and how would I find it?

Off the top of my head, personally, I would like a flow chart. Something that could help me visualize the crypto space. Maybe a few versions of the flowchart, basic, intermediate, advanced .. clickable keywords that give a popup of basic definitions.

How would I find it? Idk, maybe this is where the Maverick funds do some SEO and try to find it’s way on the first page of Google.

u/benido2030 shares some thoughts on winning and not comparing to others

Some thoughts on winning

When I was a student, online poker became popular. By chance (I don’t even remember how) I found an online poker school that handed out 50$ for free after passing a quiz. I started playing Fixed Limit on the low low stakes (well, because 50$ isn’t a lot) but learned a lot, became better, moved up. When I reached 5/10$ (still in FL), I couldn’t handle the daily swings anymore. After all I was still a student, had like 750$ a month for everything from rent to food to cloths to drinks. So being in a position of losing 1000$+ on any given day, basically within 30 mins was too much for me. I played 3/6$ for a long time, switched to NL at some point and made it to NL200 games, but felt uncomfy again. I think I was a decent player (but nowhere near the best players on the high stakes) and could have moved higher with my bankroll and skill, but never did. I met a lot of high stakes players that made a lot of money (e.g. I am pretty sure I talked to Hasu a few times). A lot of friends made a lot of money just playing mid stakes, not even grinding nose bleeds. Later I lost interest, because I started working and didn’t want to grind at day and night.

As my second job, I joined a startup rather early, just after they had secured the first significant funding. The startup had created a new product, which turned out to be very successful, used the funding to do performance marketing and within 3 years, the company grew from basically 100 to 1000 FTE. A lot of “high profile” people were hired, earning a lot more than I did, despite being assholes, not being a cultural fit and also not delivering any meaningful results. But they were great politically, knew what to say, when to say it and how to impress the (also rather young) founders. I was living the culture, delivering, but earned like 50% and hated everything about the bullshit bingo guys.

When a very good friend of mine quit his job, he still had some free time before his new gig started and he asked me what to do with it. That was at the end of 2017/ beginning of 2018. I said “there’s this crypto thingy, seems to be interesting, maybe dive it?”. We decided to invest 1000$ together. I was still very risk averse and didn’t feel comfortable putting money into something that went up and down so fast, so I was happy we did it together. We bought the literal top in January 2018. Got like 0.7X ETH on a Friday, which made +100$ until Saturday. I still remember the euphoria, that day marked the literal pico top of the cycle. I learned a lot, eventually started living on-chain, but never really participated in farming, cause I still dislike spending ETH for tx I don’t really need to do for a potential airdrop I might or might not receive. I did receive a lot of airdrops, but I am also pretty sure that compared to others here, my airdrops are tiny.

Also I had a neteller credit card connected to my Amazon account and basically ordered stuff for free as a student and bought a new (small) car just after finishing university, because I had made 50k in online poker.

While I was “only” earning 50% of the supposedly high flyers, my salary 2,5xed within 3 years and I had way more money than I needed (and you are probably aware by now, that spending / investing money is not a strength). I also started as a senior role, but at one point managed 150 people and three departments.

While I probably should have invested more, invested earlier, farmed more and should have way more ETH than I have now, I have received a decent amount or airdrops that are a huge boost to my portfolio. More importantly, I have learned a lot, about investing, finance, how poorly I invested before, how many basic concepts I didn’t fully understand and how important it is to make conscious financial decisions.

Don’t compare yourself to the guys that make more money in poker, at work or in crypto. Compare yourself to the guy in the mirror that wouldn’t have played poker, wasn’t lucky to join a growing startup that allowed you to grow a lot in a short amount of time (both financially, but also when it comes to responsibilities and hence your CV), or wouldn’t have invested in crypto because that friend you needed would have said “no”.

If there is one thing that I have learned it’s that comparing usually won’t help you. It usually doesn’t motivate. It actually kills motivation. It gives you a hard time emotionally. Don’t compare yourself to the guy on twitter that brags with that 7digit PnL. Don’t blame yourself for not receiving the next airdrop on 5 wallets instead of one.

Comparing doesn’t make sense, because your risk appetite is unique. If you accept that you are defined by who/ how you are, you will be able to accept outcomes way better. We can’t expect to make millions if we don’t invest a lot (of time, money, ETH). And that’s okay!

Celebrate that one airdrop like it was the lottery. Be happy about your first ETH like it was worth a million. Don’t try to be/ act different then you truly are. And you’ll be winning!

2024 Predictions

Dec 22, 2023 - Episode #48

The morning trinity

u/Fiberpunk2077

Ethereum

$2260

88,715 hodlers subscribed (+6)

u/bagogel12

Day 463 since The Merge

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Yes we tokenize,

No you won’t believe your eyes,

New money arise.

Shitpost of the week: u/doomfuzzslayer

Sold my ETH for a 2020 Honda yesterday. I’m out of crypto entirely now (gladly). I know the used car market has been hot the past year but I’m betting it has some room to run. IF I buy into crypto again (with my used car profits) it’ll be a basket of sub 1000 MC coins with 100x potential and some SOL/AVAX for stability (they’re the new BTC). I’ll be fine with a 10x tho. Regardless Eth is done imo and everyone here is wasting their time. Advice (not financial) get out before the inevitable epic crash and buy something with more upside. Aside from used cats, garbage pail kids (first edition only with stickers intact) are looking strong.

EDIT: meant to say used cars in that last sentence, but used cats also have more potential than ETH so not gonna correct.

EDIT2: meant this whole post is a joke. Bad timing I know but hoping to lighten the mood a bit

u/benido2030 has found 2023 to be their favourite year in crypto

I am tired. Hyped, cause I believe 2024 will be a good year, but more tired now that it’s still 2023. I think that’s partly the bear market which is exhausting, because I promised myself to learn a lot and pay attention to benefit during the bull market. But probably also just psychology cause the year is coming to an end and humans are strange. It’s an arbitrary date, but still it feels significant, I guess also because of the holidays. In any case this year was my favourite year in crypto. I have learned a lot, developed new interests (eg for the importance and details of governance) and the past 12 months made me feel like home in ETHfinance. I love this community since I joined (2019 or beginning of 2020, don’t remember) but somehow 2023 was special and I would like to thank all of you!

That being said I’ll post less for the next 2 weeks I guess, but I’ll stick around, will read and will be back in 2024. love you all!

u/hanniabu defines some terms which some people seem to be confusing

There seems to be some confusion around terminology. Maybe the terms have been diluted from when I learned them, but this is how I’d define these terms:

Hardware wallet - This does not mean cold wallet. It means it’s not a software wallet and uses hardware to contain your key and do signing.
Hot wallet - This is a wallet you’re actively using. It should not be where your primary funds are stored since there’s a higher risk of losing funds. It can be a hardware wallet, it does not (and I’d recommend should not) be a software wallet.
Cold wallet - This is where you’d store a larger portion of your funds. You don’t use this with apps. The goal is as minimal exposure as possible. This should definitely be a hardware wallet.
Cold storage - This used to be the same as a cold wallet but I see the meanings have diverged. This would be a hardware wallet that is completely airgapped and only has incoming transactions. This is meant for maximum security for long term funds that you don’t plan on touching for years.

u/haurog explains parallel execution on Solana and some criticisms of its consensus mechanism

In my understanding the solana parallelism relies on the transaction submitter to tell them what contracts/states they touch. It is assumed that they are honest. The attack vector on the paralellisation then goes like this. Just tell the SVM you are touching all AMM contracts, even if you do pretty much nothing in your transaction. The SVM then cannot process the other AMM swaps in parallel, but has to wait until it has processed yours before it can do the other swaps. You force it in doing at least one step serial. Transactions are cheap, so nothing stoping you spamming the network reserving resources left and right. I do not think one can bring Solana down with such an attack, but it would slow down the SVM quite a bit.

If you want to learn about some real issues with solana in the consensus mechanism they use, there is a recent conference paper by the distributed computing group at the ETH, a university, in Switzerland: https://tik-db.ee.ethz.ch/file/9d40dad802dd12d9ba1f1b7c1759920c/

I only skimmed over it, but here are some juicy bits:

These tests seem to confirm our basic understanding that Solana does not fully achieve consensus. In this paper we show how a single malicious validator, once elected as leader, might be able to halt the Solana blockchain.
We also observe some inconsistent behavior, which is not readily explained by any of the consensus rules we are aware of.
In many places it was hard for us to bring differences between the whitepaper, documentation, and code together into a coherent picture.
Solana takes a non-standard approach to achieving state replication in view of possible (adversarial) failures, making strong assumptions about the failure cases that can arise in practice, that seem to go far beyond the normal theoretical bounds for these problems.

App devs might want to develop on SVM for its speed, but to be honest, there are not that many dApps on Solana, so it seems to be difficult to find dApp devs. They had quite some incentives in 2021 I think to onboard people, but it was a limited success as far as I remember. Maybe now with the renewed speculation they might attract more settlers, but we will see what happens. I guess generally Ethereum people are interested in Solanas tech, because they implemented things which need to be solved on the Ethereum side as well. In my opinion, parallelization is not the bottleneck on Ethereums side just yet, it is probably more important for L2s. The Bottleneck is rather the state size and how it is stored/accessed which needs to be solved before one can reap benefits from a fully parallelized EVM. And I am not aware that Solana has solved that issue, but as always I could be very wrong there.

u/SpontaneousDream has a Coinbase vs the SEC update

Surprised there isn’t more talk about the SEC decision today against Coinbase’s petition. This is over a year in the making. Essentially, they are going against Coinbase’s view that:

“the Petition’s assertion that application of existing securities statutes and regulations to crypto asset securities, issuers of those securities, and intermediaries in the trading, settlement, and custody of those securities is unworkable

Official SEC release.

Gensler comments.

Coinbase has appealed and will be taking them to court. This will probably be the most important court case in crypto’s history.

In my mind, when Ethereum held its ICO, it was probably security. IANAL but a brief look at the three prongs of the Howey test makes ETH sound like a security offering back then. BUT, Gensler I believe has said before that something can start out as a security and “become decentralized enough” to become a commodity. Don’t quote me on that.

u/TheHansGruber has a staking node update

It’s been about two and a half months since the holesky testnet re-launch, and all is quiet on the western front. My several thousand holesky validators are choochin’ away with no significant hiccups. Running geth/lighthouse at the moment. Still haven’t gotten around to setting a withdrawal address for them. For some reason I started having a difficult time picking up peers on this machine. Since launch I have been stable at 1round 15 peers, but over the last week that has dropped to 1-2 and sometimes 0 peers. Surprisingly, and this is more of a testament to the design of the network, my average effectiveness hardly dropped at all during this. I remained in the mid to high 80’s.

I did do some changing of my network setup and for a few hours I had the holesky machine connected to both wifi and ethernet…I believe the machine had two IP addresses assigned to it and that may have caused some wires (or em waves?) to cross.

I decided to go ahead and forward the ports associated with the EL/CL applications, something I have not had to do with the rocketpool or solo machines. Both of those machines have 50+ peers running out of the box setups and nothing besides a static IP assigned to them. Anyway, running this setup overnight has brought the machine up to the max specified 50 peers and I foresee no other changes needing to be made as far as networking goes.

The other fun part about all this is that I have finally pulled the trigger on a nice little rackmount setup. Not necessary (by a longshot), but a lot of fun for a self-proclaimed computer enthusiast. Over the last couple years I have collected some rackmount equipment that I have come across for free/cheap. UPS’ that are being tossed just needed a couple new batteries. Gigabit switches that just need a new SFP adapter, etc. Color coding the patch cables and swapping out USB/HDMI/ethernet keystones to make it all look neat and professional. I made a custom mount for a gas spring arm for a monitor on the back of it. There are these cool 1U flip up monitors you can buy that are like 700 quatloos ….yeah….nah….I’ll use my free, collecting dust in a corner monitor instead. I have discovered that any normal computer component becomes 10x more expensive if it has “enterprise” or “rackmount” in the name.

I am trying to convince another local ISP that I am a business so they will install a fiber line directly to me. My understanding is that the install would be free, and the monthly cost would be more than what I am paying now, but not wholly unreasonable considering how much time and bandwidth I use. I have been close to picking up a dream machine pro because of the sale ubiquiti has had on it…apparently they never do discounts…but after perusing through the rest of their hardware if I fall down that rabbit hole it’ll take eth breaking 100K before I can pay off the credit card bill. They’ve got some good lookin’ hardware. That said…if I am a business, then that can all be written off…so less taxes…and there I go talking myself into it again. I’ll stop now.

The nodeset machine is up and running as well, just waiting to be assigned. I am looking forward to that launch next year. There’s a lot to look forward to, and a lot of good work being done combat the biggest threat to ethereum’s credible neutrality. It should remain on everyone’s mind that the priority needs to be the health of the network. Any entity that approaches 33% is a threat to credible neutrality. Doubly so for an entity that says out loud that they do not care and will continue to grow in an attempt to harm the network in pursuit of greater profit.

Just so everyone is clear: there is no debate about this. Let us keep fighting the good fight, less we lose the greatest value prop of ethereum.

I’ll keep the staking machines running. Sip some coffee. Get my steps in. Enjoy the beginnings of the bull and patiently await new ATH’s. Post here, and occasionally degen 100x some coins no one should touch with a ten foot pole. You know…for fun. Because if we don’t remember to have fun doing all these frontier-of-the-internet shenanigans…what’s the point?

u/stablecoin discusses the difference between high and low conviction investors

weak conviction endlessly follows price pumps, strong conviction requires years of building on ideas and integrating within the ecosystem to deliver on the promise of decentralized uncensorable monetary system that any entity can build on.

there’s a difference and some of you don’t seem to understand. for example is retail going to deposit directly into CRV pools or is retail going to use an app that pays their transaction and draws liquidity from the CRV pools in the background? stop worshiping retail pumps like they mean anything other than CT rotations and drummed up VC exit liquidity.

FTX estate recently announced they are giving people cash equivalent of crypto when Bitcoin was at 16K prices, and keeping the rest (ie spread between 16K and 42K). guess who also happens to have a lot of SOL to pay back their estate in such a generous way? strange how it all works out huh?

u/Nyruds shares the EthFinance farcaster channel

Someone created an ethFinance channel at Farcaster. Certainly not to replace reddit, but to try to gather like-minded people in a group on Farcaster.

If you’re a user of Farcaster, be sure to join up!

u/austonst has an unfortunate piece of block relay news

BloXroute have announced that they are no longer accepting block submissions from builders that contain any transactions that interact with OFAC-sanctioned addresses. For now they’ve enabled their OFAC checks on their max profit relay, but obviously this makes it kind of the same as their regulated relay and at some point we’ll see them merge into one.

BloXroute’s max profit relay currently has an inclusion rate (market share? it’s complicated) of ~20%. Turning it into a censoring relay doesn’t mean 20% more overall Ethereum blocks are going to be censoring. It’s more likely that the remaining non-censoring relays will still deliver those blocks, and the impact on Ethereum will be minimal. But clearly this is a trend in the wrong direction for network health.

P.S. reminder that censorship at the builder level is a much bigger concern than censorship at the relay level right now.

u/nixorokish sings the ultrasound team's praises

https://reddit.com/r/ethstaker/comments/18lpd53/update_your_relays_bloxroute_is_now_censoring/

man, this makes me so mad. dude misses a few blocks and sees ultrasound relay being transparent about looking into user issues and engaging with the community and makes a fud post about them on ethstaker… and mixes it in with a good message about bloxroute censorship, so it’s getting upvoted

ultrasound is seriously such an amazing team for this space. both justin and alex do a huge amount of work to try to keep projects censorship resistant, including reaching out to staking orgs to ask them to run non-censoring relays, doing censorship resistance research, liaising with businesses on keeping ethereum credibly neutral, communicating with the public, helping users troubleshoot, etc. and the relay works great for most users around the world. the fact that there’s an issue in hong kong and australia is newly discovered, thanks to user feedback. and this brand new user who has never even interacted in the subreddit misses a few blocks and immediately makes a post to shit on them. this is why we can’t have nice things

u/LogrisTheBard discusses the concept of useful proof of work

Have any of you heard of “useful” proof of work? Now I know most of us here are thoroughly in the proof of stake camp for consensus but at the end of the day all our stake is doing is serving as a basis for Sybil resistance so a bunch of nodes can vote on what the truth is. At the end of the day it’s just majority rules. Ethereum solves Sybil resistance by making participants proof they have something. Bitcoin solves Sybil resistance by making participants prove they spent something. That’s obviously quite wasteful if you spent that something while getting nothing but Sybil resistance in return but what if the work produced something of inherent value?

The most famous form of proof of work is hashing. However, the nature of the work can take many forms so long as the task meets a few basic requirements.

There needs to be an unlimited supply of whatever task. You can’t be halting your consensus mechanism while waiting for work to arrive.
The work needs to be verifiable in much less time than it can be done. This is O(c) for hashing but it could be some reasonably small O(n) while still being viable.

So, are there any other “infinite” demand tasks exist with a statistically verifiable outcome? At least one important one is AI training. At least for certain types of AI you’re basically just tuning an extraordinarily large array of numbers. That tuning works like a search that takes place over many iterations. Each iteration outputs a vector in that space which is basically your proof of work. In a large enough search space, guessing the right direction is basically impossible. So, to get a coherent direction consistently you need to actually do the training work. This is basically the insight of GenSyn.

So, now you spend electricity and rather than getting BTC which is just a proof of spend, you get ownership over the model you helped train. Once you have Sybil resistance through this means you can pile on an EVM, SVM, or whatever you like on top of it. Think of it as swapping out just the consensus client. People do work and prove they are real, real people just vote on the truth of the state machine. Majority still rules.

There are some potential advantages here to decentralization. PoS at least has a cost of the time cost of the capital that is parked there. Useful PoW might have actually no cost if the economic value of what is produced by the work is greater than the spend required to produce it. Also, anyone with a graphics card powerful enough to iterate on the model can participate without having to hold $64k in ETH. The waste of the system is reduced to the verification time on all participants. That can be offset by the transaction costs of the network being secured.

I just thought it was an interesting line of thought worth sharing. There are forms of work outside of AI but this is one that I came across in my consulting work. Also BitTensor had a pretty good primer on the ecosystem of PoW systems if you want to get your head out of the Ethereum ecosystem for a minute.

u/696_eth compares all of the major chains

What’s good bearfinance. Since I stopped being a decentralization maxi I got to be more free and open minded and explore many other chains, here’s my quick summary.

SOL.

Pros: good fees. Phantom wallet is way better than Metamask and any wallet for any other chain that I’ve experienced. You can still enjoy the defi, NFTs, etc but for low prices so it’s more appealing to masses. All of that is good until you hit their main concern, so let’s get into cons.

Cons: when needed aka when demand comes in the shit doesnt work but even w/o that half of the time my TXs on dexes don’t go thru. I’m assuming when there would be even more demand in the bull run the chain would stop or half of the shit wouldnt work. So yes, the fees are low but the chain doesn’t work. It doesn’t make me feel secure to hold more than a few $k on the chain and I’m sure real world whales wouldn’t want the chain to stop at any time either.

AVAX.

I might’ve gotten to degen there in the wrong time but the fees WERE INSANE. I paid more than Ethereum fees for prices. I don’t know what their adv is and I don’t care, the experience sucks. Oh, and I also have gotten my TX’s failing for unknown reasons while still losing like $10-20 on trying to swap..

Cardano.

Cardano is a poor man’s Solana. Basically all the same shit except it’s even worse. Fees are not as low neither. Sometimes the chain just stops, oh well. People say you wait 1-2 days and try again lmao.

Osmosis (or whatever its called)

I didn’t have a bad experience but I haven’t done much there. I’ve already ran into a few hiccups and I’m assuming there would be more if I explore. Also, it’s also probably working ok cause not much demand and again I think that will change when there’s lots of demand.

BSC

I guess it works but the emphasis on the ‘guess’. Cheap fees but yeah idk.

Bitcoin

30-40min blocks, insane gas fees ($40-50) per tx, no good fucking wallet cause they have their lightning and other ones and there’s taproot and some other shit and it’s all over the place and I need 3 wallets but then I can’t send from different parameters aka lightning, taproot, to each other. Doing NFTs there is a fucking joke, let me tell ya, but free money is free money.

Out of all of these, honestly, SOL is probably the best experience for a normie user. You don’t have to have much money and it generally works relatively well until it doesn’t. Bitcoin has the opposite issue, works poorly awful but it ain’t gonna stop.

ETH L2s

Linea: fees are like mainnet at 30 gwei, wtf is that?

Scroll: fees not too bad but could be better.

Arb1: somewhat better than scroll.

OP, Base: almost 0 fees and quick confirmations. love it!

Zksync: pretty good fees tbh compared to zkrollups and arb1 but high compared to OP stack.

Polygon ZkEVM: similar to zksync I’d say.

Arbitrum nova: similar to OP w almost negligible fees but idk who uses it.

Gnosis scan: similar to Arb nova.

Starknet: fragmented out of Ethereum’s ecosystem, getting there felt worse than to an alt L1, fees are higher and Linea doesnt look that awful with the Starknets presence.

Polygon PoS (sidechain): actually has an ecosystem, fees more similar to Arb1 & zksync when there’s more demand and activity, but usually it’s a few times cheaper. You gotta have matic to use it tho so that’s a downside.

ETH.

Secure. The fees are kinda high, they are ok but def not for the normies. When the demand spikes up and when more demand comes back it is def going to be only for whales or for degens. The chain never stops tho. Gas wars exist but chain works perfectly. Idk, not really much to say, things seem obvious to me. There’s hella liquidity too, there are options like defi that let me do things that I wouldn’t do on the other closest chain by security - Bitcoin, and then compared to that the block times are magnitudes of order faster. ETH definitely wins for me as a settlement layer and makes me feel comfy holding assets there.

Will I still use other chains? Probably.

If I can make free money - sign me up!

Will I still airdrop farm them? Hell yeah, duh?!

Will I store there a significant amount of money? Hell naw, sometimes I’m withdrawing from them faster to my CEX and holding it there cause I trust Kraken more.

That said, I’m looking excited for zkrollups after 4844 upgrade and just looking forward to a more mature ecosystem of Ethereum where scalability is solved thru L2s without compromising the security and decentralization of the settlement layer. Also, we badly new a way better wallet and for front ends to be a nicer experience and at least handle the capacity of the users that Ethereum is gong to attract.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this.

Decentralization is undervalued until it doesn’t.

u/haurog looks into Solana's decentralisation

The discussion in here has gotten a bit out of hand while I was asleep. The ETH sentiment seems to have reached a breaking point, at least for some people. Looks to me like the concentrated marketing and FUD campaigns seems to bear fruit on some. Not surprising, but still sad to see. Someone mentioned Solana nodes, so I share something I realized in a discussion I had on farcaster DMs this week:

Solana has close to 3000 nodes. We do not know how independent they are, but someone asked an interesting question a few days ago: ‘Why does solana have over 10% of its validators in Ogden (Utah)’. It was also mention here in ethfinance, but I cannot find the comment anymore.

When you check the solana decentralization statistics today. Ogden ‘only’ has 133 nodes (5%), but Wichita (Kansas) has 375 (13%). By the way, the Bar chart on the right side still shows Ogden as having ~~293~~ 231 servers, yesterday it was 304 (or so). So it seems slightly delayed.

If you click on ‘staked nodes’, which are nodes that are also validating, solana has close to 2000. Do not ask me why there are more staking nodes than actual nodes in some locations. Maybe these numbers are filtered in a certain way. Maybe the numbers are just delayed and fast relocations of the nodes gives these weird results. I do not know. 123 of the staking nodes are in Ogden (6%). The bar chart to the right still has Ogden listed with 314 (16%). But now, Wichita seems to have 492 of them, which is a staggering 25% of all solana staking nodes. This in itself is not a healthy number being in one location. What I think is even worse is that it looks like hundreds of nodes have been moved from one location to another within days.

I would interpret that as a single entity has control over a large part of these nodes/validators and moves them around at a whim. It definitely is very fishy. Much decentralization…

Dec 15, 2023 - Episode #47 | Pablo Villalba

Special guest Pablo Villalba joins us from Diva, a DVT staking protocol.

The morning trinity

u/OffMyPorch

Ethereum

u/epic_trader

$2,266.44

0.053

u/anderspatriksvensson

Current supply: 120,203,798.439280234596606888 ETH and dropping!

u/bagogel12

456 days since the merge

u/Kukai_walker

250 days since last JBM post

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Many objectives,

Assessing the perspectives,

Blockchain collectives.

Shitpost of the week: u/15kisFUD

A rumor goes around in insider circles that Michael Saylor bought a second chair

u/Papazio explains how they may have just sent someone down the rabbit hole

Tiny tid bit of random but potentially interesting information… (emphasis on the potentially)

I spoke to a pension adviser recently, while discussing my assets/plans he assumed that I’d need to sell my ETH to pay for various things. He was blown away at the prospect of permissionless borrowing and even more so at what’s possible with Alchemix.

He was neutral on crypto in general and had a basic understanding of Bitcoin and Ethereum. He asked me to explain Ethereum in a way that he might not have heard before and I said something like ‘a credibly neutral digital settlement layer’. That totally clicked with him. He said that because media/people always focus on the assets themselves, he hadn’t twigged that the asset are valuable because the networks are valuable.

It was a brief but really enjoyable chat about what the technology is and what it enables. He asked me to send some links to defi projects as examples for what can be done using Ethereum. I might have just nudged him down the rabbit hole that we’ve all been down, I hope so.

u/Mrs_Willy finally returns with TA (Terrible Analysis)

https://www.tradingview.com/x/kNP8iVOi/

Good evening lovelies. Not logged on for over a year. Good to see some old names still active. Been completely out of the game for a year, life and all that = positive, investing in myself.. Will deffo be on over xmas holidays and in the run up, doing some Terrible Analysis and being silly as usual..

I have no idea about any fundamentals as usual, staking still means having ribeyes in the fridge to me. I can post a pic of a 28 day matured Hereford (UK local) ribeye as my proof of steak. Hope it all went well and eth is saving the planet and buterin being claimed as the second coming of christ etc.

It seems just like last week where the 180 darts memes were in full flow, and you could double your money in the time it takes to go for a piss. I think I nearly virtually got married on here, to someone whose name I can’t remember (small Corey) , but it didn’t happen cos the groom refused to accept DC investor as the vicar. If you are watching, I still love you and require regular suckles from your moobs.

I ditched my premium Trading view acct over a year ago and called up this one yesterday, untouched for a year from my now basic membership , thankfully it keeps the lines drawn, but loses oscillators and fibs.. So here it is. Our beloved Raymond. 4u ratiogang…

But what’s does this mean mrs willy? All I see is slices of pizza everywhere? Well I would urge you to look at the lower green diagonal, rays trusty long term upward support. We now have five touchpoints. I remember ranting on about the significance of xmas period for crypto, aka big movements. So why has ray tickled this every xmas bar one touchpoint since 2017.

Disclaimer : Rays erections can lose you money, but he usually gets viagra for xmas. .

u/OkDragonfruit1929 shares an overlooked threat to cryptographic systems

Most of the discussion around blockchain encryption algorithm security has shifted to concerns around advances in Quantum Computing, however, I fear there is another, less sexy and therefore less popular, but far more dangerous risk lurking in the shadows.

Most encryption protocols that are no longer used weren’t “cracked” by brute forcing, but rather, a fatal flaw or new mathematical concept was discovered which rendered the necessity to brute force the encryption moot.

There are algorithms that, if the flaw had not been discovered, would otherwise take millions of years to “brute force” in the traditional sense, even with modern advances in GPU performance.

One of the most prominent historical examples of this is the encryption algorithm, RC4.

When RC4 was designed by Ron Rivest in 1987, it was considered secure against brute force attacks even with large key lengths. At the time, there were no known “fatal flaws” in the RC4 algorithm itself that would enable shortcuts to finding the encryption key.

However, over time, cryptographers discovered vulnerabilities in RC4 that completely broke the algorithm:

In 2001, Fluhrer, Mantin and Shamir found that RC4 has significant biases in its first few bytes of output. This allowed efficient attacks on RC4 keys.
By 2013, AlFardan, Bernstein, Paterson, Poettering and Schuldt used these RC4 weaknesses to develop practical attacks that could recover encryption keys in just hours.

RC4 turned out to have latent mathematical vulnerabilities unknown when it was first introduced. When discovered and properly exploited, these flaws made brute forcing irrelevant - the keys could be recovered much more quickly by exploiting previously undiscovered flaws.

If those flaws had not been uncovered, even with the advanced computing power we have today, untreated RC4 encryption, like Keccak-256, the hashing algorithm used to secure Ethereum, would have otherwise taken millions of years to brute force.

As AI continues to advance, especially in areas like mathematics and cryptography, it raises the risk of AI systems potentially finding vulnerabilities in existing cryptographic primitives that human experts have missed.

An AI system that has been specifically trained in cryptography, number theory, abstract algebra etc… could potentially have capabilities beyond any individual human cryptanalyst. If focused on analyzing something like Keccak-256, the hashing algorithm usedto secure ethereum, it might conceivably find a mathematical weakness.

For the time being, human ingenuity and intuition still often exceeds AI systems, especially in creative realms like developing new cryptographic attack techniques. So I wouldn’t count on AI finding and exploiting flaws in encryption protocols right away within the next year or so.

Leading cryptographers do already actively think about AI safety and robustness in cryptography, so defenses are being developed with AI systems in mind. Things like quantum-resistant cryptography, algorithmic randomness testing, and cryptographic verifiability provide technical means to verify security assumptions even in the face of advanced AI.

However, due to innate biases in human researchers, we may have likely overstated the capabilities of human ingenuity compared to rapidly advancing AI systems. There are a few reasons why AI may surpass humans in cryptanalysis creativity and intuition in the not-so-distant future (perhaps 3-5 years):

Scale - AI systems can ingest and deeply analyze orders of magnitude more cryptography research, mathematical concepts, etc… than any individual or team of humans. This massive scale of analysis may uncover connections no human would find.
Lack of biases - Unlike humans, AI systems do not have intrinsic biases or prejudgments that might limit their creativity in finding new attack vectors. They may connect conceptual dots in unconventional ways.
Recursive self-improvement - As AI becomes more skilled at cryptography and cryptanalysis, it can recursively optimize and enhance these skills, with no human learning limits.
Combination of methods - AI can combine mathematical, side-channel, malware-based, and other cryptographic attacks in creative frameworks beyond predictable human designs.
Evaluation of small flaws - An AI can patiently evaluate minor weaknesses in cryptosystems that humans may dismiss, and find ways to exploit combinations of these non-obvious flaws.

The historical compromise of once-secure encryption algorithms like RC4 demonstrates the risks posed by mathematical and cryptanalytic advances. Latent flaws can lurk for years before discoveries in codebreaking render brute force attacks unnecessary. As AI systems continue rapid improvement in areas like cryptography, they may have the scale, lack of bias, and creativity needed to surface new flaws in encryption primitives required for blockchains to remain secure.

u/pa7x1 explains what we seem to have forgotten about previous cycles and what really matters in the bigger picture

https://defillama.com/compare?chains=Ethereum&chains=Solana&chains=Tezos&chains=Tron&chains=Bitcoin&chains=Cardano&tvl=false&volume=false&fees=true&revenue=false&addresses=false&txs=false

I think people forget easily the despair they felt on other occasions. Can’t even count with the fingers in both hands how many times people were giving up on Ethereum because of Solana, Tezos, EOS, Cardano, Ripple (it was the second biggest coin back 2017ish), Litecoin, Polkadot, Avalanche, BSC, Nano, Algorand, Tron, Iota, and of course Bitcoin. But if you zoom out the trend is clear, the previous challengers tend to irrelevance. Ethereum keeps crawling upwards towards the biggest market cap. The local minima that it sets with respect to Bitcoin keeps going up.

And it has wiped out the floor in terms of adoption metrics that can’t be manipulated with respect to everything else. You should never pay any attention to metrics that can be pumped up at no cost. # active addresses means nothing, they are created for free and this can be automated without any human intervention. It means nothing. Don’t care either about # transactions per se as an adoption metric. These are digitized systems, machines can generate transactions at insane speeds. A transaction here does not necessarily represent economic activity or a change of goods. In the same way moving coins from my left pocket to my right pocket doesn’t constitute economic activity nor bumps GDP numbers. The way you track economic activity in the real world is through VAT (value added tax), the moment someone pays a tax to participate in an economic exchange is the moment you can be pretty damn sure whoever participated in that exchange was willing to do so because it generated value added. The network fees are this type of non-fakeable metric. This is a very real cost to whoever participated in an economic exchange. Guess what, Ethereum wipes the floor. Solana does a measly 100K USD on a good day, Ethereum does 100x that, 10M USD.

Here lies the problem, if you are going to sell a very cheap good with low profit margins. You better sell a lot of it, to make up for it in volume. Solana transactions are very cheap so it generates a lot of potential demand for transactions, but even being this cheap they cannot sell enough to make up for it in volume. Solana would need to scale by x100 from 500 tps to 50000 tps keeping current transaction fees to challenge Ethereum. Or increase transactions fees by 100x, in which case we will see how many of those low value transactions remain on the chain. Or anything in between that makes up for the 100x.

The TVL onchain, which is a bit more gameable than the fees but still can be used as a proxy, is pitiful. There are 900M USD onchain on Solana. That’s not even 1 whale. Ethereum has 30 billion USD just on the L1, and another 16 billion USD on the L2s. All these Solana activity you see on Twitter is most likely completely fake, paid out by VCs or the Solana foundation. Or completely irrelevant users with barely any skin in the game.

Remove the noise, focus on what matters.

u/im_THIS_guy bashes on Ray – but in a valid way (and not how you might expect!)

It’s time to address the elephant in the room. It’s time to admit that The Ratio© is the worst unit of measure since Fahrenheit.

The flippening is all about ETH market cap overtaking BTC market cap. So, then, why is the Ratio metric comparing price/price instead of market cap / market cap?

The flippening target, on the Ratio, currently stands at 0.16275. Does anyone know that off the top of their head? Is it a nice round number that’s easy to communicate?

The flippening target is a moving target that changes literally every second. Moving targets are absolutely garbage in the business world.

BTC and ETH supply are constantly changing. Thus, a Ratio of 0.05 today is different from a Ratio of 0.05 last month. In fact, a Ratio that stays flat moves us further and further from a flippening, due to ETH’s shrinking supply.

Because the Ratio means different things at different times, based on changing supply, graphs of the Ratio over time are misleading. Any TA performed on those charts is wrong. There would need to be inflation adjusted Ratio charts.

Now the alternative:

A market cap / market cap ratio solves all of this.

No moving target. The flippening target is always 1.00 and always will be.

It’s an easy to remember target and easy to communicate.

It is unaffected by changes in BTC and ETH supply.

The market cap ratio currently sits at 0.33. That tells you exactly what you need to know without any further information. The price of ETH needs to triple to flip BTC. Easy.

The Ratio currently sits at 0.05365. Quick, what does ETH need to do to flip BTC? Better pull up a computer. Because this Ratio tells you literally nothing.

Please, I beg this community to abandon the Ratio. Join me in welcoming the Market Cap Ratio. Think of me as Anders Celsius, introducing a sane metric that’s easier to use and understand.

u/Ethical-trade explains the difference in marketing for industry competitors vs industry leaders

It’s a common business strategy to go after your competitors’ market shares, because their customers already know the product category, have demonstrated a need for it, and have already been willing to spend for it in the past. Cost per customer acquisition tends to be lower.

But this strategy is only viable if you’re a challenger.

The leader of a niche usually has to market not only its own product, but the entire product category as well. The leader has to grow the market itself.

Recently Coinbase has taken the approach of a leader:

- The recent announcement of a new feature for sending and receiving usdc for free through Coinbase wallet has the potential to be a game changer for adoption.

- The legal battles Coinbase is fighting really do seem to aim at making the situation better for all players, and bringing the fight to public attention through transparency not only ridicules the opponents (the SEC) but also shows alignment with a crypto core value.

- The “update the system” short videos aren’t centered around crypto users pain point specifically, they’re targeting the general population.

Coinbase bets on its (non custodial) wallet. Coinbase bets on Ethereum L2s and by having its own, Base. Coinbase clearly sees in Ethereum what we all see in it, they see the future.

u/Bob-Rossi has an ARB delegate update.

Recent ARB vote updates:

A vote to Incentivize the “Rage Trade” platform was fairly unanimously voted down, with a ‘No’ vote from myself. This result was pretty expected, as the general consensus was this would better fit within the defined STIP framework.

The Security & Audit Framework passed, moving forward work on setting up a comprehensive request for proposal process for selection of auditors & security-based service providers. I voted ‘Yes’, as I am largely in favor of having service providing decisions be handled as uniformly as possible. The Rage Trade request above is an example of this, where it’s just easier to have frameworks instead of individual requests.

ArbOS Version 11 passed. For those interested, might be best to click the link. A lot of Github PRs to read! I voted Yes, as it felt like a formality more than anything.

I voted ‘Yes’ to extend the timeline for STIP & Backfund STIP funding. In short, longer than expected KYC approval times were really shortening the window grants could payout their ARB. Felt fair to approve this, given how relatively messy the whole process was. Grants that were looking to incentive users may suffer from only being able to provide ARB during a super-short window.

The Tally vote to backpay early Arbitrum community contributors has failed. I did vote Yes for this, but it seems most the No voting came from a place of general approval, but not comfortable with the specific implementation of it. With what seems like broad support for the basic idea, I’ll be curious if a re-worked proposal will come from this.

Currently active is a vote for an experimental trail period of paying active ARB Delegates. I did vote Yes, as I generally am for paying for crypto work where it feels appropriate. There are a lot of metrics that will (hopefully) incentive active DAO participation from delegates. I do wish a larger size of delegates were being paid… I pushed for this, and it was increased from 30 to 50, but would have rather seen more to entice more / new delegates. I understand the criteria, and having a cutoff is good for a DAO this size, but it probably could have been increased further.

This all comes with the caveat that I fully understand what this vote represents - a group of people voting to pay themselves. Not sure if there is ever a good way to handle that, but it the proposer has gone through a lot of revisions from community discussion, so at a minimum it feels to at least not be something thrown together in a hasty attempt at a money grab.

u/hanniabu is following the latest from the federal reserve

https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1735012568291332458

SUMMARY OF FED DECISION (12/13/23):

Fed leaves rates unchanged for third straight meeting

Fed says growth of economy “has slowed” since Q3 2023

Most Fed officials see interest rate cuts in 2024

Median projection shows 3 rate cuts in 2024

Fed sees 4.1% unemployment by end of 2024

Fed sees US GDP growth at 2.6% in 2023 and 1.4% in 2024

The market is pricing in DOUBLE the number of rate cuts in 2024 than the Fed projects.

We could see a repeat of the pre-covid run, covid dump, then bull run. I’ll go ahead and call ~$3.6k top before a rate cut dump down to about where we are now, and then the real bull run starts.

u/Revanchist1 explains the significance of the FRAX x PayPal partnership

tricky told me to repost it since it got flagged by automod. I’ll remove the links but try my best to still make sure you can find the source.

Fraxchain testnet is Live

An ETH L2 that will use frxETH as the native token as opposed ot native ETH. Due to the dual nature of their staked ETH model, the more frxETH that is not staked means increased APR for their staked ETH derivative - sfrxETH.

Also a portion of transaction fees on Fraxchain will be sent to veFXS holders as rewards.

Afterwards Frax aims to launch their frxBTC product afterwards. I’m really interested in how Frax will keep the BTC peg while still being decentralized, like they claim.

From Sam:

Launch frxBTC after Fraxchain so that Frax Finance also issues a BTC-pegged stablecoin everywhere else outside of the Bitcoin blockchain and starts accumulating monetary premium in DeFi.

In my opinion, the best part of the FRAX ecosystem is that Frax is their biggest customer. They build products that Frax will use and benefit from. Similar to Amazon and AWS, turning their biggest expense into their greatest earners.

FRAX and PayPal Collaboration.

I find it interesting to see a US company partake in the CRV wars and DeFi as a whole. It’s incredibly cool to see a partnership forming between TradFi and DeFi. PayPal slowly testing the benefits of liquidity dApps like curve, convex, and Frax.

Frax received $10million pyUSD from an associated PayPal address and a governance proposal was submitted to Frax.

FRAX Finance Governance FIP-307

Summary:

This proposal seeks to officially whitelist PayPal USD (PYUSD) into the Frax Curve Automated Market Operator (AMO). This action aims to enhance the diversity and utility of the Frax ecosystem by integrating a stablecoin linked to a major financial service provider.

Background and Motivations:

The inclusion of PYUSD in the Frax Curve AMO will broaden the range of stablecoins within our ecosystem, providing users with more options and enhancing the overall resilience of the platform.

PayPal is a globally recognized financial services provider. The integration of PYUSD can leverage this reputation, potentially attracting new users who trust PayPal’s brand and services. The demand for stablecoins continues to grow within the DeFi space. By adding PYUSD, we are meeting this demand and ensuring our platform remains competitive and relevant.

Here’s a great $PYUSD blog post I found concerning the levels of safety with regards to customer protections.

Google “JPKoning PayPal” it should be the first link. Worth the quick read

Title: There are now two types of PayPal dollars, and one is better than the other

If you listen to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who in response to PayPal’s announcement fretted that PayPal’s crypto-based dollars would not able to “guarantee consumer protections,” you’d assume the traditional non-crypto version is the safer one. And I think that fits with most peoples’ preconceptions of crypto.

Not so, oddly enough. It’s the PayPal dollars hosted on crypto databases that are the safer of the two, if not along every dimension, at least in terms of the degree to which customers are protected by: 1) the quality of underlying assets; 2) their seniority (or ranking relative to other creditors); and 3) transparency.

[PYUSD collateral] must be recorded on two separate days each month, or 24 times per year…these attestation reports must be prepared by an independent auditor. The only way to get vetted financial information about the assets backing traditional PayPal [accounts] is to read its audited financial statements, which come out just once a year. For the rest of the twelve months, customers are left in the dark.

The fact that one type of PayPal dollar ([PYUSD]) has robust protections while the other is only haphazardly protected, and only because the first is managed with a crypto database and not a traditional database, seems incredibly arbitrary to me.”

The entire blog post is worth a read and is relatively short. It’s really interesting that the stablecoin regulations have ended up creating a safer asset for customers.

u/somedaysitsdark finds hope here

This place, this garden that we have here, we grow hope in it. Hope thrives here. It’s actually difficult to find places where hope grows, and many of us don’t even notice it.

Dec 08, 2023 - Episode #46 | Etienne Le Roux

Special guest Etienne Le Roux joins us from Colony.io, an all-in-one payment suite.

The morning trinity

u/0xBOBA

Ethereum

88,620 hodlers subscribed (+18)

$2377,80

0.0548

u/Mirved

Number go up!

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Harvesting the fruits,

Showing them bankers the boots,

Through fire and lawsuits.

Shitpost of the week: u/Itur_ad_Astra

Just imagine. ETH flips BTC in the span of a few months.

Then Saylor comes out and announces that he slowly unloaded his position and converted it to ETH.

Million.

Dollar.

Validators.

u/superphiz shares news of a major bug on Binance Smart Chain and what it means for Ethereum

https://twitter.com/superphiz/status/1730239018619613667

Binance Smart Chain may have entered a fork condition because of a bug introduced into bsc-geth.

I’d like to draw your attention to what this COULD mean for binance chain, and why it’s important for us to learn from it. To be clear, I didn’t study the binance incident, I’m taking a general lesson from what MIGHT have happened, and definitely editorializing to hammer the point. Please don’t tell me I’m wrong about the incident, I’m applying this to our chain and I don’t care about BSC.

It looks like bsc-geth, a majority client on Binance Smart Chain could have introduced a bug that was enshrined in the chain because bsc-geth is a majority client. bsc-erigon has been unable to follow the new canonical bsc chain because it did not accept this bugged version of the bsc chain.

There are two potential corrections:

Introduce the same bug into bsc-erigon and make the wrong chain the canonical chain (with minimal disruption in the chain, but maximum social disruption)
Undo/Redo/Slash/Roll-back bsc chain to correct the error in the chain and move forward with a correct state, but resulting in devastating chain consequences.

This should be a HUGE red flag to Ethereans that solidifies our concerns about client majorities. If geth introduced a bug into our execution layer we’d be in the exact same predicament.

How do we prevent it? By using minority clients, EVEN if they’re more buggy and/or less performant.

Why? We have about 4.5 execution clients right now: geth, nethermind, besu, erigon, and reth (rust Ethereum). If each of those clients has ~20% - ~25% of the share, ANY one of them could fail or introduce a bug and the network will shit a brick but keep going on the right chain, essentially falling to 75% efficiency until that bug is fixed in that single client.

AS IT STANDS, geth has 84% of the execution chain market share. If geth introduces any bug into the chain, it will become the canonical chain, and the other 3.5 clients representing 16% of the chain will just be ignored.

THIS is why client diversity on both the execution AND consensus layers is so important. See https://clientdiversity.org/ for more info.

If you’re not familiar with the design principles of Ethereum, one point you should know is that in Ethereum, the spec leads the implementation, the implementation doesn’t lead the spec. This can take awhile to understand, but it essentially means that we design the chain carefully, then write code to support that spec; we don’t write production code and then try to write documentation explaining what that code does.

u/eth2353 shares concerns about Coinbase's staking ecosystem

Coinbase announced support for partial ETH staking through the Coinbase Wallet in their blog yesterday. While this is great for enabling access to staking yield to more people, in the same blog post they openly admit they only use Geth as their execution client (not sure if they ever confirmed it like this before, but everyone kind of knew). As the largest single staking entity (running around 15% of staked ETH) this is incredibly irresponsible behavior and they should be called out for it. I believe it is at this point in time a bigger issue than Lido having about 30%.

If you have your ETH staked with Coinbase, move to a better alternative for the network (e.g. Rocket Pool / StakeWise V3 / …). Reach out to Coinbase if you’re a customer. They have had so much time to improve their operations yet chose not to so far.

I think Coinbase is doing great things for the crypto ecosystem in general, especially in the US, but this is something that just needs to be improved and there is no excuse not to. They could almost single-handedly lower Geth’s dominance to a point where it’s a non-issue. It is currently believed to be around 80-85%, take away Coinbase’s 15% and we’re almost below 66% which is the bare minimum we need to reach to be safe from supermajority bugs.

u/lawfultots has the latest from the Gemini Earn bankruptcy case

https://www.gemini.com/earn

Pretty big week for the Genesis(/Gemini Earn) bankruptcy, TLDR is that the judge has approved them to move forward with a vote on the recovery plan. If the vote passes in January people will start getting their assets back.

I haven’t been able to find any details on the % recovery users should I expect from this deal, expect that to come out in the following weeks.

One thing I’m curious about is the the composition of the assets that are owed, and the composition of the funds Genesis/DCG have on hand to fund this recovery with. Anybody know the breakdown of what assets were tied up in this bankruptcy as far as USD/stables/ETH/BTC?

I’m wondering because there are billions tied up in this bankruptcy and if they had to exchange a significant amount of cash for ETH/BTC that could be meaningful buy pressure in crypto markets. Although I think a significant chunk of what they are providing is GBTC, and I suspect a large proportion of assets owed are USD/stables so I doubt its that big of a deal.

u/Revanchist1 went camping, hence the bull run

I went hiking at Zion National Park in Utah for the last week. Landed back last night, and woke up to this beautiful pump. I should have known ETH was waiting for someone to be out in nature to pump. Here are some poorly taken pics.

You’re welcome.

First hike we did was the Angels Landing hike, which was surprisingly easy despite all the reviews saying it’s one of the harder national park hikes. The Chain section was exciting and was the most fun I’ve had hiking.

Utah is such a beautiful state and everyone was very kind to us! Will definitely try to visit again to see the other national parks there.

u/edmundedgar educates us on some Reddit scammer tactics

Crypto scammers really seem to have upped their bot game lately. Previously you’d usually have 10s of upvotes on a scam post. Now we’re routinely seeing hundreds, for example this comment posted 9 hours ago on a dead ethstaker thread has 200 upvotes.

You’d think reddit could detect stuff like this but apparently no.

[Scam comment] https://reddit.com/r/ethstaker/comments/12srco7/rocket_pool_vs_lido_vs_stakewise/kbluf57/

u/EvanVanNess shares his take on the moderation of the Ethereum subreddit. With some great follow up replies

re: “let’s just clean up r/ethereum”

It’s probably fair to say that I hold a decent bit of soft power in r/ethereum policy, as I’m the longest-tenured moderator who does any modding, plus I literally was 98%+ of all mod actions in 2018-2019 until I added twigwam. Most of the mods are inactive, even the ones who have been added recently.

As the above may suggest, I care about r/ethereum, even gave an entire EthCC speech on it once upon a time.

i’m also from the time when everyone in Ethereum was angry about r/bitcoin censorship tyranny by Theymos. Even mild mannered people you might not expect like Phil Daian. Early Ethereum was quite fervent about free speech on Reddit.

Then came the DAO fork, and I got censored a few times for things not even close to being censor-worthy (in my view) though it was an emotional time for everyone and some temp mods had been added. I wasn’t a mod then. IMHO the censorship was part of what led to ETC. We didn’t feel heard.

fundamentally r/ethereum is never going to go back to being the way it was. We don’t have the tools necessary, and the deeply technical community will never come back. Ethfinance exists, and most of y’all prefer to hang out here, rather than there. Ethereum is magnitudes of magnitudes bigger than when people first started complaining about the quality of r/ethereum declining in 2014.

u/-DarkKnight shares a lesson they learned the hard way so that you don't have to

These few weeks when the market has been pumping is making me really sad and anxious…

Here’s my story,

I joined 2021 bull, and bought BTC, ETH, and various shitcoins.

Thankfully quite early on in late 2021 I learnt about ETH with the upcoming merge.

Sometime around 2022 I coverted all my positions to ETH, but with the bear I had already lost a considerable amount of money. I then started buying more and at its peak in mid-late 2022 I had managed to save 24 ETH - all my life savings.

Then after the FTX crash I lost more in fiat terms, and I started taking more riskier bets. I tried trading LTFs and lost a lot of ETH. This made me irrational and I started converting ETH to Alts, first sound ones such as RPL, but later as I tried making back what I lost I started taking stupid and risky bets by coverting my stack into shitcoins hoping I can try and get back what I lost.

This was it, I lost the majority of my stack here.

This was a very expensive lesson for me not to trade. I dont think I can stomach buying anything ther than ETH now. Now I’ve started to accumulate with a measly 1.6E so far but the price rise is making accumulation even difficult 😢

I hope this was a useful lesson to you all as it was for me. Wanted to warn others here not to thread the same part I did as CT and seeing others with huge profits can make you do risky things.

u/PhiMarHal warns of a potentially widespread vulnerability

https://blog.thirdweb.com/security-vulnerability/

Certain thirdweb contracts deployed before the 20th of November were vulnerable:

thirdweb is a framework for low-code smart contract deployments. I’m not sure how many projects use them, but they’re a name that comes up often in the dev spheres. I’d guess the less technical projects are more likely to be users here, NFTs moreso than DeFi.

Building code abstractions in web3 is no small task. The more flexible you make your framework, the more attack vectors. Catastrophic bugs cannot be patched on a whim like in web2.

edit: we might get an idea of the vuln in question, even without being programmers, by checking the common dependencies in the affected contract list. I’d guess it’s tied to the ERC2771 upgradeable import, which has something to do with metatransactions. Maybe something allowing an exploiter to pose as a trusted relayer? I would love to understand enough to know.

u/im_THIS_guy reflects on previous ratio struggles and prepares us for a rough ride ahead but eventual payoff wwhile, u/696_eth focuses more on fundamentals

u/im_THIS_guy:

If you think this is bad, the first time BTC hit $44k, back in early 2021, the price of ETH was just $1770.

BTC had already more than doubled its prior ATH, while ETH was barely above its prior ATH.

This sub was losing its shit. ETH was dead. Then, things got worse. 6 more weeks of ratio bleed. The price of ETH dropped 10%! while BTC kept pumping, up 17%. How incredibly demoralizing.

Then something interesting happened. Over the next 6 weeks, BTC was flat and ETH pumped 365%! Oh my.

This market will wear you down. You’ll want to give up and switch from ETH to something that’s pumping. That’s when the rocket takes off. I guarantee you plenty of people switched from ETH to BTC right before the ratio popped from 0.3 to 0.8 that spring of 2021.

u/696_eth:

Honestly if someone has held both then they should understand how more valuable and practical ETH is and the ratio doesn’t even phase them much probably altho I’m the one who converted majority of my BTC stack at around 0.067, so yes I’m underwater on that decision, for now but not forever.

No matter the ratio my ethereum printrr stil goes brrrr.

No matter the ratio I can go ahead and get loans within minutes and get liquidity for IRL without selling my assets and triggering a tax nightmare.

No matter the ratio there are 10000, hell probably even way more, different projects and amazing developments that are going in the ecosystem that I can go and explore.

No matter the ratio the community has so many interesting topics to talk about between themselves.

No matter the ratio there are way more opportunities that exist and show up for me in this ecosystem.

No matter the ratio I can get other assets such as NFTs, providing me with an alternative leveraged investment on my position.

No matter the ratio I can randomly get hundreds, if not thousands, of $$$ airdropped to me.

No matter the ratio I can go ahead and build on top of my assets that live on Ethereum.

No matter the ratio Ethereum captures my attention more than Bitcoin ever has.

u/MinimalGravitas shares their experience with voting in the latest Optimism Retroactive Public Goods Funding round and u/nixorokish shares who she voted for

https://www.growthepie.xyz/optimism-retropgf-3

u/MinimalGravitas:

Finished with my Optimism RetroPGF ballot, finally! Allocated to a little under 300 projects (out of about 650 that passed through the initial filtering).

Honestly, this was a ludicrous amount of work, and I’m very glad we had such a long time to do it (4 weeks). The process of assesing and evaluating has probably consumed about 40 hours (rather than the 8 estimated at the beginning, lol).

Projects need to get onto 17 ballots to qualify for anything, then will they recieve the median amount from those ballots. To see which projects have got how many ballots so far check out:

It’s been quite sad to see the amount that some projects have felt forced to shill themselves to badgeholders, and also that it seems to have worked which will encourage more of it in the future. Just one example that I saw was Sonne, a fork of Compound, whose token holders clearly brigaded the OP Discord and now has reached quorum. How is a DeFi lending platform, with a token, a ‘Public Good’? I have no idea, but they are far from the only example.

Lefteris has been trying to point out that some of the projects which most quickly reached 17 ballots are things which really don’t need an extra injection of funds due to huge amounts of VC funding.

An example of this that I find particularly egrigious would be Synthetix, who not only received $20M in VC funding this year, but previously received 9M OP… of which they then used about 2M to give themselves a huge amount of governance power…

https://gov.optimism.io/t/synthetix-ambassadors-phase-0-delegation-2m-op-tokens/3726

… and then used that voting power to nominate their ambassador as a RetroPGF badgeholder:

https://snapshot.org/#/opcollective.eth/proposal/0x22d4c3ab56832de58c1774d1a0aeb61ba6dde8b16c0f8382f85d8935f3ee1f11

Synthetix are obviously huge in the Optimism ecosystem, and generate a lot of value… but I wouldn’t suggest they are the most worthy recipients of ‘public goods’ funding.

Anyway, governance is never perfect, Moloch is always present, and I’m sure we can learn and iterate over time. For now at least, I’ve done my allocations and so should have a little more time for commenting here again!

u/nixorokish:

Optimism RPGF round ends tomorrow - I have to cast my ballot - anyone want to tell me if I’m missing anything super important?

Focusing on things that don’t necessarily have an influencer for brand awareness - love Carl’s “Popular NPM packages” list, added a lot of those. And of course, staking tooling, infra, etc cuz Optimism doesn’t exist without Ethereum’s validators

Discriminating against things that have been well-known in the ecosystem for years but I can’t find significant progress that they’ve made in the past couple years… I find that some projects coast on reputation

Also added in some high-producing educators and data analytics providers

sidenote: I can’t vote for EthStaker cuz bias

Aestus Relay
beaconcha.in
Dappnode
Erigon
Ethereum on ARM
Gitcoin
go-ethereum
Grandine
Lighthouse
Lodestar
Nethermind
NiceNode
Nimbus
Protocol Guild
revm
Ultra Sound Relay
rotki
Revoke.cash
Frame
libp2p
Solidity
ethers.js
Sourcify
Web3js
DefiLlama
Gitcoin Passport
Department of Decentralization
OpenZeppelin Contracts
TypeChain / DethCode
Hardhat
Prettier Solidity
RainbowKit
Ronan Sandford
Waffle
Hardhat Tracer
UseDApp
Synpress
Antoine
WhatsABI
Vectorized
Socket
Splits
Cannon
Sphinx (formerly ChugSplash)
Candide
LXDAO
Hats Protocol
⚡️ TurboETH
Summer of Protocols
PatrickAlphaC
Zero Knowledge Podcast
L2BEAT 💗
growthepie

special shoutout to u/minimalgravitas for the staking list!

Dec 01, 2023 - Episode #45

The morning trinity

u/5quat

Ethereum

88,557 hodlers subscribed (+5)

$2092.06

0.05432

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

A tale incomplete,

Where banks can not compete,

No one hits delete.

Shitpost of the week: u/seat-is-occupied

altcoin nostalgia series, part 01: Oyster Pearl (PRL)

In this series, I want to take you on a trip through some of the most interesting shitcoins from the past.

Oyster Pearl wanted to revolutionize online advertising and give website owners an alternative and private way to monetize their content. The idea was that website owners could insert one line of code, and visitors would contribute their spare computing power and storage space to support the protocol. In return, they would earn PRL tokens. The data would be stored on the iota tangle. There was also a second coin called Shell (SHL).

PRL was extremely hyped in 2017. Right before the binance listing, one of the team members did some insider trading. The anonymous founder bruno block wasn’t cool with that and rug pulled the whole project, minting and dumping more PRL coins.

After that, some team members founded Opacity (OPQ) and airdropped tokens to PRL holders, the project also died. Bruno founded a new scammy project called Akoya (AKYE) and airdropped tokens as well. Of course it died. There were some mental health issues involved ($5,000 banana). Apparently, he was caught on a yacht with safes full of gold bars. Amir Bruno Elmaani got 4 years in prison for tax evasion.

u/PhiMarHal shares a deep dive on the Kyber exploit

Deep dive by Doug Colkitt on the Kyber exploit: https://twitter.com/0xdoug/status/1727613541115429314

Careful manipulation to make the pool believe it has more liquidity than it does, then extract real funds through this phantom liquidity.

I don’t want to kick anyone while they’re down, the Kyber guys are good devs working hard and let’s hope for a good resolution. FWIW the hacker has signaled through blockchain messages he would be willing to talk today. https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7a8912583520304ce2364fa165dafe94461a91ab2dcf45dab942e296594dc40a

But, musing about security in the abstract… I have to say, I felt for a long while the engineering in Kyber seemed overcomplicated. I once got stuck in one of their farms, and without the team solving it for me, I would have been screwed. This is different from Uniswap or Aave where you can figure out the contracts on your own as an intermediate user.

Complex protocols have greater attack surface.

Sanity checks like 1-block delays on TVL sensitive actions seem like low hanging fruits to avoid catastrophic exploits. Kills flashloan abuse, for starters.

I get that those are tough calls, how do you implement such edge case checks without hurting genuine composability? But surely there must be some threshold of liquidity past which we have reasonable confidence no legitimate use would occur, because of slippage.

but then again, the concentrated liquidity design implies all of the liquidity in one tick can very well be a legitimate swap…

Basic x * y = k as per Uniswap v2 may have been capital inefficient, yet the simplicity was elegant in more ways than one.

I’m glad I don’t work on AMMs!

u/eth2353 shares Stakewise's upcoming upgrade

Just wanted to let the good folks in here know StakeWise’s V3 launch is just around the corner. The V2-V3 contract migration proposal is live on their governance forum and the snapshot vote has reached quorum with 100% approval for now.

Their V3 architecture brings some big advantages, e.g. solo stakers can create their own (private if they like) vault and mint an LST against it. If you want to get a feel for what it will look like, I suggest you browse through the testnet vaults at https://testnet.stakewise.io/ .

It took more than a year since their V3 announcement to get to this stage and I’m proud to have contributed in a small way myself as well by adding remote signer support to their operator service.

Even though this post may feel like it, I am not in any way affiliated with StakeWise, I just appreciate all of the work that went into this and I haven’t seen this be discussed in recent days. This gives stakers who can’t stake at home a lot more choice and will hopefully help keep Lido’s power in check.

u/stablecoin answers some questions about Chainlink's CCIP

Does this potentially solve liquidity fragmentation?

Basically it should unlock all possible liquidity on all chains if it integrates CCIP into the protocol functions, Synthetix (SNX) is doing just that for helping to launch sUSD liquidity products on top of Base and Arbitrum I believe. Like many things, protocols need to be built from the ground up or upgraded to support it.

Does this effectively move the security from ethereum to chainlink? or would it be better to say it moves security from a lot of shitty bridges to chainlink which is arguably an improvement.

It more or less just replaces bridges and the biggest security improvement is you can remove honeypots that are the bridge contracts. No longer do you need to store all the assets into one place, with one potential vulnerability always looming. If you attack the Chainlink feeds/CCIP features it is going to be more like to having to attack all the ETH nodes to get your unsanctioned blockchain instruction in. Chainlink node distribution will help secure bridging as long as the feeds are also proven to be secure.

u/waqwaqattack shares the latest Lido fuckery

Lido are up to fuckery again.

In this twitter post https://x.com/nero_eth/status/1728680630773575956, Nero shows how a lido node operator, p2p.org (run by a lido cofounder), has announced it will start waiting to produce blocks. There’s a function called ‘getheader’ that the block proposer is supposed to call at time = 0, but node operators have until time = 4 seconds to help home operators who might have latency issues.

By waiting to call that function, they will get up to 4 seconds more of mev into their blocks.

The impact this will have is they’ll further centralise the ethereum network to orgs who have the ability to still produce blocks while waiting the longest amount of time - home operators or decentralised services would not be able to wait so long because they’re more likely to fail in block production. People will go to services that give them the best yield in LSTs without thinking about the potential impact on the ethereum network.

Lido literally have a golden goose in their possession, but they’re killing it. It’s extremely shortsighted, and it might have horrendous impacts for the rest of us stakers.

Please speak out against this!

u/bagogel12 has an update from the KyberSwap hack

KyberSwap fell victim to a sophisticated exploit amounting to approximately $50 million on November 23, as reported by rekt.news (https://rekt.news/kyberswap-rekt/) .

This incident involved an in-depth comprehension of the underlying code to exploit it (u/PhiMarHal reported already the technical details). The exploiter displayed a peculiar level of psychopathic behavior, leaving on-chain messages throughout the exploit to explain their actions. The final message they left was:

“Dear Kyberswap Developers, Employees, DAO members and LPs,
Negotiations will start in a few hours when I am fully rested.
Thank you.”

KyberSwap chose to extend a 10% bounty to the hacker, with 90% intended for restitution.

What makes this incident even more disturbing is the fact that during the hack, a MEV bot operator was able to capture $5.7 M from Kyber by frontrunning the exploiter.

The deal has now been struck for the return of 90%, with the remaining 10% awarded to the frontrun bot operator (tweet). Morale does not seem to exist in the crypto landscape.

The situation draws parallels to the Euler hack, evoking a sense of déjà vu for those who have experienced similar events. Notably, the exploiter received a message from the origninal Euler Finance Exploiter wallet, shilling some meme coin (I don’t link it).

In the midst of difficult circumstances, it is important not to lose hope and to expect the best possible outcome. Christmas is soon. Speaking from the experiance as a victim of the Euler hack myself, navigating the aftermath won’t be easy.

I hope those among our community who have been impacted by the Ethfinancier incident can navigate through their losses with resilience (comments in the daily). Resilience and risk management remains a key virtue in the crypto realm. Remember, don’t put all your eggs or ETH in one defi protocol.

u/stablecoin shares news of EthereumGPT and u/johnnydappeth suggests one for ethfinance

https://chat.openai.com/g/g-T3pQLJpwi-ethereum-gpt

u/stablecoin:

Someone built an Ethereum trained ChatGPT for developers and stakers. Looks like you have to have an OpenAI subscription account to use it though, and they are currently paused from new signups.

I built Ethereum GPT, which was trained with the Consensus layer API specifications. If you’re a builder looking to access specific data or just have a question about staking, try my fren:

X link: https://x.com/Butta_eth/status/1729088377700671798

u/johnnydappeth:

u/stablecoin’s post today got me thinking about developing an EthFinanceGPT that can answer newcomers’ questions, respond to FAQs, dispel FUDs, and overall encapsulate the spirit of EthFinance to provide unbiased guidance. For those of you who don’t know, GPTs are specialized tools capable of retrieving facts from an external knowledge base. This allows LLMs to utilize that information to generate answers. They can also follow instructions provided by the creator and have API access, as well as internet access, including an image generation tool.

We have a plethora of content that can serve as the knowledge base, such as the Daily Doots, the EVMavericks Discord, ETF forums, blog posts by prominent users, educational content, discussions on decentralization, tokenomics, technical analysis, Twitter posts, and even memes. A curated knowledge base can be provided to a community-funded GPT, and perhaps even a Reddit bot could be created to interact with this GPT through posts.

Unfortunately, I only have time to read through the dailies, so I won’t be able to spearhead this effort. However, if someone else is interested in pursuing this, please feel free to do so.

u/ajmonkfish brings very sad news from a long time contributor and later explains how it happened

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0d06340e5424EA2DE37E5A1d2f410f6A0b40D58a

Welp guys, it’s been fun, looks like my private key was compromised and my wallet was drained. No idea how my key got compromised.

About 7 hours ago (fast asleep at this time) some crook opened up my wallet, drained my aave position and absconded with about 15 eth and 600 dollars worth of shitcoins.

That’s all I had left.

RIP me.

https://etherscan.io/address/0x0d06340e5424ea2de37e5a1d2f410f6a0b40d58a

Thank you all very much for your kind words and advice.

In case you missed my earlier post, my wallet got drained by a nasty man and unfortunately I had 15 eth in an aave position and about 800 dollars of shitcoins I had recently fomoed into.

Gone, never to be seen again.

I have a separate PC for crypto stuff and I thought this was enough to keep me safe.

Wrong. So very wrong.

I clicked on a dodgy “update chrome” link on my work laptop yesterday, not realizing that I had sync turned on in chrome, meaning metamask (and my seed phrase vault) were on there.

That’s the only way I can think this has happened.

Please, use me as a cautionary tale and be more careful with your crypto.

Here’s the address that got drained in the wee hours of this morning and when I was getting my kids ready for school/nursery.

Feel free to do some sleuthing, it’s beyond me I’m afraid.

Peace.

u/timmerwb reminds us how tried and tested cold wallet seed phrases are for security and u/theethmeister shares their own diversification strategy for secure storage

u/timmerwb:

At risk of tediously adding to the security discussion, risk is always an interesting subject. YMMV but in the several years I’ve been involved in crypto, IIRC, among all the countless losses, hacks, exploits, compromises and thefts that have occurred, of between 4 and 9 $figures in value, (and some of which have sadly involved members of our community), I don’t believe a single one has involved the loss, discovery or theft of a physical passphrase, including a physical hardware wallet. It’s worth adding that during the Ledger leak, which included numerous active names and address (lol - it’s still hard to believe), there was mucho concern about wrench attacks. Again, AFAIK, not a single compromise occurred directly because of that leak, and not a single physical theft was attempted (although clearly email addresses got phished to death after that).

As such, the risk of loss is overwhelmingly associated with getting phished, or (usually mistakenly) storing credentials, including CEX accounts, on hot computers. For most people, best practice and good basic digital hygiene will ensure your crypto is safe.

Remember that security is an on-going process. If you create a new wallet, generating the seed or passwords is not the first step. You should already know what the wallet will be used for, the associated risks, how you are going to secure it and how you will maintain that security. Don’t be tempted to “jot down” the seed temporarily etc. Give yourself time to learn and understand the process before committing funds. Stay safe out there.

u/theethmeister:

To add to the discussion below about crypto security, my personal approach is to have about 20% in CEX and the rest split up among several (hardware) wallets, so if any single wallet gets compromised I can somewhat triangulate the cause of the hack. If you use Trezor you can create multiple wallets on one device using the passphrase function which in concept should protect you if your main seed phrase gets leaked or discovered.

If you do need to use Metamask you can create a separate wallet solely for your Trezor and don’t have to store your seeds in an online vault. This should maintain the security of the hardware wallet while also allowing interoperability with dapps. Unfortunately Metamask seems to be the most compatible with dapps but because it’s the most popular is a highly visible target for hackers/viruses.

Lastly, as to my CEX allocation I know “not your keys, not your coins” but having a sizeable amount gives me a higher transaction and withdrawal limit. Also if I need to liquidate assets quickly I can do so on my phone without having to tinker with my Trezor. Knocks on wood I haven’t had to re-verify my account and perform KYC for the past 4 years. Always make sure to whitelist your withdrawal addresses.

u/ro-_-b is bullish on Ethereum's soul

A cryptocurrency is more than just an economic platform. Even though it has properties as some commodities it’s not just a commodity. Ideally there is a purpose, values and culture.

Beside the protocol we need the social consensus. People that keep up the values such as decentralization. In that sense it’s like a religion. People need to believe in it. And in order for people to believe certain properties need to be satisfied. And when you believe in something you naturally start to evangelize.

Whatever Vitalik has said in public was genuine and well thought through. There are so many people that speak for Ethereum and hold up its values. Whenever somebody of these does something harmful the community holds them accountable.

In my view the same standards are not met by other cryptocurrencies, definitely not by Soylano.

Ethereum has a soul. It’s more than just an ultrasound decentralized smart contract platform.

And for these reasons it has cultural relevance. A tokenized meme very often derives its value from being on Ethereum. And everyone who creates digital art wants to have it issued on the most pristine platform.

I’m certainly among the worst people to keep up these values. But I do rest assured because I know that there are many other people better than me precisely doing that and they’re doing it very well.

So all this cultural relevance, this community ethos and these people that have conviction and believe in Ethereum make me bullish long term. Because in the end precisely these values is all we need to succeed. Roar 🦁!

u/DegenKoloToure updates on the Kyber exploit and u/\_WebOfTrust shares the latest message>

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x5c27d8e9248608f36b028a945f3d6ff31244ab45eb89e1d1a631f608a36454a1

u/DegenKoloToure:

Kyber exploiter:

“Dear Kyberswap Executives, Employees, Token Holders and LPs,

I said I was willing to negotiate. In return, I have received (mostly) threats, deadlines, and general unfriendliness from the executive team. That’s ok, I don’t mind.

I have prepared a statement concerning our (potential) treaty. I plan to release it on Nov. 30 at Noon UTC, sharp.

Under the assumption that I am treated with further hostility, we can reschedule for a later date, when we all feel more civil. You need only say the word.

If not, we proceed as planned on Nov. 30.

Thank you.”

View on Reddit →](https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/187bfcu/comment/kbe94lv/)

u/_WebOfTrust:

Okey…this is a must read. New message from Kyber exploiter, their demands are not like others we have seen and interested to see how the story developed.

Between Hacker and Kyber, users funds are at stake.

https://twitter.com/TheDEFIac/status/1730196414154608785

Edit - c +v below

To ALL relevant and/or interested parties,

I thank you for your attention and patience during this uncertain time for Kyber (the protocol/DAO) as well as Kyber (the company). Below I have delineated a treaty for us to agree to.

My demands are as follows:

Complete executive control over Kyber (the company)
Temporary full authority and ownership over the governance mechanism (KyberDAO) in order to enact legislative changes. My current wallet address is fine for this.
All documents and information related to company / protocol formation, structure, operation, revenues, profits, expenses, assets, liabilities, investors, salaries, etc.
Surrender of all Kyber (the company) assets. This is both On-chain and Off-chain assets. It includes but is not limited to: shares, equity, tokens (KNC and non-KNC), partnerships, blogs, websites, servers, passwords, code, social channels, any and all creative and intellectual property of Kyber.

Once my demands have been met, I will provide the following:

Executives, you will be bought out of the company at a fair valuation. You will be wished well in your future endeavors. You haven’t done anything wrong. A small error was made, rounding in the wrong direction, it could have been made by anyone. Simply bad luck.
Employees, under the new regime your salary will be doubled. It is understandable that many current employees will want to leave regardless. The employees who don’t want to stay will be given a 12-month severance with full benefits and assistance in finding a new career, no questions asked.
Token Holders and Investors, under this treaty, your tokens will no longer be worthless. Is this not sweet enough? I’ll go further still. Under my management, Kyber will undergo a complete makeover. It will no longer be the 7th most popular DEX, but rather, an entirely new cryptographic project.
LPs, you will be gifted a rebate on your recent market-making activity. The rebate will be for 50% of the losses you have incurred. I know this is probably less than what you wanted. However, it is also more than you deserve.

This is my best offer. This is my only offer. I require my demands to be met by December 10, otherwise, the treaty falls through.

Additionally, should I be contacted by agents from any of the 206 sovereignties, concerning the trades I placed on Kyber, the treaty falls through. In this case, rebates will total to exactly 0.

Kyber is one of the original and longest-running DeFi protocols. No one wants to see it go under.

To assist with this transition of leadership, I may be contacted on telegram: @Kyber_Director

Thank you.

Kyber Director

Nov 24, 2023 - Episode #44

The morning trinity

u/LeagueGreedy

Ethereum

u/wordlemcgee

$2070.65

88,530 hodlers subscribed (+5)

0.0554

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Flash loan imbiber,

Liquidity in Kyber,

Oracle briber.

Shitpost of the week: u/Vandelay101

Just finished a nice run through the woods. It just occurred to me that I am front-running the pounds I am about to put on tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that. I’m also mulling over my turkey fulfillment thesis and adjusting my risk appetite accordingly.

u/eetherway asks a great question about how we feel about different UXs

To all the experienced blockchain users: As we witness improvements in user experience, particularly in wallet interfaces, do you feel apprehensive when using wallets or dapps that offer a more streamlined, Web2-like account creation and management process?

I’ve noticed that some users, especially in the Influence community, are apprehensive about creating new accounts or using accounts that are set up with an email.

Both Argent and Braavos, the current wallets on StarkNet, that are users interact with, utilize account abstraction, enabling and introducing features that I believe are crucial for bringing the next billion users to blockchain. Yet, this ease of use can sometimes be met with skepticism from existing users. I’m keen to hear your perspectives on this.

u/Samueth_Peapks is ready to see some non-speculative adoption

Should we be surprised at the speed with which the ecosystem has encountered a new wave of toxic tribal bickering? No, because compared to the end of the last cycle nothing has materially changed. There has been scaling progress but it is not finished by any means, and e.g. UX is as trash as ever etc.

ETFs are said to be around the corner, but the type of demand they represent is the same kind we are familiar with. Speculative, cyclical demand. Only now it’s in a tax free wrapper! Don’t get me wrong, the level of incremental increase in demand could be substantial, but i contend it will not change the dynamics of the crypto ecosystem. So if nothing has changed, we should not expect the nature of the next cycle to have changed. One slight difference is that at this time, the remaining market participants are certainly feeling less flush than they were in the heady days of 2021. Hence the rabid zero sum thinking we see amongst us (well, mainly twitter). At this point we all know the drill, some new and useless protocol or project will make 1000x returns for the few people who rolled the dice early, and many more will volunteer themselves as exit liquidity.

Crypto has absolutely nailed the speculative use case; we do not need, and personally I am not interested in, any more. Games, quests, ponzis, whatever it is, it is all ultimately a waste of time, representing only a desperate grab for each others capital. What I think we crave, and what I am sitting here quietly waiting for, is utility. Yes, this is a 2017 era discussion, but nothing has changed since then. Large, non-speculative, non cyclical, fucking boring. Something that you would do anyway, even in a bear market, or if fees have increased a bit. Something that does not require a funny name for people to use. Something that companies or people will use due to economic gravity rather than hoping number goes up.

Are these use cases possible? I believe so, so I guess I was incorrect to say that I am done with speculation. I’m still hopeful that blockchains can be used for e.g. supply chains, or something else like that. Why? because with something like this, crypto potentially has the ability to translate economies of scale away from large corporations, and to empower small businesses. Fewer bosses - ace! Not zero sum - ace!

Not all problems need to be solved to open up utility. E.g. a business use case will rely less on UX than a consumer use case. The type of demand I am talking about probably only cares about a few things (assuming the chain being used has the requisite functionality), and secure block space is premier amongst them. Ethereum represents the best potential holistic solution to all of these problems, probably via some L2 solution, primarily because of the strength of its network. Network effects are powerful, if they were not then twitter would be 6 feet under by now. These reasons are why I have read the daily most days since early 2021. I am interested in client diversity, network health etc. Things of that nature are the means by which we create fertile soil for the future. And when the time comes we’ll be glad that infrastructure has outpaced the current level of demand in the system.

u/superphiz shares the "Stake from Home" Gitcoin collection for those looking to donate to public goods which keep the beacon chain decentralised

Gitcoin invited me to develop a bundle for Grants Round 19, and I developed the Stake from Home bundle. These 14 projects make contributions that empower individuals to run nodes and stake from home, and I strongly urge you to make a donation on gitcoin to the bundle. I’m familiar with all of the projects enough to vouch for them (on varying levels), and I’m excited for each of them to succeed.

If you don’t know how gitcoin funding works: It’s based on a concept called “quadratic funding”, the simple premise is that the number of individual donors guides matched funds more than the amount anyone gives. So 100 people who give $1 each gets matched A LOT more than 1 person who gives $100. The moral of the story is that many hands make light work, so please go donate.

u/haurog shares how his opinion on Lido has changed over time

Yes, economic incentives generally favours centralisation and monopols. That is the way things go. Societies try (or not) to find rules and regulations to fight against this general flaw in most modern economic systems. There are a lot of examples where societies failed to do so and have now very few monopolistic suppliers they cannot really break up anymore. There are also examples were societies managed to stop monopolistic set-ups in their track and these then are generally better off compared to societies which did not manage to do that in these specific industrial sectors.

The case with Lido, I did not really have an issue with them for a long time. My simple approach was “If they can break Ethereum it was meant to be broken”. I did not judge them to be a bad actor in the space.

Nowadays I see them as a pretty ruthless actor in the space strategically gobbling up key figures and projects that make them dependent on Lido and do their bidding. At the same time they are spreading false narratives about why they are destined to win. Like “liquidity begets liquity” which automatically leads to them winning. What actually happens is that in the background they have actors (Karpatkey anyone?) making sure that steth dominance is not really threatened. They preach open and free markets, but actually do backroom deals to achieve their goal.

They also spread the narrative of being the wall against CEX staking and funnily mention a time where CEX staking had more inflow than them as the reason for it. Actually, this was as far as I remember a just a 2 weeks period in spring of 2022 where this was actually true. Again they are gaslighting the community.

They made so much money in the last 3 years, which is understandable because it is a good product. But now they can simply direct their faucet at anyone they want and more or less buy them, or a project. This is especially dangerous during the bear market where everyone is looking for funding.

Same with the current proposal, in the first sentence the state decentralisation is the goal, but the rest of the proposal is a direct attack on the current relatively okayishly decentralised staker landscape. They love decentralisation as long as it is under their control…

Do I think Lido should be slashed rather today than tomorrow? No, definitely not, but I see them as a threat for the Ethereum ecosystem as they do not even try to hide behind a nice facade anymore.

u/austonst sums up the last day of DevConnect

Devconnect Day 9 (Yesterday)

The last day of Devconnect! The schedule does technically extend through Sunday, but that’s just the final day of the coworking space and the ETHGlobal hackathon. I had considered doing a little bit of sightseeing in the morning, but it was raining decently hard and I would have been pretty pressured for time, so I decided against it. Instead I just went straight to the day’s main event: censorship.wtf .

As you might expect, censorship.wtf was all about censorship: what are the problems and potential solutions, particularly as it pertains to Ethereum of course. The day was literally packed: between 11:00 and ~18:00 there were non-stop 20-minute talks scheduled. Not a single break, you just had to pick which talk excited you the least so you could cut out some time for a bathroom break and snacks. Using acronym “censorship resistance”=CR The content was mostly pretty good:

Juan Benet started the day with a high-level overview of factors that help or hinder in the struggle against modern digital totalitarianism. For example, we have surveillance everywhere, propaganda via modern computing, and social credit systems. These could be co-opted to empower a totalitarian society. To stave off totalitarianism we need education, string institutions, tech for secure communications and coordination, and a strong economy. Democracies are aware of the long-term danger, but are facing some actual short-term risks that they need to balance out. IP stack, CA system, app stores, and DNS are risky. ENS, IPFS, libp2p gud.
Vitalik Buterin talked about hardening the Ethereum ecosystem across the stack. Fun fact: one of Vitalik’s addresses is banned from the main Uniswap frontend because it used Tornado Cash once long ago. Alternative frontends gud. Centralized node providers are scary, we need light clients and muliple providers for a nice 1-of-n security model. Attacks against the social layer are possible but instead of being optimizing for an objecting (“convince everyone that ETH is bad”) it’ll be about amplifying the worst voices on both sides to create a toxic culture. A 51% attack is not the cheapest way to break Ethereum; much easier to mess with IP, DNS, etc.
Sreeram Kannan introduced an observability gadget for CR. The question of “how bad is censorship on Ethereum” is hard to quantify but one metric is the time to censorship resistance (TCR), e.g. on ETH you usually don’t have to wait too long to get a non-censoring proposer and builder, a few slots, so maybe a TCR of 0-40 seconds? But can we make it better? Proposed tx inclusion rule: when a block is proposed it must include tx’s from recent uncles which have not already been included. With that as a rule, it follows that if a transaction is censored beyond a certain time, then >1/3 of stake can be slashed.
u/nixorokish of EthStaker explained that solo stakers are valuable for CR. A critical line of defense, even. Solo stakers make up somewhere between 35-75% of nodes on the network (if I heard that right), providing diversity across geography, ISP, hardware, and software. Solo stakers are engaged and fundamentally care about the network, seen in evidence that they run a more diverse set of clients than most. EthStaker working on getting the knowledge DB in more languages too. Kind of preaching to the choir here.
Sebastian Bürgel of hopr covered the topic of IP-level privacy. We all trust Infura from time to time to: deliver correct data, not censor, not track. The first two have been okay, tracking is a problem. Uniswap is bad: even on their IPFS deployment they track your device, addresses, and all your clicks, sending them back to their servers. Even if you’re running on a decentralized frontend, if you connect to someone else’s EL client for data, they can see what you’re doing, link your on- and off-chain identities, and potentially abuse their position to frontrun whatever you’re doing.
Toni Wahrstätter of the EF examined censorship across the PBS stack. Proposers can censor in their own proposals, or take it further and not attest to certain blocks or even try to reorg them. Figment, Kraken, and Celcius are big censoring validators. Relay censorship has gotten quite a bit better since the Merge. Builder censorship on the other hand has gotten very concerning, like 80% censorship. Also examined feather forking on Bitcoin (link below), which lets even a minority miner compel other miners to censor the chain. On Ethereum this attack requires 51% of validators.
In the middle of the day, Mike Neuder of the EF led a breakout workshop where we mostly reviewed forward inclusion lists, discussed the implications, and briefly considered out-of-protocol solutions (e.g. enforced by relays). It was mostly review and getting a deeper understanding of the potential attacks, mitigations, and remaining limitations. I threw a link in the linkydoo. There are some interesting out-of-protocol options too. I covered MEV-Boost+ earlier this week, also possible for relays to enforce proposer-provided IL’s or to just include transactions themselves.
Ed Felten discussed dealine protocols: any protocols that require on-chain transactions to occur before some deadline. These transactions can be censored though a combination of malicious (or bribed via mev-boost) proposers, and reorgs of honest validators’ blocks. Censor it until the deadline has passed and you can do some damage. Ed designed a test that looks at the number of missed slots recently and computes with high probability if there has been no censorship.
Mallesh Pai of SMG presented their work on CR in on-chain auctions. They measure CR through the lens of how expensive it would be to censor a transaction. They mathematically model the cost of censorship on a blockchain and analyze the impact on on-chain auctions. In general they think it’s pretty cheap to carry out attacks on them. They suggest that in each slot there should be multiple block proposals, which places the proposers in a sort of n-party prisoner’s dilemma that should discourage censorship.
Justin Drake gave yet another talk, this time on weak censorship. He described his “append test” for censorship: if a transaction has been floating around a while and could have been appended onto the previous block, it’s probably censored. Also, the bigger problems than censorship-induced inclusion latency and rollup throughput is the memetic cost. CR gives credible neutrality which gives social legitimacy which gives monetary premium which gives economic security and bandwidth. The idea that Ethereum is easily censored undermines that chain. He’s optimistic about the combination of encrypted mempools, ILs, MEV burn, and ePBS. Also suggested some application of MEV burn rules to ILs, suggesting that a block would only be valid if it maximizes base fees?
In the final talk, Venkatesh Rao is thinking beyond exit and voice. “CR is completing a transaction someone does not want completed, everything else is yield farming.” When conflict arises, you have the choice to simply exit, or use your voice to participate in debate and discussion. Crypto has had a strong exit bias but CR is primarily a voice problem (not sure I agree?). Exit, taken to the extreme, gives you sovereignty but leaves you alone where you’re no use to anyone. Bitcoin may accept that, but Ethereum probably shouldn’t. There is also a tradeoff between efficiency and thoroughness. The Ethereum community can navigate the 2d space there: the exit-voice axis and the efficiency-thoroughness axis. Where do we want to be?

I guess I’ll do a final recap tomorrow. Flying out first thing in the morning back to the other side of the planet. Going to be a long trip.

u/Fast_Contract explains why they're running RocketPool nodes

I think block/mev rewards will be crazy when the next bull starts. If these etfs really are approved, and tradfi money starts flowing in, I want to maximize my chances of winning that lottery. Solo staking I had a 96% chance of getting a proposal every 2 months. Now I have that same chance every 2 weeks. Sure joining the smoothing pool is probably safer, but holding eth as is, is already a lottery ticket to me so why not really play it.

I also re-evaluated the reason I’m in eth, and that’s decentralization. I think rocketpool is an essential key to that. By dividing my stake up into as many 8eth pools as I can, I’m allowing a few hundred eth from other people to also be staked. Looking at reth mints, the demand is definitely there for reth, and with the houston upgrade, I think the demand for node operators will grow. I kinda hate Lido. I think they’re everything that’s bad about crypto and capitalism. Un-restrained growth perhaps at the expense of the entire ecosystem. Rocketpool is the opposite of that and I think more people should support it.

The “stake eth on behalf” thing in Houston is particularly interesting. I can see DAOs finally putting their eth treasuries to work. Also the rpl rewards rework is interesting, because it will hopefully reward/keep those at lower collateral rates above that 10% line.

51% of rpl is staked. The only real sell pressure is from node operators getting out. I thought that cascade would happen weeks ago, but everyone seems content to keep their stake. Even on rewards day it seems like most rpl just gets restaked right back into the system…

If I’m interpreting things correctly, most of the remaining un-staked RPL is rpl v1. RPL v1 has basically no liquidity, no movement. These people are just sitting on their rpl, they haven’t even converted to v2? That kinda removes a lot more supply from the market in my mind…

u/Itur_ad_Astra thinks we're stepping into the next era of crypto.

Fellow Ethfinanciers…

It’s weird that the market did not move today. I’d expect one last dump as a farewell. Oh well, there’s plenty of time for that later. It’s strange, because I feel what we witnessed today, was the end of the Wild West of cryptocurrency. The Napster Era is over, and soon, with the approval of the ETFs, the banking products, and the inflow of crypto “users”, the iPod era will dawn. Nicely packaged, user friendly crypto products, ranging from tokenized stocks (registered and KYC’d strictly, of course) to JPMorgan limited edition Apple^^TM NFTs, barely holding any of the values that make crypto what it is.

The markets will soon start going up, much higher and faster than most anticipate, and I truly believe that Ethereum will be one of the winners. Droves of tourists will soon follow. Most of these people won’t have the slightest idea what “keys” are, how you swap on DExes, or even what a smart contract does (It’s probably something with AI in it).

Those of you that believe in something more than making money, remember why crypto exists. There are some values that are a net good for the world and need to live. The more of those carry over to TradFi, the better we’ll all be.

I might be neither a crypto OG or an Ethereum veteran, but it has been an honor going through this bear with you.

Onwards!

u/RickandMowgli shares a collection of thoughts on regulation.

Just a rambling vibes take here. 1) CZ has always been a bad actor in crypto. He proposed rolling back the Bitcoin blockchain (doesn’t matter your thoughts on btc, this is a huge red flag of not being decentralization aligned). BNB chain is a centralized scam vessel. He’s clearly been commingling funds and pumping bnb, been calling it forever and you don’t need a lawsuit discovery to see it.

So overall this is a good day for crypto. SBF and CZ characters are hugely damaging to the space. Frankly the CEX world is the 1 place where SEC SHOULD be active and cracking down to make sure FTX like theft of user funds never happens again.

They are also attacking kraken and coinbase for “unregistered securities” which is complete nonsense.

Let’s remember what these securities laws are meant to do. They’re meant to provide transparency to protect investors. Instead we’ve gotten onerous requirements not at all designed for the modern characteristics of crypto entities that has massively stifled innovation and investment especially in the US.

Everyone remembers ICOs negatively because they were so boom bust but actually tons of innovation came out of them and it democratized access to super early stage investing to the crypto community. Now after the harsh and chaotic securities enforcements pretty much only VCs are getting super early stage tokens. It’s already a reproduction of the private company market where VC has locked out the huge gains from early stage companies from retail investors.

The best world would be where the SEC protects us from SBF CEX and only comes down on true fraud (bitconnect, luna, etc) in the decentralized space. while allowing more experimental types of daos, etc to exist (especially when they are inherently transparent like many already are).

u/djlywtf shares their experience at DevConnect

devconnect istanbul is my first crypto related summit, and due to my location it’s also my first experience meeting with people in crypto community irl

devconnect was huge, filled with people of different backgrounds and interests, startups and independent developers that share their knowledge and vision to different problems. i met many interesting people, such as nice people from zksync (hello jack hamer, albiona, alex gluchowski, sasha vlasov, and many others whose name i didn’t ask), cool independent infrastructure builders that i’d rather keep anonymous, ilia polosukhin from near, guys from EF (by the way u/domotheus we didn’t even shake hands wtf) and rollups teams. i listened speech of many popular founders and devs - vitalik, kartik talwar, sandy peng, jordi baylina, etc etc

it was so interesting to listen to all these speeches despite the fact that i already knew a lot of what they were about :P it’s all about people that have fire in their eyes and are ready to share all their knowledge to everyone at any cost

i also participated in my first hackathon. unfortunately i got sick in the first day and had to code in the hotel, so i missed many opportunities such as finding help from sponsors (yo zksync your compiler is terrible fix it pls) and generally being inside of this unique work atmosphere, but i still made something. in fact i spent 20 hours straight on coding at my first hackathon ever solo without any sleep while being sick af so i think the fact that i at least impressed judges is already somewhat achievement :)

and all this is in the huge beautiful city of istanbul that charges you with emotions every day and hour. i walked like 25k+ steps there every day before devconnect started and i wasn’t even tired. people there are always ready to help you even when you don’t ask and don’t ask anything in exchange. prices in locals’ shops are always “negotiable” if you know your own worth xD public transport is really great with almost perfect coverage, istanbulkart is a great system that helps you to avoid so much brainfuck while travelling

all this showed me how boiling and energetic 24/7 the life in the ethereum community and made me even more confident in that we do everything right. that’s why i’m bullish!

u/CaptainOfTheGate describes more casual ways of getting privacy on Ethereum

“Casual” privacy apps

Did you know that there are Ethereum apps that can give you a basic level of anonymity, without having to use a dedicated privacy app? Say you just want to keep people from knowing all your holdings by knowing your ENS name, these would work good. Not so good if you were doing something illegal, as a simple court order could reveal the connection between accounts.

The major apps in this category, I believe, are the StarkEx single-app rollups. You can deposit from one address and withdraw from another. Only the StarkEx operator can see that it’s the same person. For example, see Privacy on rhino.fi for their explanation of how it works.

There may well be other apps in this category as well (let us know if you’re aware of others). For example, I’ve read that ParaSwap allows different deposit and withdrawal addresses, though I don’t know if it’s equivalent to the StarkEx rollups in this regard.

You can see all the StarkEx rullups on L2Beat. Use Select stack to filter for just the StarkEx rollups. You can then click through to the individual projects to see how much TVL they have for the token you’re planning to anonymize, e.g. USDC or ETH (I believe dYdX has the most stablecoins and Sorare has the most ether).

Of course, you could use a regular privacy protocol instead. Tornado is sanctioned for US users, however, and others could be in the future, or maybe you just don’t want to appear suspicious by using a privacy protocol. I haven’t checked, but I assume Tornado still has the most volume. Some other projects I’ve heard about are: Railgun (a lot of mentions here recently), Aztec (highly regarded, but will be deprecated next year as they work on their programmable privacy rollup), Nocturne (new), Firn (sounds terrific but new), and Houdini Swap (seen mentioned here a few times).

Nov 17, 2023 - Episode #43

The morning trinity

Ethereum

0.054

u/Zeebrasurfer

1968

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Shorting looked so wise,

Yet it turned out otherwise,

Ether still on the rise.

Shitpost of the week: u/ToEthMooonGuy

#To ETH Mooon!!! ┗(°0°)┛

u/superphiz reminds us of some critical bull market preparation

You need to have a written plan about when you will take profits.

Print it out, sign it, and hang it on your wall as a reminder.

This is fun, but no one can predict what tomorrow might look like.

Most of all, don’t fall into the trap of people who would convince you to have diamond hands. They want you to be exit liquidity.

u/PhiMarHal laments on the frustrations of centralised services

Every now and then, I forget how stressful centralization is. Mostly thanks to avoidance. With forgetfulness comes confidence, so I try again, and I’m quickly reminded of the cons.

I wanted to use Coinbase to hop from a rollup to another without paying bridge fees. Now they’re holding my outbound transaction hostage, with an enigmatic Pending. Contacting support nets me people escalating my problem to a “specialist team”, which is meant to email me but apparently not in a rush to do so.

What’s going on? Who knows. Complete black box. I suppose so are thirdparty bridges, in a sense… Yet I find the experience distinctively different. The dynamic changes when you use a protocol with a Discord channel where developers and knowledgeable users will interact with you. There’s more visibility into their processes than with a corporate company presenting you with an interface where nothing suggests the exact nature of the problem, and support is outsourced to a call center where employees might do their best but simply aren’t equipped to deal with the matter or deviate from a script.

I suppose that will be my booster shot against sending meaningful sums to a CEX, even as transit.

EDIT: followup, the transfer went through a few hours later. Whew!

u/the_statustician is grateful for this gift

We are here, we are few but confident. This is crypto and it’s epic. This is generational craziness that is a unique opportunity.

We should be grateful for this gift.

It marches on even as Powell attempts to tighten and restrain.

It’s astonishing to watch, I am happy to be here. I missed buying many lows, I missed selling many highs. But my god the thesis is the same as before and don’t forget it…it is written in stone and it will not change for many many eras. It is beautiful and simple.

Insofar as the disintermediation of a middleman will return value to a party and counterparty, then the market demands that such innovation take place to improve efficiency.

That is why we are here. There will be many scams along the way, there will be lots of trial and error, there will be SBFs and Hoskinson’s. But we are here to rush gold in a gold rush for digital gold that will upend the traditional social and economic order.

Enjoy the ride, the big boys are coming.

u/austonst provides daily updates on DevConnect

Devconnect Day 2 Devconnect Day 3 Devconnect Day 4 Devconnect Day 5 Devconnect Day 6 Devconnect Day 7

Devconnect Day 1

Greetings from Istanbul! I’m at Staking Summit to start off my week (and change) of Devconnect fun times. I’m not going to give as detailed a daily summary as I’ve done for ETHDenver, but hope to give a little insight into what’s happening.

Devconnect is a collection of independent events organized in the same week and in the same city. There’s going to be a general coworking space opening up on Monday and available through the week, but most actual events are only 1-2 days long. Staking Summit is getting started a little “early”, but seems to have gotten decent attendance.

Staking Summit has one stage with a series of talks and panels, a breakout area for occasional workshops, a lot of room for projects to set up booths, and a pretty nice spread of snacks. The event is advertised as being about PoS and staking in general, not just about ETH. I get the impression that some attendees are interested in staking as a financial vehicle, just as a place you can put capital to earn yield without caring too much about what it means. But not too much of that. Saw a lot of familiar faces already, met new folks too.

Most talks were kinda simple. A few things of note:

A panel of investors talked about what they’re looking for when investing in a staking company; a few of their comments: Any good idea can be copied, looking for ability to attract liquidity. Value of staking is ultimately supported by the crypto ecosystem behind the asset, looking for companies aligned with that. DVT and restaking provide additional investor optionality, but for restaking have to consider how much additional leverage they’re building into the system. Institutions are still talking about Bitcoin, hopefully there’s a growing awareness of ETH as an asset, and later the full range of staking offerings.
Michael Hua, researcher at 1kx, thinks that the LST market will continue to get more competitive, and Lido’s dominance may naturally dwindle. 1) Novel infrastructure offerings: Kiln, Stakewise v3, NodeSet, and better DeFi composability. 2) General market forces: Lido is not the best fit for institutions (e.g. KYL/AML) and we could see verticalization from frontends (e.g. wallets and exchanges making their own LSTs). 3) Unique token designs: protocol value accrual, vampire attacks, etc.
Fisher Yu, Founder and CTO of BabylonChain talked about their system for “staking BTC”. They imply that their system allows for trustless deposits, “restaking”, and slashing. I don’t know much else about it: if it works, if there are major caveats, how you can define slashing conditions on the Bitcoin blockchain, etc.
Eugene Pshenichny, Protocol Dev at Lido, discussed their plans for the future of Lido. Staking router (for permissionless NOs) and dual governance (to give stETH holders some power) were things I was already pretty familiar with. They’re looking to make use of EIPs 4788, 7002, and 7521 as they become available. Actually not particularly bullish on restaking. Considering a form of semi-ossification in which Lido contracts could only be modified at the same time as ETH hard forks. Thinking about a way to let validators move their stake between LSTs without having to exit and re-enter (would require an EIP).

(Posted this an hour ago, looks like it got deleted somehow? Taking out the links in hope it gets through the filters this time… EDIT: Yep, this one worked. Reddit hates links to conference webpages apparently.)

u/Revanchist1 has some really simple pro-tips for DEx users to avoid MEV!

https://swap.defillama.com/

Here’s some cool tips for people who may not know.

I mainly use the metadex swap by the DeFi llama folks.

Obviously don’t click my link and just start using it. It’s the right link but practice some safety and look for an official source.

It works by querying multiple DEX aggregators, comparing their quotes and gas costs and allows you to choose the best one.

They charge no fee, so when you make a swap you are getting the exact same result that you’d get from swapping through an aggregator’s UI directly.

As for MEVs and sandwich attacks, everyone making trades on chain should be using an MEV blocking rpc.

Find one here:

https://chainlist.org/?search=Eth

Not all are MEV blockers. The ones I know at a glance are - Llama, Flashbots, MEVblocker. whichever has the lowest latency for you.

It’s easy to quickly change rpcs on desktop and there’s no need to get sandwiched by Jared every time you want to trade shitcoins.

u/vvpan shares them and u/hanniabu fighting the good fight in another forum, explaining the usefulness of blockchain's innovations

In a thread about blockchain on Hacker News, a place with high level of blockchain skepticism (/u/hanniabu is there too fighting the good fight), somebody asked me:

Can you describe to me what the main point of “blockchain technology” is? What is there to innovate in terms of its core function?

I took the challenge to heart and wrote out this little post. I am worried that one cannot be exhaustive enough, but there it is.

* Transaction throughput

* Efficiency - allowing small scale players to participate in verification and block production.* Inter-chain communication - some networks are explicitly designed as connected swarms of chains (Cosmos and polkadot for example) and some are evolving in that direction outside of the protocol level (Ethereum). How one executes transactions that span the networks is an ongoing research topic.

* Privacy - how to execute transactions in private. How to attest that something is true, say that you have a certain credential, without exposing your account information. Blockchain has been why zero knowledge (and now homo-morphic encryption) cryptography are becoming an active field of research.

* Identity, authentication, account recovery. - these tie into cryptography but generally research on applied cryptography with good UX. For example the first time I’ve seen social-recovery accounts with any amount of usage (now a feature in Apple accounts) was in a blockchain application.

* Monetary research - far from everybody involved in crypto believes that a fixed-supply rare item makes for good money. “Fiat” money is basically a “token” with governance attached to it. This has lead to a wave of experimentation with other forms of tokens - ones that are algorithmically tied to other assets, ones that are backed by an organization, local currencies, etc.

* Organizational research - since smart contracts can effectively be transparent community banks there’s has been a plethora of experiments with building organizations that manage their own treasuries. Horizontalism, organizational transparency and cooperation is something that’s been at the core of many crypto projects, the idea being that something cannot be both a reliable public good and controlled by a single party. It’s not an easy task, but some cool organizations have come out of this. For an example look at pocket: https://forum.pokt.network/t/messari-pocket-dao-exploring-proof-of-participation-governance/3857

In general, even if the blockchain experiment will fail it has given the world an ideological and technical boost.

u/SeaMonkey82 is still the unsung hero tinkering on the testnets

Daily Holesky:
Reported a logging bug with Lighthouse and sproul had already created a PR to fix it.

I’ve been playing with the stakelocal grafana dashboard more, and continuing to provide feedback to metanull. One key configuration change I had to do to tone down the spamming of errors in the syslog was to omit the txpool module from ethereum-metrics-exporter for Nethermind and Besu. This is because Besu doesn’t support txpool_status and ethereum-metrics-exporter doesn’t know how to handle the integer values that Nethermind returns for txpool_status. I’ve created a GitHub issue for this. Another conundrum I ran into was that the external validator and address links were working fine on my mainnet machine, but on my testnet machine, every / in links was being changed to %2F rendering them broken. It took me a while to realize that I had used the .deb install method for grafana on the testnet machine instead of adding the repo where it stays up-to-date, so grafana-server was still on v9.5.1 instead of v10.2.0. Upgrading to the current version fixed the issue.

Something that was brought to my attention once I had the dashboard set up for all supported client pairs is that erigon is failing to honor the --maxpeers flag, so I reported that to their team.

u/Fiberpunk2077 is trying to understand the implications of EIP-4844. and u/djlywtf has a great reply

u/Fiberpunk2077:

I hope they don’t mind, but I must summon the great minds to help me understand the implications of 4844: u/domotheus u/swagtimusprime u/Liberosist

I asked some questions a few days ago around this, but I still don’t understand what 4844 will do to L2 smart contracts and the data they hold with the ~18 day pruning.

To my very basic understanding, once 4844 goes live, rollups will use a new transaction type (blob) to commit the rollup data to L1 (instead of calldata). However, by using the blob transaction, the rollup data may be pruned/purged after ~18 days (whether it actually will or not is another thing). I’ve read that this blob data is meant for data availability, not data storage, but I don’t understand what that means practically.

So this leaves me with many questions of what this means for smart contracts on L2’s, and I can’t get my mind around it. I think perhaps I’m getting confused between historical blob data for any given moment in time and storage of the current blockchain state (e.g., does the L2 store the current state?). Hopefully these dumb questions will help clear it up for me:

Post 4844, if I deploy a contract on an L2, will that be committed via a blob transaction? Or will L2’s know it’s a contract and use calldata instead? If it uses the blob transaction, does that mean the entire contract could be purged and not exist anymore?
If the contract does survive pruning, does it mean the data itself may be purged? For example, if I store an address for payment in a contract, could it suddenly be purged after 18 days and then the address is 0x0, effectively sending payment to the burn address?!
If data in contracts do get purged, does that mean the contract could be in some half available/half purged state if data is written to the contract over periods of time?
Somewhat unrelated, but can an L2 call an L1 smart contract?

I know I must be thinking about this incorrectly, because if any of this is true, I feel it’s going to massively hamper L2 adoption and usability; that, or I’m missing some other big piece of the puzzle to mitigate this.

I also assume with full danksharding, the data pruning will be greatly lengthened, so perhaps this is a temporary issue?

Any clarity you can provide would be very much appreciated!

u/djlywtf:

dom’s honorary nephew here

nothing in rollups state is ever pruned. currently, all transactions (or state diffs) are posted on calldata and thus are stored forever. when you run a rollup node, you can reconstruct the state yourself from this data on L1.

after 4844, you won’t be able to reconstruct the state from L1 data (unless someone stores all blobs). instead, you follow latest merkle root or anything that belongs only to the latest state (even hash of sqlite database), stored in the contract on L1 and updated each proven batch (ZK proved or challenge time ended). you can be sure that this data about current state is accurate, because it was proven in the past when you weren’t around from the data which WAS available then. then, you download the state from anyone with a rollup node. you’ll get it if at least 1/N rollup node is honest, because its data will match merkle root or db hash or anything

temporary blobs purpose is to be used by sequencers that prove rollup batch and then update current state “signature” (it can be whatever works, most simple example is merkle root). nodes don’t need to store all transactions to reconstruct the state, because they can prove if the latest state that they receive from rollups nodes is actually valid on L1

for example, someone on zk rollup proposes the batch with transactions, sending it in the blob storage. now, everyone has all these txs for the next 18 days. sequencer/s start to generate the ZK proof to this batch, and when they’re done, they send it on L1 contract, it executes this ZK proof using commitment to the blob (fixed size thing that belongs to the blob and that they can access on EVM; don’t ask me how it works this is cryptography magic), and updates merkle root based on what state these txs changed. now this data can be safely pruned and nothing will break, but we also have optimistic rollups that have to wait for the challenge time, so we hold it for 18 days instead of say 2 hours

u/Bob-Rossi provides us an Arbitrum delegate update

Recent ARB vote updates:

Using 100M of ARB funds for “Staking” passed the temperature check on Snapshot. The proposal would take 100m of DAO treasury and pay it out over holders who lock their ARB for 1 year. I voted no for this, as I don’t think it adds much value to Arbitrum’s chain and essentially is just paying people not to sell. Any economic value added is temporary, and likely would be out-performed by other projects. We shall see where this goes, as while it passed, there were a decent amount of no votes.

The DAO voted to start an RFP process for security proposals. I voted for this, as I prefer to see these types of things be standardized when people apply to allow for an even playing field.

The “Arbitrum Coalition” vote failed. This looked to have a group of delegates to be hands on with DAO proposals. Basically coordination and reviewing of proposals at certain stages. I voted no on this, as some of the council also had a large share of voting power. My fear being it would create a centralizing effect. I’m not opposed to the broad idea, but there needed to be stronger separate of powers here — ideally those on the council had no voting power. I think this failed as a lot of other delegates felt similar to me.

The STIP grants that pass the yes/no voting, but did not meet the 50 million threshold were voted to be backfunded. Honestly, this was a tough one for me. I wasn’t a huge fan of back funding projects, especially because of the precedent it will set. However, IMO the DAO really dropped the ball on the first grant round with how it was set up. I’m not sure punishing the ones that passed, but failed to be as popular, is really great when it’s more the DAOs fault for a poor setup. So in the spirit of the original proposal, I voted to pass but wouldn’t be doing this again if a future round finds this issue. I’ll add, the spend was going from 50 million to 71 million. Which didn’t seem overly outrageous, and was actually in line with original ARB amounts proposed until it was reduced from 75 Million to 50 Million.

To those possibly concerned, LIDO did fail their yes/no vote so it wouldn’t get funded with this round either.

u/MinimalGravitas warns us of the latest scammer tactic

New scammer tactic on an /ethereum staking thread.

Posted a link to a fake staking service (Block Scape) which they immediately upvoted with ~30 bots. I called it out in a reply. So far so normal.

They then deleted their original comment, blocked me so that I can’t report them or reply again and then upvoted the new one. Very annoying strategy.

Stay safe out there, and if anyone wants to do a favour and report the scammer then please do!

[Edit, and of course they are now using their bots to downvote my top level comment calling them out.]

Nov 10, 2023 - Episode #42

Oct 27, 2023 - Episode #41

The morning trinity

✨E✨t✨h✨e✨r✨e✨u✨m✨

0.0526

u/Zeebrasurfer

$1783

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

For a crust of bread,

Hunting the next airdrop shred,

Keeping us all fed.

Shitpost of the week: u/Yeopaa

I’ve held my silence for too long.

In my country the word ‘doot’ means vagina.

It’s also slang for currency, 1 Doot = £1.

A common jibe here is ‘Smell yer doot mate.’

u/benido2030 is continuing their effort to make EthFinance a governance powerhouse

A few days ago I made my “Let’s make ETH Finance a Governance Powerhouse” post. First of all thank you for the positive feedback both with comments and upvotes! I have been thinking some more about it and even though there wasn’t a real pushback, I would like to update it and cut it down to three steps.

Coordinate
Delegate
Communicate

After reading my own post a couple of times, I asked myself. “How would you respond to this if this was posted by someone else?” My gut feeling: It’s a good idea, but it’s too complex. We need to start with an MVP for governance and coordination. Hence, here’s a short “Minimum viable coordination” (MVC) update:

1) Coordinate

Once an airdrop is announced, we try to coordinate as fast as possible.

We collect potential delegates from this community. Members can both announce their motivation to be a delegate for the protocol and members can suggest other members.

We publish a list of “aligned” delegates that are close to this community, but not daily active.

We try to focus on a few delegates to make sure “our” delegates have a lot of tokens delegated and hence governance power.

Obviously everyone is still free to become a delegate, but if we can achieve to agree on e.g. 2-3 “official” candidates that focus on one protocol, this would have a lot of benefits. My suggestion is also to that the “official” delegates should be delegates for one protocol only. My best educated guess is that the time needed for “good”/”professional” governance will be up only and in the future being a delegate for 2+ protocols will be very hard.

2) Delegate

Well, this part is easy. We delegate our tokens to our “official” delegates.

Why is it an extra step? Just to emphasize that it’s coordination first and delegation second. Or in other words: I think it would be very beneficial if we all be patient. Don’t claim on day one since most of the time the delegation is part of the claiming process. Let’s try to make sure we really had some time to agree on candidates.

3) Communicate

This is happening already, but we should do this as much as possible. Tag your delegates if you have question/ feedback. Or as a delegate: Talk to the community, ask for feedback if you are a delegate.

The delegates are our ears and eyes for that protocol. E.g. I would have missed the LDO proposal, but I am very happy it was discussed here. We need this kind of activity to inform the community, align and coordinate even better than before.

I think this MVC is way better than the first one. Yeah, reporting sounds cool, but it might be overblown (and corporate?). And yes, preparation for a potential airdrop sure makes sense, but could also be a lot of work for something that never happens. Let’s try to coordinate ad-hoc when there is a need. If that works out, we can always improve and add more steps.

Airdrops are usually a big news and my guess would be that members that are mostly reading here will come to ETHFinance on these days. By definition I will not know what most of those lurkers will think of my suggest or do when we need to coordinate, but allow me to state this: You are the majority of this community and you all - as a group of lurkers - probably have more governance tokens than the active / posting members. I would really appreciate your silent coordination by reading and silent acting by delegating your tokens to a delegate from the community!

u/jtnichol reflects on how EthFinance dodged a bullet with Reddit's community points

https://x.com/DegenerateNews/status/1714353397330002253?s=20

Reddit is sunsetting community points across cryptocurrency ethrader, and Fortnite BR… I don’t know what the next move will be for the project as a whole, but I’m still very very happy. We did not get involved with such a centralized mess of points and karma

Moon price dumped big time prior to the announcement also which speculated the moderators had inside her information this was going to happen on /r/cryptocurrency and Fortnitebr specifically.

that’s all speculation based on a tweet I’ve ever had that. Showed the timing of everything. /u/spacesider hear anything like that?

Edit…ethtrader too https://reddit.com/r/ethtrader/s/mxYAn7ShXP

Double edit… holy shit looking through those subs and the amount of fighting and pissed off people over something we all knew years ago, was going to ruin the Reddit experience.

passing up that opportunity was the best thing moderators here could’ve done because it is a complete train wreck now over there in those other subs .

also, Reddit red hats have just created such a catastrophe by not seeing this through or figuring out the token mechanics of it …. they basically told the moderators it was going to be over in a month and that was that. They should’ve just rugged everybody equally the same time but they didn’t.

and just don’t understand why they didn’t put more effort into figuring out the token mechanics. Who knows it was probably because of all the discord pump groups that are being talked about as well with the vote manipulation. Color me shocked. … maybe it was a regulatory thing…. who knows but there was not enough effort to see it through after such a long, hard road of picking out which layer two to use, etc..

Watch those communities evaporate quickly. I have no doubt they will probably see a good 75 to 80% less traffic because of all the click farm activity and Discord vote manipulation tactics.

u/Spacesider explains his perspective of the Reddit Moons rug as an r/CC mod

https://www.theblock.co/post/258476/pair-of-reddit-mods-appear-to-have-sold-off-tokens-ahead-of-announcement-to-terminate-blockchain-based-program

There was a post in yesterdays daily regarding Reddit community points and JT tagged me and asked for my input, and I have only seen the post just now, so I will follow up in today’s daily for greater visibility /u/jtnichol

Basically, we were both privately and abruptly told by the admins that community points are getting killed and they will be no more in just a few weeks. 1 hour later the admins shared this information to the wider community. So /r/CryptoCurrency mods knew about this before everyone else, as well as the mods also over at /r/FortNiteBR and /r/ethtrader too as they also have RCP. (Reddit community points).

Well, some mods used this private information to their own personal advantage and decided to sell, because the price was going to obviously crash when it was to be made public one hour later.. Some more information in that link.

It’s also been reported on two big websites if anyone want additional details.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/reddit-mods-dumped-tokens-hours-before-blockchain-program-termination

This is really not a good look and I have absolutely no idea what (If any) potential consequences of this is going to be. My personal thoughts on the matter?

When RCP’s were first announced (Around half a year prior to me becoming a mod), I voiced my concerns as a comment on the announcement.

Many years and countless hours later from everyone involved, I must say that it is still sad to see it go because this could have been a huge opportunity for Reddit to make web 3 way more mainstream than it currently is. So this is probably going to set things back a bit for us. I guess Reddit are only focused on money though and if it initiatives like this can’t bring them in more money (Probably due to rumours about how they want to IPO), then they will be axed to make things look prettier for investors. So probably the entire Reddit platform might go in an entirely new direction.

We did ask if the smart contract could potentially get handed over to the mods for us to continue in our own capacity, but the admins haven’t said anything back to us about this.

I guess now that upvotes are not monetised anymore there will be a big drop in comments and in theory an increase in quality, as all the people who participated only to farm karma will now (hopefully) move onto other more productive things. I guess time will tell!

u/silentjxhn shares an excerpt from an artist who praises the advantages of NFT art

I find this so fucking weird. The artists that have branched into NFTs love it from what it seems.

I get 100% of the primary sales. Galleries take 50%. For the entire month of July I sold a teeshirt. $20. [Reddit’s Collectable Avatar] program allows me to make art every day.

…before this project I was pretty against NFTs for all the obvious reasons that most people are. Mainly the predatory, mlm scamming structure that turned a lot of people off to them. But people need to know that this project is far more like patreon, your purchase goes right to the artist. You see an artist you like and want to aid them? you throw them a couple bucks. To be honest seeing the resales was even a surprise to me. But I don’t see it that different than any other form of investing, it’s all numbers on a screen to me. I would, however encourage people to not get over their heads and play it safe. Please don’t gamble your life away.

I actually intend to recycle my earnings into putting on art shows and installations myself. I’m sick of begging galleries for attention, I’m just gunna rent out warehouses and do it myself and invite the public to see. Not only did this program free me from the extreme stress of trying to make rent, it allows me to circumvent the dusty old gate keeping artworld and do what I want to: to show the whole world my art. This program is dope as shit.

u/domotheus does an AMA on statelessness and verkle trees

I’m currently writing an article about statelessness/verkle trees, trying to do the same thing I did for blobspace where I start from the very ground up to explain the problem and the solution.

I guess most ethfinanciers are already familiar with a good chunk of the “from the ground up” section, but it doesn’t hurt to see where some confusion remains. So I’m trying something here: AMA about statelessness and stuff and I’ll try to answer and it’ll be mutually beneficial and what not

u/TheCryptosAndBloods finds an excerpt which sums up an all too common occurrence

Excerpt below from a newsletter I get called The Defi Edge - it is uncanny how exactly it describes me and my behaviour in the last 2 cycles. Like he could literally have been writing my story.

Anyone else do this?

Waiting patiently for the next cycle to (I hope) do what I didn’t, the first two times:

“Have you ever heard that it takes roughly 3 Crypto cycles before you “make it”?

You’re an idiot in the 1st cycle. You’re figuring out all the basic concepts. You trust influencers a little bit more than you should.

4 years later…

You’re smarter in the 2nd cycle, but you become a little too overconfident. You think, “This time, it’s different.” You’re not taking profits like you should and mis-time the market cycle.

4 years later…

The 3rd cycle. You either “make it,” or you repeat the same mistakes. Notice the 4 years part.

This isn’t League of Legends or Chess, where you can play every day if you want to. The bull market tends to come once every 4 years on average. So, your “feedback loops” are slower.”

u/FernadoPoo has a call to action for Americans

The US Government is Trying to Kill Crypto latest Bankless podcast.

If you are a U.S. citizen, give the IRS and Treasury what for using the AI tool https://treasuryraid.lexpunk.army/

You have seven days.

u/696_eth talks about the fun aspect of solo staking

I’m surprised staking hasn’t gotten more degen light. All you see is like 3.7% APR when you solo stake bluh bluh. Yes, that’s helpful and that’s too intellectual.

Why wouldnt we just make it intellectual cause we can calc averages etc etc and move on? well that’s how I did it too but staking isnt just that for humans.

Let me explain a bit more.

Staking has consistent rewards which are quite negligible unless you are a whale but you get some passive income and that feels stable, secure and good and it can even attract the crowd that does FatFIRE and all that stuff in tradfi.

However, there’s more to staking. There’s a sync committee which is again more stable gains while you are there yet the key part is that it’s random occurrence in one’s process.

And the ultimate form of dopamine rewarding would be a block proposal. Timing of that is random (yes there’s a probability the same way there’s a probability in blackjack or roulette) and on top of that - the reward is random! So you are basically having a chance at winning the lottery (also way better chances than in real lottery) and you get to play it for free!! Well, kind of. You have to stake.

So unless you are a big corporate entity or in a smoothing pool (altho that would still apply to some degree but not so much), just the possibility of having stability (thru regular attestations) + some occasional bonus for doing the job well (sync comm) + free lotto tickets that can be lifechanging (block proposals) !!! I feel like if more people knew this was the case instead of just boring APY part they might’ve been staking purely in hopes of degening in a smart way (since you lotto tickets are free) and helping out the decentralization in the process.

Anyways, im curious what has your experience been like? do you feel some excitement staking or at least whenever you get notifications about sync comm + proposing blocks? if not, how does it make you feel then?

u/anderspatriksvensson is withdrawing their stETH and explains the process

I am moving out of Lido and decided to “Withdraw” instead of trade out my stEth. They say this may take 1-4 days. Anyone build any good way to more accurately predict when my withdrawal will take place and be ready to claim? I’m patient but just wondering if there’s a better estimate somewhere…

EDIT: Little more research. So Lido creates an NFT that is minted the second you create a withdraw request. The NFT is then “transferred” and burned once the eth is ready to claim and claimed. So with a little bit of guessing, you can see when the last “transfer” was and how long it took between their mint and the transfer and guesstimate. Example of one that has been minted and transferred. About 5 days and 9 hours from request withdraw to being claimed. Of course it might have been ready at 4 days and it took 1 day and 9 hours for the user to claim it… Anyway, I wait patiently :) I feel better doing a withdraw and knowing the stETH is being burned instead of transferred onto someone else.

Oct 20, 2023 - Episode #40 | Greg DiPrisco

Special guest Greg DiPrisco joins us from Ajna, a noncustodialand permissionless lending protocol that requires no governance or external price feeds.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

u/5quat

$1584

0.054

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Warping not bridging,

EVM is not judging,

Just network switching.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Since I have started tracking this

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 860,027 (+2,531)

Pending validators: Joining 0, leaving 0

Entry queue -500 from yesterday’s number

151 days have passed

The amount of active validators has increased from 572,820 to 860,027 (+287,207)

The amount of staked ether has increased from 18,330,053 to 27,520,638 (+9,190,585)

Which is around 14,228,587,979$ in USD value using today’s Ethereum price.

Shitpost of the week: u/superphiz

Making a pilgrimage to see the burial site of our beloved, Gary the Cow today.

Edit: I arrived!

u/MinimalGravitas has some thoughts after the community pushback against Lido's Arbitrum DAO proposal

Thoughts on the victory over Lido in Arbitrum’s STIP round (apologies for a bit of a brain dump):

1) Today - We should celebrate, be grateful and allow ourselves the happy vibes of the ‘good’ side winning. We’ve won a battle, but as I said a couple of weeks ago this is going to be a long war. One of the best ways to build resilience to keep grinding is to pay attention to the rewards your brain gives you when you win.

2) Tomorrow - If you harassed a delegate to get them to vote, or to change their vote or whatever then reach back out to them over the next few days. Everyone likes it when you say thanks, and everyone prefers it when they don’t feel like you forget about them after you’ve got what you wanted.

If delegates voted no after you messaged them, or even if no one contacted them then why not message them to suggest they take a look in EthFinance of Reddit? Sales teams and political lobbying groups take people out to dinner to keep them on side, maybe our equivalent to that would be inviting delegates here… I honestly think that The Daily is a more valuable Ethereum community than any Discord or Telegram group, so why not leverage some of that value to buy goodwill from DAO delegates who have shown themselves to be at least somewhat aligned to the cause of protecting Ethereum L1.

3) Next Week - With Lido losing here, being vampire attacked, and the threat they pose being discussed in multiple Ethereum podcasts recently it’s a good time to press the advantage. Up the ‘social pressure’ (which it turns out can be quite useful after all) by calling out their attempts at spin and damage control. u/hanniabu has set a great example of doing this. Their representative who proposed the Arbitrum request was on Twitter claiming the results were ‘razor tight’, so don’t let them control the narrative.

In a dogfight one of the ways you beat an opponent is by overwhelming their Cognitive Load, give them too many things to think about to be able to effectively counter all of them. Lido have a lot to think about at the moment so we’d be throwing away an advantage if we let the pressure up too much.

4) The Future - We need to get more coordinated. We’ve got delegates in lots of DAOs but can we find more? Can we start compiling resources of delegates that might not be part of EthFinance but can be relied upon to recognize the threat Lido represents if they come knocking for funds and integrations? Can we start predicting where they might go next and reach out to delegates in other DAOs before any decisions even get put to them?

u/_WebOfTrust has discussed the possibility of changes to constitutions that would prevent these kinds of funding requests for Lido even coming to the proposal stage, what would that look like and what DAO’s might take it up?

How can we keep respected Ethereum media discussing this? Obviously some members (like u/EvanVanNess) are already working on that, I’m sure we can try to keep the focus on for some others too. The Bankless guys used to frequent here sometimes and have had a recent episode with Danny Ryan as well as promoted Diva’s Vampire attack, lets praise and promote those positive actions to encourage them to do more.

We need to get to grips with how important votes in the ecosystem work, before the final day of their decisions - it was pretty funny the number of different interpretations as to how Arbitrum’s pass/fail was decided, I certainly didn’t understand it until yesterday evening. It worked out fine this time, but we can learn from that and do better next time.

Because there will be a next time. Ultimately I believe that competition from other staking protocols is going to be the solution to getting Lido below 22%, but that won’t happen quickly, and Lido will fight hard to grow as much as they can before other options can catch up. The social layer is not the long term way to get this fixed, but is is a tool we have now and may be the best we have to defend our network for the near future - so lets learn from this victory and hone the abilities we have so that we can hold the line and push back for as long as we need to. I’ve never felt more optimistic that it’s possible for us to do so.

u/Tricky_Troll adjusts the personal reputations of delegators

Governance token holders everywhere, particularly ARB holders or even OP and other governance token holders who delegate — now is a good time to ask yourself if you are happy with who you have delegated your tokens to. After the recent Lido ARB proposal, some names I once knew have either gone up or down in my personal reputation. It may be worth checking all protocols which you delegate your tokens on and check your delegate’s track record and change or speak up if necessary.

Changes of who I see as reputable.

Reputation gain: +++

L2Beat
Griff Green
David Mihal
u/Bob-Rossi (like he isn’t already top tier)
Basically all of the University blockchain clubs (Princeton, Cornell, Michigan)

Reputation Loss: —

ChainLinkGod
Galxe

Name and shame/praise baby. Who’d I miss?

u/RooftopPortaPotty updates us on their project PreservationDAO

Piggybacking on all the recent discussions regarding DAOs here, I aim to provide another perspective.

Two years ago I resolved to, along with the invaluable work of other ethfinanciers, launch PreservationDAO. Our aim is to preserve habitat by purchasing land of significant ecological value using funds generated by on-chain donations.

The landscape of Ethereum has obviously changed drastically since then, but our ideas and general plans were compiled by the great /u/haurog, and can be found at https://github.com/preservationdao/preservationdao.

We were quickly met with a wide array of challenges and obstacles. Some of these issues have likely been solved to some extent by this point.

I will assume that any interested members have read the linked github page. The following will be an attempt to address some of these challenges, and to detail solutions where available.

I personally lacked the funds necessary to get this project off the ground. Unfortunately, this has not changed.
We felt it wrong to launch an environmentally-oriented project on a proof of work chain. Post-merge, this is a non-issue. However, we may still want to choose a L2 to avoid high gas fees.
I spent quite a long time trying to find an appropriate law firm to help create a land-owning, on-chain, 501 (c) (3) organization, to no avail.
Ensuring that the meatspace treasury has no ability to embezzle funds is paramount, and I dont see a clear solution.
With a non-transferable ERC-20(or NFT?) that is distributed to donators, who may then vote for lands to purchase, how do we mitigate sybil attacks?
Ensuring that qualified contributors are able to make their donations tax-exempt is a priority. This project must not be limited to properties within the US.
What assets should we accept as donations? There are many downsides to market selling ETH in order to purchase property.

I implore any interested ethfinanciers to contribute in any way possible.

I would love to see this comment receive significant traction. Otherwise, PreservationDAO can be re-shelved until we have a clear path to success laid out.

u/696_eth shares the potential that JP Morgan sees in this space

Original source

JP Morgan Onyx on Digital Identity in Web3

They have a video and are doing a 4-article series.

The first one - The Big Shift - was released back in 2022.

Let’s see what they understand.

New web - new rules.

New verification methods that are more secure, trustworthy and easier to use.

Prior to the blockchain and even so far, the digital online world has been copying the physical world leading to many issues around identity pieces:

• unsecured communication

• inefficient and dangerous practices

• stolen identities

• much more

Web3 - introduces new possibilities.

They clearly understand how web1 changed the world through e-commerce and how web2 sparked innovation through the rise of social networks and user-generated content.

What about web3? It brings the pieces of:

Decentralized system:

• Digital ownership of your data

• Ownership of your assets

• Flips the relationship between companies and users

& many more possibilities

• Adds more cross-platform utility

• Adds provenance

• Adds immutability

That means web3 can bring another magnitude of innovation:

• Streamlining online business models (less friction for users)

• Saving time (reduce verification times)

• Making proving easier, more secure and private

• Reducing costs and unlocking more liquidity (faster and transparent public services)

For all of that to work we need to Update our Digital Identity.

That’s where Decentralized Digital Identity comes with a range of benefits:

• Sovereignty (you have control and choice of your data)

• Security (no points of failure)

• Immutable and irrefutable (highly trustworthy information)

While all of that sounds good, it’s a very complex challenge to bring all the pieces together.

This leads us to their second article - Assessing Web3’s Identity Building Blocks - was published sometime in 2023.

First of all, they are reiterating their points from the first article.

But now they are getting a bit more specific and tangible.

Starting with an overview of the digital identity landscape and highlighting 4 essential building blocks.

Identifiers aka everyday tags:

• Names

• Email addresses

• Accounts numbers

• Social handles

& many more

Web3 ones are:

— Ethereum Naming Service (ENS)

• Turns 42-character Ethereum public address into a human-readable name

• Represents multifaceted identity

• Includes a variety of blockchains

• Utilizes offchain information

• Includes website URLs (domains)

• All other identifiers

All of that is in one name!

— &Lens handle*

• A user profile on the social graph of Lenster, Lenstube, etc

— Other naming services as identifiers (Unstoppable Domains and others)

DIDs (Decentralized identifiers) are fundamental blocks of the self-sovereign identity (SSI):

• uniqueness (no confusion)

• provability (proof of ownership)

• portability (owned by an owner and cannot be deleted, cross-platform usage)

It’s just a sneak peek and more is coming in the next article!

Identity attributes (attestations of facts or data points):

Examples:

Proof of Humanity (PoH) - Ethereum-based social identity verification system

Soulbound tokens (SBT) - public, permanent, non-transferable NFTs that can represent a person’s digital identity attributes onchain.

Verifiable Credentials (VCs) - A W3C data model for sharing and verifying identity credentials that can be stored offchain allowing for privacy and scalability.

Reputation

It is a key part of one’s identity and makes us who we are.

POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) is a notable example of this.

Digital collectibles and assets

NFTs contributing to one’s identity:

• profile pictures (PFPs)

• digital art

• in-game items

• membership NFTs

& more

Digital Identity can bring all the pieces together.

To gain scale and mass adoption, it’s crucial for wallets to enable a seamless building of one’s digital identity.

Account Abstraction (AA) solves some of those challenges.

Combining 4 of the essential blocks (Identifiers, Identity attributes, Reputation, and Digital collectibles & assets) with one another, can form a holistic identity.

Onyx’s experience with Decentralized Digital Identity:

• observing the DID space from 2017

• identified use cases

• built concept solutions

• explored digital identity for institutions on public blockchains and experimented with VC and DID technology through a collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and SBI Digital Asset Holdings

• remain open-minded and continue exploring other methodologies for a variety of use cases

The conclusion of this article leads back to their digital identity part of the site.

They have a range of documents on other web3 and crypto-related topics.

It is obvious, that they are not thinking about Digital Identity in isolation as they are aware of nuance niches within web3 such as metaverse, DeFi, and even real-world assets.

They clearly articulate how it can be helpful for:

• online interactions (ownership, portability, security)

• creators (by moving platforms)

• gamers (asset-interoperability)

• real-world applications

In navigating the rich space of Web3, JP Morgan Onyx lays a strong emphasis on the transformative power of Decentralized Digital Identity. Their explorations highlight the potential that comes with blending digital identity with emerging tech realms like metaverse, DeFi, GameFi, SocialFi and the tangible world itself.

What else do you already see that JP Morgan Onyx still doesn’t?

u/benido2030 and u/Juankestein share their biggest learnings about investing and their resulting strategy

u/benido2030:

This is one of my biggest learnings: it’s so easy to spend ETH in a bull market. So many cool narratives. So many people making a quick buck.

And to be fair: you should be experimenting because that’s how you learn. But you should also keep in mind that every buy diminishes your ETH stack. Your long term bet. The asset that will not go to zero next bear.

So I think a budget for experiments works well. Don’t spend more than the budget and you’re good.

u/Juankestein:

Around 3 years ago I realized this. EVERYONE wants your BTC and ETH.

ICOs wanted your ETH
Scammers want your ETH
Exchanges have BTC and ETH reserves
Lending platforms stake your ETH
DEXs want your ETH liquidity

Just hold BTC and ETH and forget about it, that’s probably the most boring strategy but also the most rewarding and less stressful…

My Plan for 2025 is to convert all the 2017 and 2021 shitcoins into BTC, ETH, USDC and maybe another token I want to bet on.

u/benido2030 wants to make EthFinance a governance powerhouse

Let’s make ETH Finance a governance powerhouse

In the light of the lido threat and their ARB request this community has shown a brilliant reaction. The topic was heavily discussed, delegates coordinated and a lot of great posts have been made. u/minimalgravitas made this post last week and I would like to add some thoughts with regards to “The Future” since I completely agree that we need to coordinate even more than ever before.

Some assumptions before I start outlining my thoughts

This community has a lot of smart and thoughtful people
This community cares about ETH’s values and has developed a strong sense of community and belonging over years
We have existing infrastructure to coordinate, which is a strong foundation (happens to be reddit right now, but could be something off reddit as well)
This community owns sizeable stacks of governance token (mostly airdropped, some bought on the open market)*
We shouldn’t focus on lido, but be agnostic to be able to respond to all threats Ethereum is and will be facing in the future

So how can we coordinate more/ better to become a governance powerhouse? I think we need to be structured and prepared beforehand. I also think that for now (let’s call it “phase one”) we should also limit ourselves to the current community. Still this will be a huge change and will probably need people dedicating a good amount of time to make things happen.

Step 1: Analysis/ Identification:

This step needs to be done both internally and externally. These steps should happen regularly to be prepared for e.g. an airdrop, possibly every 3 to 6 months (tbd), but potentially also ad-hoc.Internally: We need to understand our members strengths, interests and availability. Some questions I would ask to identify potential delegates: Who is capable of representing ETH Finance as a delegate? Is the member focussed on a certain topic/ category? Is the member a delegate already? Is the member free and willing to work as a delegate? I think people should both be able to suggest other members, but also apply as a delegate.Externally: We need to understand which protocols / categories of protocols are critical to ETHs health, both direct and indirect. Direct in this case means e.g. relevant for ETH’s security and / or decentralization. Indirect could mean because of a large treasury and its economic power.So let me give you an example:I think the EigenLayer airdrop will happen at one point in time in the future. Let’s assume the token is a governance token. A lot of smart people see Restaking as a potential threat to Ethereum’s security. Hence I think we should try to make sure there is (at least!) one community delegate for EigenLayer.We should identify capable and willing members now to make sure once the airdrop happens we can act fast. Personal opinion to make it even more concrete: I would suggest u/hanniabu for EigenLayer delegate because I believe restaking is critical and believe that they have proven themself in the past couple of weeks both on reddit, but also on twitter.Best case we can identify up to 3 delegates per critical protocol so that we can act fast. Down the road we would basically have a table that serves as an overview of potential delegates per category.

Example:

L2s: Member X, Member Y
Defi: Member Z
(Re)Staking: Member A, Member B
NFTs: Member C
Infrastructure: Member D, Member E

Step 2: Coordination and delegation

This step will usually be helpful after a token launch/ airdrop. It basically formalizes step 1.After a token launch announcement we try to understand our “power”, so try to get a feeling for our power by estimating our token allocation (this will be fun, cause it will be so hard to estimate lurkers and their allocations). Based on this we agree on a number of delegates.After that we ask the potential candidates if they are still interested and confirm 1-x “official” delegates. The process? To be defined! Most likely via reddit, maybe an extra post? The daily?Important: obviously everyone is still free to run as a delegate even if they are not the “official” community delegate. Also everyone is still free to delegate to a completely different delegate. We can’t tell people to not run as a delegate and we can’t force people to delegate to the community’s candidate.From my point of view the goal of this step is to delegate as many tokens as possible to the “official” candidate to make sure our representatives have power. I think it’s better to have 3 candidates with 1M tokens each than to have 30 candidates with 100k tokens (or even less because people choose external candidates).But why would you do that? This is where step 3 comes in:

Step 3: Collecting feedback

I think we have a big advantage over other delegates: We can crowdsource feedback. Or in other words your delegates will usually understand your position (because you post it or upvote those comments that summarize your position in the best way possible) and will best case act based on the feedback.So what should the process look like? I think there are two possible ways.Delegate driven: The delegate will usually be aware of important topics, discussions and votes. They could either publish their position on a certain topic in the daily or they could ask for feedback if they have no idea/ position yet. I think this is the best scenario, but this might not work all the time. Delegates might not see a certain vote as critical as the community, might not have enough time to check all discussions proactively etc.Community driven: So the community members could tag the delegate to express their view on a certain issue. I think this has already worked pretty well the past couple of weeks and is already part of the community DNA.Based on the feedback the delegate forms their opinion and votes. Important: The delegate is of course (?) free to make the decision they think is best. The community feedback is a suggestion on how to vote, but not binding. If people are unhappy with the delegate they are free to redelegate (see step 5).

Step 4: Reporting

I think it would be beautiful if there was some kind of “reporting” back to the community. This could be a summary of the votes of the past, feedback the delegate got in the process (cause the delegate will likely be in touch with other delegates), information about other delegates that have a similar stance as we are and generally things the delegate thinks are important.The goal would be to learn what delegates have learned and allow for some “behind the scenes” for interested members. This reporting could be a written report, but maybe some delegates would also be open to join the weekly EVM meeting in Discord.

Step 5: Evaluation and (re)delegation

The last step is evaluating the delegate’s actions and potentially redelegation. In a best case scenario the evaluation just results in… nothing. People are happy, feel that the delegate did a great job and represented this community well. But we obviously have to accept that this won’t be true all the time. Redelegation could happen if a member goes inactive, votes/acts against the community’s values/ interest, etc.To be honest I don’t know how often this should be done, maybe once a year and whenever there are big decisions? In the end this is what some members have been documenting the past couple of days with external delegates and changes in reputation.

u/\_WebOfTrust shares Vitalik's message to those watching his every action

https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0xb8ccf84d

“Regular reminder:
If you see an article saying “Vitalik sends XXX ETH to [exchange]”, it’s not actually me selling, it’s almost always me donating to some charity or nonprofit or other project, and the recipient selling because, well, they have to cover expenses.
I haven’t “sold” ETH for personal gain since 2018.”

Mad respect for Vitalik, all the onchain alert on twitter of him selling and causing panic while its all just donation to charity.

u/hanniabu has a call to action

https://twitter.com/eigenlayer/status/1714331527025476017

Time to promote decentralized LSTs to be added to Eigen Layer nexthttps://twitter.com/eigenlayer/status/1714331518775279990

Here is how you can get involved:

A snapshot of all LST holders listed above, any that get added, and current Restakers will be taken on Oct 20th.
Each wallet gets 1 vote for every $USD worth of tokens staked.
LST teams will showcase their merits, declare pre-commitments, and campaign over the next week.
LSTs that accumulate more than 15k ETH in votes will be added to EigenLayer for restaking in the subsequent months, added by the number of votes from highest to lowest.Key Dates:🫰Snapshot: Oct 20th📝 Submissions by LSTs: Oct 20th-25th🗳️ Voting by LST holders: Oct 25th - Nov 1

LSTs currently included and whether they are decentralized or not:

wBETH (no)
sfrxETH (no)
SETH2 (yes wen v3)
swETH (no)
AnkrETH (mixed)
LsETH (no)
mevETH (no)
EthX (mixed)
vETH (unsure)
oETH (mixed, index)

It seems the one we should support the most is Stakewise’s SETH2, so if anyone has that you should set a reminder to vote starting October 25th. Unfortunately there’s only a supply of 85k ETH since their old v2 implementation has been paused, so there’s limited voting power.

But the good thing is that you can also vote if you have any ETH restaked. I’ve reached out to Diva to petition for their inclusion.

-–

Edit:

As for voting - you decide the stage! Decide on which L2 the competition should take place. Cast your vote now!🗳️ Deadline: October 20th before the contest launches.

Current poll results:

Base - 34.2%

Arbitrum - 54.9%

Polygon - 7.5%

Mantle - 3.4%

u/TheCryptosAndBloods calls out Uniswap for their recent bold move

Have we done the new UNI fee stuff?

How Uniswap Labs (the VC funded company) is adding a 0.15% fee to the (primary) frontend it controls, as well as their wallet app? It’s 3x the long awaited fee switch for UNI token holders, going entirely to benefit the company.

And they have announced it the day after they pushed through a vote approving $50 million in funding (by dumping the UNI token) for the Labs company by the Uniswap Foundation/DAO - with zero explanation of what it is for or what it’ll be used for - just an opaque ($46 million for 2 years please - we’ll use it well, pretty please).

It’s just incredibly brazen. Uniswap is a fantastic product but my god the incentive misalignment between the team and VCs (who want to drive value to the company equity which they own more of and which has fewer regulatory hassles) and token holders is crazy (team and VCs also own a ton of UNI of course but they own more of the company and would prefer to monetize the company, especially since it doesn’t have regulatory hassles for them like the token - BUT, they will use their voting power to block any attempts to turn the fee switch on for UNI holders, to avoid aforesaid regulatory hassles for them - all while disingenuously talking about how UNI holders can vote to turn on the fee switch if they want).

Why do people hold UNI anymore after the relentless screwing of token holders by the team/VCs/company?

Like I said - Uniswap is a great product but the team/VC/founders leave awful taste in the mouth with their greed and screwing of token holders. Also there were some very unpleasant allegations about Hayden screwing over early investors and people who helped him bootstrap and not giving them the equity they were promised etc last year - think there was a long Twitter thread by Ric Burton? I think I need to emphasize that we only heard Ric Burton’s side of the story and every story has two sides, but it all sounded quite plausible and in line with the kind of ethos that Uniswap Labs has now..

u/superphiz self-examines Ethereum's current situation

Self-examination is critical for long term success. Everyone has been in the dumps about the ratio, but instead of lamenting it we ought to be asking what we can do to improve Ethereum.

Maybe it’s not our fault. Doesn’t matter.

Maybe bitcoin just had the first mover advantage. Doesn’t matter.

Maybe the value is flowing into bitcoin because they’ll have the first spot etf. Doesn’t matter.

What DOES matter is what the Ethereum community and developers are doing in the face of that. Ethereum is 10x more technically sound than bitcoin, so what can we do to stop suffering through the leak?

We can celebrate our victories and focus on the path forward.

The social layer has shown incredible resilience in the face of a centralizing LSD.
Our L2 capacity strategy is really paying off with a rich garden of successful L2 chains like arbitrum, optimism, polygon, zksync, base.. all of which are developing their own ecosystems that feed growth back to Ethereum.
We have quickly moved on from the success of the merge, but let me remind you that we hotswapped our consensus mechanism to improve the operation of the network AND we reduced energy consumption by 99.99%. We ought to be writing this with sharpie markers in every bathroom stall in the world.
The EIP 1559 fee burn mechanism is a complete success. Sure, we’re not ultrasound right now but that burned Ether is gone forever and the exercise in implementing EIP 1559 solidified our ability to develop and improve sound monetary policy.
WE are the chain of innovation and new growth. Practically everything new that’s happening is happening on Ethereum. The Eth killers have all passed away and bitcoin doesn’t have the technical ability to do the things that a smart contract platform can do.
We’re slowly moving closer to a US legal framework that supports the foundations of cryptocurrency. I acknowledge that it’s slow af, but it’s definitely moving in a favorable direction.

Now. What are you celebrating? What have I missed? What can we do better? THESE are the questions we need to ask as we accept agency over our current situation.

Oct 13, 2023 - Episode #39 | Billy Luedtke

Special guest Billy Luedtke joins us from Intuition, a project that aims to have identity for everything on the blockchain.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

0.0576

$1539

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Who wants a T-Bill?

Why not a savings account?

Staking is the thrill.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 857,496 (+2,070)

Pending validators: Joining ~500, leaving ~0

Entry queue -1k from yesterday’s number
It will take roughly 5 hours for the entry queue to clear

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/MinimalGravitas

You need a story before bed Phiz.

To punish Ethereum, Moloch created a woman named TheCommunity, molded to look like the beautiful goddess Aphrodite.

Zeus brought her to Earth to be Ethereum’s’ wife. He was taken with her beauty and wanted to marry her, despite his developer’s warnings of the god’s trickery.

As a wedding present, Zeus gave TheCommunity a box, telling her never to open it. But as Zeus knew, TheCommunity was degen, she couldn’t stay away from the box and the urge to open it overcame her. Terrible things flew out of the box: centralization, MEV, scams, Bitcoin maxis, disinformation, LSTs, charlatans, and exploits. All of life’s miseries let out into the world.

As quick as she could, TheCommunity slammed the lid of the box back down. The last thing remaining inside of the box was Hope.

Ever since, Ethereans have been able to hold onto this hope in order to survive the wickedness that TheCommunity had let out.

u/TheHansGruber shares their last week of validating on the Holesky testnet

1 week of holesky testnet operations. 50 thousand genesis validators split across 15 or so giga nerds from the rocketpool discord. I have several thousand running on a Ryzen 5 5560U, 32GB @ 3200, 2TB NVME. CPU is tuned to 25W in the bios. I’ve got the wattmeter hooked up now and will be monitoring total system usage and see what it averages out to. Goal is to tune as low as possible without borking something. Current usage is about 37w, but it just booted back up and is syncing. Mainnet NUCs are around 15w. Still, kinda crazy to think one could secure $150,000,000 worth of the ethereum network…for 37 watts. It’s like…a medium sized solar panel and battery/inverter setup could do this for years. Greenpeace eat your heart out.

Something I didn’t consider before operating this node was the time it takes to load keys. It’s basically instantaneous with a couple validators. With several thousand it takes 30+ mins. Gotta reboot? It’s 30+ mins before everything is kosher again. Ethstats not reporting? A quick eth docker down/up cycle takes 10 seconds. But then 30+ minutes to load the keys. Actually, this makes me think I should try just restarting the execution container instead of the whole shebang and see if that works for ethstats. I am still learning the ins and outs of ethdocker…but it is definitely one of the easiest ways to run a node at home.

Sync aggregation is climbing and nearing 90%. It was hanging out in the 70’s last week.

I have started tracking the data usage now as well. With 1.4 million + total validators on the network, rx and tx is way, way up. Initial estimates are several TB per month, even with not a lot of activity on the network yet.

Mainnet nodes are around or under 1TB/month, depending on max peers and whatnot.

Random side note: about an hour ago one of /u/superphiz’s validators proposed a 3 eth block….straight to the smoothie pool. Thanks phiz! My non proposing, freeloading minipools appreciate the help.

u/Bob-Rossi urges ARB token holders to vote on a slef-interested Lido proposal

If you own any ARB, I’d urge you to vote in the LIDO grant proposal - https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x6b89b74c259d2cc5979c46be6cfe2ae20f9485eee728a628f56930db644da985

I know DAO governance isn’t very sexy, but it’s really just going to take 2 minutes of your time for something I know the majority of this sub feels strongly about. The TL;DR is that Lido is looking to get ARB from one of the grant programs running. They are requesting 4 Million ARB - which is about $3.6 million dollars worth today. Essentially to use it to increase liquidity of the their liquid staking token on the Arbitrum chain. I am voting no (I listed why on the forum, I’d link but it’s blocked on Reddit), for reasons I’m sure you can all guess. But I’ll also add their request is for 8% of the entire grant program (was 10%, they lowered it after a ton of negative feedback).

Also, reposting a request from earlier in the week - here. Simply wanted to get it at a different time of the day / before the weekend in case it was missed before due to timing.

u/mikkeller shares their ETH thesis in a standalone post

Made a long ETH thesis stand alone post, like a once every couple of years post, check it out: https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/171xvd3/how_eth_will_hit_100k_then_1m_why_it_will_and_the/

u/TheCryptosAndBloods asks for comments on a crypto critic's latest release and u/TurboJetMegaChrist makes a fair judgement

u/TheCryptosAndBloods:

Has anyone read the new Zeke Faux (Bloomberg reporter) crypto book? Number Go Up?

Judging by the blurb (calling crypto a $3 trillion delusion) and the kind of people praising it on Twitter (lot of mainstream media reporters and anti crypto activists), my tentative feeling is that it’s just a masturbatory fantasy for the “I always knew crypto is scam and I’m glad it’s finally dead” crowd.

Can anyone tell me if it is actually worth reading, and if it is just a polemic anti crypto rant (fair enough the guy is entitled to his opinions) or if there are actually factual inaccuracies and misleading content?

u/TurboJetMegaChrist:

I listened to Laura Shin interview him.

For what it’s worth, he did not sound anything like the mindless critics that point to FTX, Celsius, and 3AC as representative of crypto values. I think he raises the very real issues that anyone in this daily thread would gladly acknowledge. The difference is that he thinks they’re intractable issues, and we think solving them is inevitable.

u/LogrisTheBard describes economic coercive systems

I’ve written several times about economic coercive systems before. I’m trying to polish a more simple way to introduce this concept and how blockchains help form these systems.

To start with, let’s create an evil smart contract whose only goal is to grow the set of participants in it. The only thing we need for this to work is a way of turning money into something universally unpleasant to a target actor. In the simplest case I’ll just suggest an assassination contract. Next, we create an evil conspiracy of initial participants to fund this contract. All the contract has to do is target some unlucky sap who isn’t in the contract yet, inform them of a pending assassination contract, and tell them to join us or die. Joining us includes streaming money to the contract so that the contract can grow faster. If the target dies, then the ratio of participants to non-participants still marginally increases. Now we run this until everyone remaining is in compliance with the contract rules.

This describes a minimum viable memetic rule system. The penalty obviously doesn’t have to be assassination. It just has to be enough that for whomever the current target is, they are incentivized to join according to their objective function. The penalty I describe in my human coordination post is economic isolation rather than assassination.

The initial participants expose themselves to economic pain from the fees they pay to the contract. This is the cost of expanding the size of the network and punishing defection. The value-add of this cost depends on the value of each new participant of the network. Due to Metcalfe’s Law we expect a super-linear value-add for each new participant as the network grows. Therefore, there is critical mass of initial participants required to bootstrap such a solution, but once that is reached the stable equilibrium of the system is to dominate.

Contrast this to networks that tend to fall apart or fail to achieve their goals because there is no leverage against defectors. For example, boycotts fail to work because all the negative consequences are directed at the seller, not at anyone defecting from the boycott. Strikes fail when scabs are brought in whom the strikers have no leverage against. A blockchain solution can have universal leverage because it acts on the unified monetary rail, which is quite unique.

Now, in this simple evil smart contract, there is no inherent value to the network (Metcalf value f(n) = 0). But in economic systems, there is. We can layer other rules into this base memetic rule system that can result in a net positive situation for the initial actors on a long enough horizon. The rules can include things like environmental protection, nuclear disarmament, or UBI.

Once widely adopted, the result is a class of fail-deadly system that punishes both those that disregard the coercive rules and those who don’t participate in punishing said defectors. There will always be some players like North Korea who choose to try to go it alone. The goal of an economic coercive system is to try to make them as poor and disconnected as possible to either minimize the harm they can do or compel them to join the coercive network and play by its rules.

Btw, if my evil contract sounds insane, it’s basically just taxation + the police that enforce taxation by throwing you in jail instead of killing you. If you say you’d never join such as system, you already have joined such a system.

u/MinimalGravitas has an important Arbitrum delegate update relating to Lido

https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x6b89b74c259d2cc5979c46be6cfe2ae20f9485eee728a628f56930db644da985

The big Lido incentive funding request on Arbitrum is currently about 2/3 against.

Thanks to my delegate u/bobrossi for voting already. Ethereum ecosystem OG Griff Green has voted ‘no’ as well.

If your delegate hasn’t yet voted then get in touch with them. Some of the biggest delegates (like L2Beat and Olympio) haven’t voted yet, so there is still a chance this gets passed - which would mean 4 million ARB tokens being used to incentivize Lido’s LSTs.

Also shout out to u/hanniabu who has probably put the most work into pushing back on this one.

u/superphiz outlines his staking values

A few days ago I shared Diva’s vampire attack against Lido and someone asked what my incentives were. It got me thinking why people are skeptical of my motives when the things I share seem so obvious to me. It causes me to realize that the criteria I evaluate projects with may not be as clear to everyone as they are to me, and I wanted to de-mystify that by sharing the ways I look at staking projects. I’ve been developing these ideas since around 2018, so they’re old hat to me, but I want you to have the same framework I have.

Alignment - Is the product aligned with the success of Ethereum, or is it a “business proposition”? This can be REALLY hard to figure out, but I pretty much listen to the first words out of a project lead’s mouth: Are they talking about improving Ethereum or maximizing TVL & profit? The answer to these questions tell whether a project is a public good or a windfall opportunity for investors. I DO support investor rewards, but they ought to be within reason, and the ultimate benefactor should be the network and its users.

Longevity - I look for projects that have been around long enough to know what they’re getting into. This is why I’m a terrible angel investor. Young projects don’t have this acumen, and I’m not smart enough to determine whether they’ll develop it in time. Longevity is one of the reasons I continue to support Stakewise - they’ve continued to grow and develop their product over many years.

Permissionless Node Operation - This is a HUGE requirement for me. Growth of the Ethereum network requires that as many as people as possible run validators and nodes, and I only support projects who allow any person who is willing to put up a bond, or split a Decentralized Validator Technology (DVT) validator to participate. I believe that successful staking platforms should encourage home node operation and provide multi-client support so that the operator can choose from any consensus or execution client pair.

Operators must have a stake - Operators need to have skin in the game, this means that if they’re staking for an Liquid Staking Derivative (LSD) they ALSO need to have their own Ether on the line. This is because staking is actually a voting process on the network. If an operator doesn’t have any stake, they’re getting paid regardless of whether the network thrives or fails, but if they have Ether locked in that validator they’re far more likely to make decisions that benefit the network.

Self-Limiting - Any project I get excited about must support a self-limit to 22%. I don’t care if they’ll never get there, this is basically a commitment to say, “We’re going to put the success of Ethereum above all else.”

Minimal Complexity - I’m deterred by extreme complexity, and adding complexity increases smart contract risk and lowers the odds that people will figure out how it works. Now, to be honest, some projects APPEAR to be complex because they’re doing something new, but they may be doing this in the most simple way possible. I have to confess that if I hear inclusion of an NFT in a staking pool scheme I’m generally turned off due to complexity.

Fully Trustless - Staking funds need to be controlled end-to-end by a smart contract, not any form of multisig. This means that when you enter as a permissionless validator, your funds are received and managed by smart contract logic that delegates other people’s Ether to you, and when you exit, those Ether need to be returned to a smart contract that distributes them fairly. This process ought to be as transparent as possible. This DOES add REAL smart contract risk, but it’s superior to human controlled wallets.

Open Source - Staking platforms should release code for public audit and as a public good. Our core values include open source software and we must adhere to this as we grow.

So, yeah. These are my values and the ways I evaluate a staking platform. It’s why my list is so short, currently I support Rocket Pool, Diva, and Stakewise v3. You may be right to point out that my high standards have enabled shady operators to expand more quickly than quality operators can proliferate, but if we’re going to build a healthy network the community and stakeholders must choose the best providers.

u/nixorokish is watching the contentious Arbitrum grants proposal by Lido

https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x6b89b74c259d2cc5979c46be6cfe2ae20f9485eee728a628f56930db644da985

dang this dao governance vote is the most contentious i’ve seen in a while.

Thanks u/hanniabu for making noise about it. i had to go remember if i even have tokens and then had to go check who my delegate was. u/bob-rossi so, uh, which way you votin? you’re my delegate :D

u/benido2030 reflects on the last 2 years

Last cycle peaked in November 21. it’s October 23. almost 2 years. Obviously we didn’t know immediately at that time the top was in, but in the end it’s been 2 years of pain, crab and more pain and more crab. A lot of people have left and I can understand them.

I don’t know when things will change. I don’t even know what needs to change. If we knew it would be too easy, but we all know it’s not. But I am sure that something will change at some point in the future and those days will be rewarding.

I guess those who are left here have survived at least one cycle and learned a lot. I was thinking about a „my learnings from last bull run“ post. Are people interested? I would be grateful if some experienced people shared their thoughts and learnings cause we probably all make different mistakes and I think that would help me a lot!

u/cheeky-gorilla shares a cool new thing for genesis stakers

https://nitter.net/personae\_labs/status/1705237623093264851

Did you know you can easily prove you’re a genesis staker without revealing your associated addresses?

You can see my proofs here, and also generate your own: https://www.creddd.xyz/user/cheekygorilla0x

This was developed by Personae Labs as a way to “bring more verified pseudonymity into the world”, and to help “onchain actors make use of their clout”.

I.e. demonstrate your qualifications before wading head-first into the spicy LSD debate :P

Check out Personae’s Twitter (Nitter) threads on their proof system here:

https://nitter.net/personae\_labs/status/1711773693289054368

Oct 06, 2023 - Episode #38 | James Carnley

Special guest James Carnley joins us from EVM File System (EFS), an onchain database allowing trustless access to collaboratively built data and applications.

View presentation →

The morning trinity

u/Fiberpunk2077

Ethereum

u/Equal-Jellyfish1

$1620

0.059

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Waking up sober,

That year won’t be mediocre,

Let’s start uptober.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 842,416 (+974)

Pending validators: Joining 7k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -1400 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 2 and a half days for the entry queue to clear

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

The Fact: u/Thailand_Facts

In 1732 the world’s most populous city* was Ayutthaya in what is now Thailand, with a population estimated at 1 million. It was the seat of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which reigned from 1351 to 1767.

The city could support such a large population because of the prodigious rice production just up the Chao Phraya River. The kingdom was a maritime power that traded surplus grain for luxuries and finished goods, establishing itself as one of the three great powers of Asia alongside Vijayanagar and China.

By 1732, however, its political power was in a slow decline and the capital was destroyed after a 14-month seige by the Burmese. Today, Phra Nakhom Si Ayutthaya is home to 50,830 people and a UNESCO world heritage site in the old city.

World urban macrodynamicist George Modelski estimated Ayutthaya’s population at 1 million in 1700. It’s not universally accepted or even knowable what would have been the most populous city in 1732.

Shitpost of the week: u/Sourdoughpretzel4444

May it be remembered, NAY written, that upon the 5th of October 2023, thine fellow Ethfinanciers banded together and struck upon thy holiest of dailies a communal post of shits. A shitty post that shall only be shat every now and then, yet still necessarily be shat. For it was written. And if it was written, then it must be so. And for everyone who wrote thine holiest of words, may you be blessED for all of Ethternity.

In the name of Vitalik, Dencun, And the holy trilemma

ETHEREUM

u/superphiz and u/18boro fill us in on Diva

Diva has launched two community votes that will have a great bearing on their future:

Self-limiting Diva - Should DIVA self-limit to 22%? As a living network, most aligned parties recognize the value in maintaining a healthy balance of operators. This stewardship reduces the viability of attacks and increases the long term resilience of the network. Providers who adopt self-limiting signal their alignment with Ethereum.
Adopt Diva Staking DAO Community Guidelines - These are general guidelines for how the DIVA DAO ought to work, these guidelines make great sense to me and I support them.

You may also be interested to know that DIVA is in the process of vampiring stake away from the largest LST as Danny Ryan suggested in this very valuable talk with /u/evanvanness. Because of my own desire for conflict avoidance, I won’t say much about it, but you can find details here and I believe that /u/nixorokish is eager to talk about it.

u/18boro:

Diva, the ETH staking protocol, initiated an interesting vault a few days ago, where you can deposit ETH, or even better, stETH, and accumulate diva as well as the underlying rewards that’s included in stETH. When diva officially launches the stETH will be converted to divaETH ,or whatever they decide to call it, hopefully not dETH :). It’s a sort of vampire attack on stETH, which we obv need more of. So if you sit on stETH, wash off your sins with this one simple trick. The protocol hasn’t officially launched yet and there is no UI which shows your farming rewards and such. The short story is, stakers are divided in tranches based on how early they are, and the earlier tranches receive more diva per ETH/stETH staked than the later. This is obviously risky, it is a novel protocol, but at least the staking is done through enzyme, which has existed several years already.

Here is the staking UI: https://diva.enzyme.finance/#vaults

Here is the detailed proposal, which was executed: https://www.tally.xyz/gov/diva/proposal/45468458207916765916984557235161596151150976178275597160417224501662414206717

u/benido2030 and u/KuDeTa of Aestus relay discus MEV relays being public goods

u/benido2030:

I just read this post thanks to the daily doots. I was expecting something like it, cause it was basically announced in the Empire podcast episode 2 days ago.

I know there is a high chance relays at one point will be gone, cause they will be enshrined. But this will not happen any time soon. So we need relays for some more years, but they don’t make any money.

In my opinion relays = public goods. Public goods need funding. Who can we turn to to get some grants to make sure we can keep or even increase the number of relays? Which protocols have (retroactive) public goods funding? Which delegates do we have to pressure to get funds? What else can we do to improve the situation?

u/KuDeTa:

u/austonst and I run the aestus relay.

I agree - relays are probably here to stay in some form for years. While enshrined PBS would be great, it’s worth reiterating Auston’s point: making it unbypassable by design is a highly desirable goal.

MEV is a latency game, and centralised MEV platforms like relays are likely to always have a latency advantage over an in-protocol gossip network. This delta in latency is a delta in profit, and so if ePBS can’t ever compete with out of protocol PBS (relays, SUAVE, etc), excepting significant adoption by staking pools (etc) seems unrealistic. At that point it’s utility in the protocol is somewhat compromised.

My sense is that the EF and community are unlikely to move forward until we find a design that meets this unbypassability requirement. It may well be that the current line of research has truly reached a dead end and a fresh approach is required. Unfortunately, It also creates problems for related ambitions such as MEV-burn.

Central public goods funding in the relay space is fraught with administrative and political complexity. Views over censorship are particularly tricky and fundraising is a bit of a nightmare.

On one hand, Aestus is a relatively baby relay - on the other, we are regularly responsible for ~3% of Ethereum blocks. Who should pay to keep our lights on? It may be that relays need to form a market and charge a modest fee to validators. I’d be intrigued to know what ethfinance think about that.

u/SeaMonkey82 is going hard testing on Holesky, not all heroes wear capes

Holesky validator dashboard and links to validators by client pair

Daily Holesky:

Manually configured remote keystores in nimbus v23.9.1 appear to be broken. Log states that the validator is loaded, but it never begins attesting.

--network holesky on ethereumjs now uses the correct genesis, but still seems to be failing to serve deposit logs.

I ended up deleting and recreating the slashing protection database for web3signer in postgres. Having already configured the same validators using web3signer on Holesky v1, none of my validators were able to start attesting when they became active.

Spotted a bug on beaconcha.in. In the Attestation Assignments mouseover for the validator, Executed includes the two Scheduled slots. This was easy to spot when several of my Holesky validators have yet to attest.

I will eventually need to upgrade my storage array for Holesky, but more pressingly, I probably need to upgrade my CPU. With 30 client pairs, the 15 minute load average on my Threadripper 3960X is consitently well above the recommended one-per-thread of 48.

A lot has happened in the last ~36 hours, and there are probably several notable things I’m forgetting right now. I need a nap.

u/benido2030 is rallying the community around public goods funding!

I really believe in this community. It’s my favorite place and I love the people writing and reading. But I feel we can do more, if we improved coordination. There is so much (financial, vocal, emotional) power that we are not really using yet.

u/austonst both announced that Blocknative has shut down their MEV relay and explained why it’s concerning. Blocknative’s Matt Cutler basically explained the reasons for this in this Empire podcast episode. It comes down to “relays don’t make money, but cost money” (and Blocknative is a company with investors that expect returns - and relays have negative returns).

So what are relays and why are they important? Relays are important for PBS aka proposer builder separation, MEV capturing and specifically for MEV-boost. MEV is every everywhere. Users make transactions and generate MEV opportunities. These transactions are analyzed by searchers, who insert (e.g. add before or after the tx) their own transactions and forward them to builders. Builders collect all tx (from searchers, but also the public mempool) and build blocks with the highest value. Builders then basically forward the blocks to validators (via MEV-boost, a solution outside of the protocol) including the ETH denominated reward they are willing to pay if there block is chosen/ proposed. This is where relays come into play. They relay the blocks and make sure the validator gets paid and the network can’t be attacked. As basically always in Ethereum, decentralization is key, so we need multiple relays. PBS doesn’t work without relays, but there are no revenues, no revenue share, no nothing for relay devs/ operators. Searchers, builders and validators make money, relays are basically the only infra in the MEV supply chain that we expect to work without getting paid.

There are some theories why a small fee wouldn’t work (builders would only use free relays, hence relays with a rev-cut would be excluded most of the time etc.). So in my opinion (retroactive) public goods funding (PGF) is the best way to get it done.

Here’s where this sub comes in! I would like to

- use this communities knowledge to identify potential sources for PGF

- see if we as a community can influence how funding/ grants are distributed (e.g. if governance tokens we all own can vote for an application)

- use our voices to spread the word about the importance of relays and why funding is essential

For example there is Optimism’s RPGF. If Ethereum doesn’t work, OP as an ETH L2 doesn’t work. In my opinion it’s a nobrainer that u/austonst and u/kudeta (who run the aestus relay) should receive OP funding, but we all know that’s not how it works. But if our OP delegates (u/liberosist, u/_weboftrust, u/minimalgravitas, u/pseudotheos and more) coordinated, I am sure their voices can make a change.

I have no idea how the EVM treasury is doing, but maybe we as EVMs can come together and think about ways to support relays in general and the aestus relay specifically.

u/kudeta: You said yesterday that applying for all these grants and funding was complex and a lot of effort. If you want me to help, I am more than happy to e.g. sign-up in the name of the aestus relay for the OP RPGF round 3 and / or gitcoin grants. I have never done something like that, so it might not be perfect but of course I would coordinate with you to make sure the aestus relay is presented in the correct way (on every level). Obviously this would be completely free for you.

u/MinimalGravitas wants to see some more community pushback and comments on the Lido Arbitrum grant proposal

Paging u/bob-rossi, u/dmihal and any other Arbitrum delegates.

I’m interested in seeing some commentary from EthFinance’s representatives over on the Arbitrum governance forum with regards to the request from Lido for 5 million ARB tokens to, as hanniabu so perfectly puts it, bankroll Lido’s attack on the network.

Using the influence we have across different DAOs seems like a simple no-brainer way we can help protect Ethereum from capture. We held off their proposal on Optimism last year, I would love to see the same again this time.

[Insert stirring backing track, e.g. From Hell To Glory by End of Silence]

If you don’t want your DAO to pay to incentivize the growth of Lido then now is the time to say so.

This is a moment when governance can really matter. When the social layer actually has a decent amount of power. When you can make a difference to the future of this ecosystem.

It takes some courage to put yourself in the firing line, to voice an opinion against one of the most powerful entities in Ethereum. It maybe feels like a foolhardy risk to stand in the way of a juggernaut worth billions of dollars, but the alternative is that everyone rolls over and lets the credible neutrality of our network be stolen away, and with it will go the possible future of Ethereum as the base layer for not just the financial system but for global coordination.

We must not let Moloch win.

The cold war with Lido will be long and hard, and this is just one of many battles, but it is the one we can impact now, and it is one we can win.

Ultimate victory depends on us not losing every battle. It depends on us not giving up anything without a fight. And we must be victorious, because in the long run, without victory there can be no survival for the dream of a future that Ethereum represents.

[Music reaches crescendo, screen fades to black and soundtrack rolls into roaring Merlin Spitfire engines tearing past and into the distance…]

Arbitrum Proposal →

u/etherbie shares a cool new base layer privacy EIP and u/haurog explains it

u/etherbie:

Damn. Eip 7503 burn and remint sounds amazing for privacy. I don’t know how govts are gonna react to this though….. I think the correct answer is “Who gives a f@ck” ……. interesting times though

u/haurog:

It is even better, almost any address can be a burn address. You just have to proof that you know a short number whose hash is equal to the public address. This means there is no possibility for the sender to be sanctioned as there is no on chain proof that the address you sent ETH to is a burn address. The receiver side is a different story, there it is as far as I know obvious that the funds received used this scheme. The last all core devs call had a longer discussion about it and one person advocated to be more cautious and not to use these kind of zk circuits on L1 just yet as they are rather untested and previous iterations of similar schemes had bugs. In the longer run this scheme is definitely so amazing and I am a big believer that privacy needs to be part of the base layer.

EIP 7503 →

u/Dreth warns of the friend.tech sim swap

https://x.com/darengb/status/1709021872178729409

People getting sim swapped and drained in friend.tech, be careful

I was just SIM swapped and robbed of 22 ETH via @friendtech

The 34 of my own keys that I owned were sold, rugging anyone who held my key, all the other keys I owned were sold, and the rest of the ETH in my wallet was drained.

If your Twitter account is doxxed to your real name, your phone number can be found, and this could happen to you.

Earlier today I started getting spammed with phone calls every minute, which caused me to put my phone on silent (which I guess was the point) so I did not see the text from Verizon telling me that someone was trying to access my account. It happened very quickly, Verizon barely gave me any time to respond.

I opened FriendTech and thought there was a bug because my Chat was empty, I tried looking at Octav and then saw someone else’s tweet about SIM swapping on FT and that’s when I realized what had happened.

Tagging anyone who held my key here, I’m so sorry about this, I know that it looks like I rugged you all, and I’m not sure how to prove that I did not. I am devastated.

https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1709031117121003710

got swim swapped for 20+ ETH (they drained my http://friend.tech)… stay vigilant out there bros

set a PIN on your sim even if you don’t think you need to

sorry for the x links, it’s where i saw it

u/reno007 starts a conversation on the next big use case to drive value to ETH with a lot of amazing replies

For those confident we’ll have another bullrun, what will drive the eth price up? Previously we had ICOs, then defi/yield farming and then NFTs. Is there anything left? Also fees will be lower due to L2s which may actually be negative for the eth price unless L2 activity goes 100x.

u/2Nice4AllThis has a motivational speech for us on our digital voyage

Hear ye, hear ye, valiant ethfinancers and mavs alike!

In the age where brave explorers charted unknown seas and distant shores, pioneers sought realms untraveled and dreams untold. So too do thee, devoted custodians of Ethereum, navigate a bear most relentless and the intricate dance of the crab market.

But be of stout heart! Though the bear casts shadows and the crab sidesteps, Ethereum’s beacon shines unwavering. As history reminds: after the stormiest nights, dawn’s embrace is most warm. Thus shall the Ether rise, unyielding and proud, amidst these tempests.

Stand firm, intrepid ethereans! Let not the market’s capricious winds sway thy resolve. As a new horizon beckons, Ethereum’s legacy shall illuminate the ages, its tale a beacon for all who venture in the digital realm.

In unity and steadfast spirit,

Thine ally in the digital voyage.

Sep 29, 2023 - Episode #37 | Perchy

Special guest Perchy joins us from Chippi NFT.

Sep 22, 2023 - Episode #36

The morning trinity

u/ScribbleButter

Ethereum?

u/hanniabu

$1595

0.059

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Elliptic signing,

With or without mining,

Quietly shining.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 812,379 (+2,545)

Pending validators: Joining 27.2k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -1800 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 10 days for the entry queue to clear

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/PhiMarHal

Sing Muse, of Justin, brave founder hailed,

Who saw the crypto market begin to fail. As Bitcoin and altcoins together crashed,

Investors panicked, portfolios all dashed.

But Justin held on, like Atlas of crypto lore,

Supporting coins galore against all odds and more.

His steely vision and iron-willed determination

Gave desperate holders glimmers of elation.

When Bitcoin fell below 20K again,

Justin boosted morale, quelling women and men.

“Have faith!” he cried, “I shall stop this loss!”

Rallying his allies whatever the cost.

Across exchanges and threads Justin’s voice rang out,

Buying the dip without hint of doubt.

For the whole bear he carried the market’s weight,

Enduring the pressure of whales and fate.

So The Sun’s legend shall endure through the ages

For His Excellency fought market wages.

For crypto to thrive again as it one day must,

Stalwarts like Justin in it place their trust.

u/haurog shares the things he is looking forward to

ethfinance activity seems to be in a bear market as well and the crab gets to some people. Nevertheless, I still am very positive about the next few months in Ethereum. Here are a few things I am looking forward to:

Holesky testnet. This is a replacement for the Goerli testnet. It will have 1.4 million genesis validators to start and individuals can spin up their own ones later on. Genesis is tomorrow (Friday) at 14:00 UTC. I set up my 2 nodes and distributed my 2500 genesis validators to them. One is running nethermind/nimbus on an ARM minicomputer with 100 validators, The other one is a much more powerful ASUS PN51 running besu/teku with 2400 validators. I am curious if these 2 machines are able to manage the heavy load of the larger validator set and contribute to a stable holesky testnet. I am only slightly nervous.
Diva testnet. Diva is a DVT (distributed validator technology) liquid staking protocol and they are testing their stuff on the Goerli testnet at the moment. I have a node up for a few weeks now, but they needed to improve their software to get rid of some bottlenecks. Waiting until the new release drops for dappnode users and then I can finally play around with it. It is an alpha testnet, so I am not expecting Diva to have a market ready product this year, but I think it is one of the more promising LST projects out there.
Gnosis Pay: Waiting for my debit card to be sent out. Hopefully in a month or two I will get it. I just like the idea having a direct channel between my tokens and the real world to buy stuff and send fiat onto the chain. I am really interested how the UX will be and if they managed to create a seamless experience. I am a bit worried about all my purchases being tracked on chain for everyone to see. I personally am curious if the self ‘custodial bank account’ or the ‘privacy nightmare’ narrative will win for me here.
Dencun upgrade. Massively reducing the cost of transactions on rollups is gonna be quite interesting to see. At first probably the most stupid but fun dapps will dominate. With time, new applications will come out to truly take advantage of the cheaper blob space on Ethereum. The upgrade will not happen in the next few weeks, but there is steady progress. Some last minute additions are still being considered, but to me it looks like people are heads down working on it. Hopefully by the end of this year we will have it.
Rollups/L2 will rule the world. We have seen quite a few new rollups in the last few months: Linea, Base, zkSync Era, zkEVM, mantle, zora, public goods network, worldcoin. There are now over 30 L2s lised on L2Beat. But not only new rollups pop up. Existing chains switch to an optimistic rollup: Celo pretty much decided to become an optimistic rollup, fantom started a similar discussion. Also gnosis chain is looking into ways to become an L2 (a validium, not a rollup) to Ethereum. It looks like the next narrative might be having the best rollup/L2 on top of Ethereum and not so much an creating another Ethereum killer. I am really looking forward to what the rollup/L2 landscape will look like in a year.
Eigenlayer: In a few months we will probably see if Eigenlayer is more than just a bunch of convincing powerpoint slides and a charismatic speaker. We will see if they have actual product market fit and enough demand for their ideas. There are already some interesting developments with the espresso sequencers and the already started mantle L2. Even though I am not sure how mantle can use EigenDA if Eigenlayer is not much more than a restaking smart contract at the moment. In a few months we will see. I am also curious how Eigenlayer will tackle centralisation issues.

u/nixorokish breaks the news of the staking deposit churn limit EIP being included in the next hard fork

The decision was made during the ACD call today to include EIP-7514 in Dencun, which sets a max churn limit for the activation queue (note: does not affect the exit queue).

What’s been happening up until now is that the more validators that are in the set, the faster they can get added (the math is here: https://benjaminion.xyz/eth2-annotated-spec/phase0/beacon-chain/#get_validator_churn_limit).

This keeps the network stable and makes the size of the validator set somewhat predictable. Since the validator set has been growing a lot since Shapella, this number is getting bigger and bigger and the network is growing faster and faster. EIP-7514 caps the number of validators that can be added each epoch at 8.

I believe that there could be some controversy about this over the next few days because it was created and added quickly but Dankrad published a post today on why he supports it and he says everything more eloquently and with more context than I could, so have a read of his post here: https://notes.ethereum.org/@dankrad/churn-limit

u/jenkempuffer shares an interesting new EIP

https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7503

This EIP is interesting.

Base layer privacy is definitely something that’s needed for adoption imo. Especially as forensic tools and tracking get better over time and transaction data remains on-chain forever it will be easier to dox and link wallets. Hard to see regular people wanting to use Ethereum if that’s the case.

Private ETH defs a good thing but maybe this EIP will introduce some additional risk (minting and burning ETH at base layer might have previously unthought of attack vectors). I’m not big brained enough to interrogate the code.

Anyone here have some thoughts on this EIP?

u/LowieVR starts a discussion about Ethereum's long term future regarding ETH issuance and gets some great replies

Anybody got some wise predictions on gas fees in the future? Seems right now that gas fees are low, which makes eth inflationary, which makes it not a ‘sound business’ anymore according to https://tokenterminal.com/leaderboards/earnings in past 7 days.

u/cryptOwOcurrency warns of the latest trend in Twitter scams

Twitter scams are getting more and more elaborate.

The latest one is where they create a fake @MetaMask twitter account, then take a whole month to build up their post history by copying every post of the real MetaMask account. During this month, they also gradually build their follower count through bots. Of course, Twitter does not detect any of this activity as suspicious because they have entirely lost the plot.

If you were to glance at the twitter account, you’d see an account with tens of thousands of “followers” and a post history that scrolls on and on for many pages. Looks pretty damn close to the real MetaMask account.

Stay safe.

u/Tricky_Troll gives Gary the middle finger

Gary Gensler is what is wrong with America. Here we have a man, who clearly has a good grasp on blockchain as evidenced by his history teaching it at MIT. Yet despite this, he decides to completely contradict his previous teachings in favour of at best furthering his own personal political ambitions and at worst outright corruption in an effort by an invisible hand to stamp out crypto.

Classic 4th turning and fall of empires stuff right here. The ubiquity of wealth and excess surrounding him and his generation throughout their lifetime has left those that wish to participate in politics and influence devoid of values upon which his once great nation was built. In place of these values are the primal instincts of greed, power, pleasure and self preservation which are the fruits which can be attained from corrupting such rich and powerful institutions. These people are devoid of morals and will lead us down the path towards authoritarianism and collapse as seen time and time again throughout history, Rome and Weimar Germany being the most obvious.

In short, fuck you Gary, this is all your fault.

^(Obviously there is a degree of hyperbole here as there are other factors at play too like demographics, but at the same time the writing is on the wall and despite having learned from history, I can’t wait to watch it play out in a very similar way again thanks to those who haven’t learned from history. While that may be a call for me to step up and try to be one of the great men in history, I’m not convinced that my qualifications are up to scratch. I should’ve studied politics or something.)

u/vedran_ checks in after a few months away

Yo ETH fam! I’ve been away from crypto for a few months, but not like I expect you to remember me. Today I’ve been scanning L2 landscape changes, DeFi and airdrop hunting possibilities.

Base took off fast, my golly. First in TPS today, third in TVL. How did that come about? Did they mention an airdrop? How stable is it? I get that fraud proofs are not developed yet.

I’m a fan of single-side LPing. No impermanent loss for me, thank you very much for offering. I see there are some new possibilities for it on zkSync Era: EraLend, Reactorfusion, ZeroLend. Cool! APY on ETH and USDC is <2%, but it’s nice to park some spare tokens, waiting for an airdrop.

Rhino.fi surprised me pleasantly. 10% APY on ETH in one pool. Left some ETH there a few months ago - I’m not disappointed.

I’d like to use this opportunity to thank Optimism!

I see it’s a bit gloomy in here. As somebody who’s been in the game for quite a while now - this is the easiest bear ever! We are above 2018 ATH ^^if ^^you ^^ignore ^^inflation. But most importantly, development is phenomenal! L1s becoming L2s on Ethereum! You mentioned Canto, Celo, Fantom, Gnosis yesterday. Just waiting on Solana and Cardano to pull the trigger. Ethereum has become what it promised to be. Front page of L2beat is a thing of beauty! We are cemented, baby! This may very well kill ETH killer narrative in the next bull.

u/LogrisTheBard continues his detailed discussion of governance tokens

I wrote recently about multicameral governance designs. The responses that have come up in response to that post have taken 2 forms:

1) Isn’t this going to devalue the governance token? What is the point of a governance token that only has a minority power over governance? I talk about that here.

2) Voter participation sucks and we need to concentrate power to make anything work around here. Let’s dive in to that.

Most DAOs today have a voter participation rate of less than 20%. Even when delegation is supported the delegates themselves aren’t all particularly great at participation and need a cat herder to get much done. The exceptions to this rule are DAOs where there are regular votes and where voters get paid extra by voting.

Two examples that come to mind for this are Kyber Network and Curve. Kyber Network directly rewards voter participation. You can see the rewards for current and past votes here. Curve is a bit more indirect in that only a subset of governance decisions come with monetary compensation and that compensation is indirect through bribes. This one is a more complicated topic I dive into a bit here.

An interesting footnote about the Curve participation is the ve system and admin fees that are optimized by pairing veCRV with liquidity has led to liquid lockers (yCRV, sdCRV, cvxCRV, etc) to optimize revenue. These liquid lockers have a side effect of concentrating voting power. As a consequence of that Curve has outstanding voter participation amongst its tokens but a relatively low Nakamoto coefficient.

One clear lesson that stands out from both of the above examples is voters participate better if there are regular votes that they are paid to show up and participate in. Outside of the obvious incentive alignment that comes with compensating voter participation, voter participation increases when:

1) Voting is cost-minimized

2) Their vote is perceived as being more impactful on the outcome

3) They have something to lose

Drawing a parallel to elections to nation states. US voters are more active when:

1) Their state supports voting by mail and other mechanisms to make voting more convenient

2) They live in a swing state or a state without first-past-the-post electoral college rules

3) They are voting on an issue that affects them more personally (e.g. women vote more actively when abortion is a hot topic). Bribery is seasonal along the same lines (e.g. the NRA donates more when gun rights are a hot topic).

For blockchains, cost minimization is a matter of off-chain message signatures rather than L1 transactions like Maker has. There’s not much we can do for the second point without concentrating power and sacrificing voter participation but contentious votes having higher participation is a natural phenomenon.

The last thing we can do is create something to lose for each vote. This comes in two flavors. First, we can use bonded KPIs to attach something at stake to each vote. The basic concept of a bonded KPI is simple. You bond your influence against a prediction during a commit round each cycle (e.g. quarterly, yearly, etc). The bonded influence is the only influence eligible to vote. Your vote goes into effect immediately but your prediction is kept secret during the cycle. At the end of the cycle, everyone reveals their prediction by posting a decryption key. Then a decentralized one-shot oracle like UMA provides a value for the metric. The bonded influence is redistributed based on the relative accuracy of everyone’s predictions. Finally everyone claims their influence from the bonded KPI and the next cycle begins. The result is that influence will trend towards those best at making predictions. I suggest the skill of making accurate predictions is correlated with competence at voting well. When combined with a value-aligning selection criteria for initial influence to bond, we end up solving the stated goal of selecting a rational, informed, value-aligned set of voters that vote on the most important issues of the day.

This system breaks down where someone can have enough influence over the metric to predict that very bad things will happen, ensure they do, and be rewarded for doing so. This is similar to how “assassin” prediction markets work or why we don’t let athletes bet to lose their own match. In that case I’d suggest the DAO might just have to dissolve that governing body and form a new one without that bad actor. It’s a thorny problem for sure.

The second flavor is an inactivity leak for not voting. For tradable tokens this isn’t viable unless you somehow ensure all forms of LP token (e.g. Uniswap NFTs, Aave aTokens, etc) are also eligible to vote. However, this system is more viable when influence is not an ERC-20 token. In that case, getting influence in a governing body is a bonus perk of something external to the governing body. Once you’re in, unless you’re doing active work for the governing body your relative influence should decay. In broad terms the active work of a governing body is to continually do the things the issuance selection criteria select for and to vote well. I think it’s therefore fair that if someone is voting poorly (see KPI above) or not using their voting power regularly they should lose that influence. A DAO is ill-served by having a large voter base of inactive/inattentive voters, even if they delegate. Measuring voting activity is much easier than measuring vote quality.

An implementation of inactivity could resemble something like Ethereum’s where the higher the percentage of the existing voters are inactive the higher the turnover of influence should be. This creates something of a market-based approach to encourage voter participation. The end result is create higher turnover of the governing body to one consisting of active participants and then to pay them for the hard work of voting well. By the numbers we have, this is how you actually build a DAO and not just a fundraising mechanism.

u/ajmonkfish shares an article from our very own u/pbrody

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/09/19/eventually-we-are-all-ethereum/

Great little article by u/pbrody on coindesk today.

TLDR; All your chains are belong to us, om nom nom.

u/PhiMarHal summarises a tweet thread on the Lido problem

https://twitter.com/ryanberckmans/status/1704192307270975643

This tweet by Ryan Berckmans is a great summary of the Lido situation, in my opinion.

It boils down to two logical inconsistencies:

1) no CEX is in the run to dominate staking. Data doesn’t support that theory. To assert it as fact is gaslighting.

2) if a winner-takes-most structure is inevitable, why is Lido spending enormous LDO bribes through the entire ecosystem to this day?

The data here is even more damning than for CEXes. No LSD is a credible competitor to the tune suggested (a winner-takes-most scenario does not merely imply a competitor would catch up, it would also suggest that competitor’s size towers over Lido at least to the current extent Lido towers over the competition).

As long as those logical inconsistencies are core points of the Lido thesis, there is a problem with Lido.

Sep 15, 2023 - Episode #35

The morning trinity

Ethereum

1629

0.061

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

There’s nothing to hide,

Privacy can’t be applied,

As you’ve never lied.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 796,700 (+2,353)

Pending validators: Joining 36.2k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -200 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 13 and a half days for the entry queue to clear

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/cryptOwOcurrency

Vitalik’s twitter account was hacked. It’s all over. Everyone please start panicking.

This is lesser-known, but Ethereum’s consensus mechanism depends on a Twitter integration with Vitalik’s account, so it’s likely the Ethereum chain will halt within a few hours. I don’t know if the client teams will be able to implement a workaround for the Twitter dependency in time - Ethereum’s Twitter integration was supposed to be removed as a vestigial feature in the Merge fork but I guess the devs didn’t get around to it.

I really hope Charles Hoskinson still has access to the manual override key and is willing to use it to recover the chain. The only other person I know of with the Ethereum admin key is Sam Bankman-Fried, and he won’t be able to save us this time for obvious reasons.

If we can’t get either of those admin keys, we’ll have to ask Elon Musk to go into Vitalik’s account to turn Ethereum off and back on again for us. Please send thoughts and prayers everyone. ❤️

u/SikhSoldiers points out that Lido is going against one of its core principles set forth by Paradigm

It boils my blood that @LidoFinance thinks fit to go against one of the founding lido principles set forward by @paradigm.

Governance is and always has been the existential risk that Lido presents. Dual governance is a bandaid solution, not any kind of permanent one and is very fallible.

As long as LDO governance can control the validator registry, LDO should not exceed roughly 33% of the network. There is no hard line here because the threat isn’t based on any hard line.

The threat is that LDO slowly gains a subversive power over Ethereum due to its ability to threaten node operators with the boot, a very powerful threat that @gakonst rightfully points out all those years ago.

The staking router and the coming forced exits upgrades will further exacerbate the issue. Both will increase the power of LDO token holders over the node operators. Forced exits especially worries me as it has been touted as their solution for keeping their permissioned node operators in line.

Governance is a weakness, the existence of a threat is the problem itself. We cannot rely on LDO holders to be good stewards, not even with stETH veto power.

The apathy and bureaucracy of DAO governance is too powerful a deterrent for vetos to reliably work. The only solution is to remove the threat completely.

Georgios goes on to write “If said pool is sufficiently governance-minimized, it could possibly win the entire market without causing any systemic risk for Ethereum.”

Where’s the minimization frens???

ln April of 2022 I published a now deleted thread called “A Case against stETH” where I explained why neither DVT nor social scores for permisionless node operators would work to scale their node operators set fast enough for the rate that they were growing their stake.

The entire thread stands true today. The recent @NethermindEth report suggests using a Kleros court to judge Sybil cases. That’s a joke when nation states are out here human trafficking and dedicating billions to hacking/exploits/evading Sybil detection. If Lido messes up their Sybil implementation, we could find ourselves with 10-15% of all Eth staked sitting in North Korea in a Sybil farm of node operators with 0 capital bond.

Lido should self limit not because of any consensus attacks, they should self limit because $stETH is growing faster than they can decentralize and research ways to safely introduce permisionless nodes without jeopardizing the network.

Don’t let their campaign fool you, @LidoFinance has not shed any of its governance functionality—in fact it plans on growing it.

This is the danger of $stETH dominance.

https://www.paradigm.xyz/2021/04/on-staking-pools-and-staking-derivatives

https://web.archive.org/web/20220414205449/https://twitter.com/Jasper_ETH/status/1514708562244784131

u/benido2030 shares their favourite recent podcast episodes

Benidos favorite podcasts no.1

+++ Benido’s favorite podcasts episodes +++
Some weeks ago I started publishing some podcast recommendations featuring interesting episodes. Since I enjoy podcasts I thought it might be a service to the community to highlight those I really liked (or maybe disliked? Let’s see what the future brings). It’s not a real summary, so if my thoughts make you curious, you might want to jump in to listen to the full episode. They are always linked in the headline.
Here is a list of all the past posts:

Benidos favorite podcasts no.2

Benidos favorite podcasts no.3

Now here are the new ones I really liked from the past couple of weeks. Interestingly they are all very technical and let me be honest… I sometimes couldn’t really follow the guests/ hosts. I think they are all great, but in these cases I would really recommend taking some dedicated podcast time with 100% focus.

Bankless: Scaling Ethereum To The Next Level with zkEVM feat. Justin Drake and Brian Retford

Maybe you remember a post from u/liberosist talking about the different types of zkEVMs there are (I tried to find it but couldn’t). This podcast basically talks (partially) about this. Since this is fairly technical topic, it’s moderated by Justin Drake and RSA is more or less downgraded to listener.

This includes how L1 might become a zkEVM in the future based on some of the developments in the L2 landscape and the positive side effects this might have (e.g. lower hardware reqs for validators).

I think this episode is pretty good and a great addition to the sci-fi roadmap episode from ethcc since it’s very forward looking, but in the end this is why we are here, right?

Epicenter: Frontier Research - Solving Ethereum’s MEV Problem feat. Stephane Gosselin

This episode is a pretty good one if you are into MEV. Stephane Gosselin was one of the flashbots founders and has left the project some months ago. In this episode he talks a little about the MEV landscape, his impact and how he would rate it (interesting answer here!). On top he gives some insights into his new venture “Frontier Research”.

One major topic is RFQ = request for quotes and intents, but they also tackle PBS, MEV burn etc.

I think you need a pretty decent understanding of MEV to be able to follow this episode. If you do, this is 60 minutes+ of very good content, especially since Stephane knows flashbots, but is not 100% aligned, but going down a new (and much needed?) experimental road.

Uncommon Core 2.0 - An Incomplete Guide to PBS feat. Mike Neuder and Chris Hager

PBS or proposer builder separation has been around since a year or so. This episode features Mike Neuder (from the EF) and Chris Hager (from Flashbots), which is a pretty good panel since it the main parties involved came together.

The first hour or so is a discussion, the second part is a followup discussion with only Hasu and Jon. My take away: PBS is a design philosophy/ space. What does this mean? When I first learned about it I basically thought PBS was designed, the scope was clear and we only needed implementation. I think the conclusion after this episode is that this is not the case. There are a lot of different implementations possible and it’s not even clear if ePBS (enshrined PBS) is the way to go.

u/eth10kisfud since we talked about MEV burn yesterday. This is the episode that led to my answer.

Benido, this sucks, this is all so technical, why didn’t you include a podcast I can just listen to on my way to work or in the gym and if I blink I can just continue listening? Well I am glad you asked, because I got you covered!

Bonus: The Chopping Block - Coinbase’s Paul Grewal on Why the SEC Is Going After Crypto So Aggressively

This Chopping Block episode is a pretty good summary about “The SEC vs Crypto and Coinbase”. I liked it a lot because I think Paul Grewal is a pretty cool guest (Paul is Coinbase’ Chief Legal Officer) and he pretty transparently explains why Coinbase acts in the way it does.

I am not sure the speculation about Gary Gensler’s motivation is the best approach, but the rest of it is a very good summary and includes some industry insights that I think are a very interesting and if you didn’t follow as closely this episode is the one you wanna listen to.

This is it for today, but I already have picked one podcast episode for the fifth edition! Let’s go!

u/Newman513 talks about methods to mitigate issues from the ever growing validator set

https://www.galaxy.com/insights/research/ethereum-all-core-developers-consensus-call-113/ https://twitter.com/christine_dkim/status/1679873847665868800 https://www.galaxy.com/insights/research/ethereum-all-core-developers-consensus-call-117/ https://twitter.com/philngo_/status/1699805844748030383

See some chatter in here today about the late-stage proposal to limit the validator churn limit for inclusion in Deneb. I’ve been following this relatively closely since I think that this has the potential to brew into a CAT5 storm for the 250 of us that are terminally online and plugged into Ethereum development drama.

I first became aware of “the issue” during ACD 113 (bad news always comes on the 13th) - tl;dr on the issue (parroting Christine Kim, because she can summarize better than I can):

A large validator set size is undesirable because this increases the computational burden on validator nodes and creates complications for implementing future code changes such as single slot finality.

Without a countermeasure in the next 9-10 months to address validator set size growth, @mkalinin2 said that the computational load on nodes could increase 3x with the increased volume of messaging on the networking layer.

What are some possible solutions?

Reduce rewards - incentives will reduce the number of validators joining / motivate some to exit
Cap the # of validators
Cap the churn limit
Implement longer-term solutions that actually solve the problem, but require more R&D to design and vet

Looks like option 3 is being pursued in the short-term, if only to buy more time. I think that this is a phenomenal example of just how fragile Ethereum is, and why even 7+ years in it’s critical to be mindful of introducing systems on top of the protocol that bring with him considerable unknown unknowns! Think Eigenlayer - love the potential innovation, but a stage-gated slow rollout to understand the intricacies of the interdependencies that new primitives introduce is preferable to me, and I’d argue responsible, particularly when building on top of something so unsteady that’s managed to command as much economic importance as Ethereum has since it’s inception.

Will get off my soap box - y’all are on the same page. Hopefully the summary & sources are helpful!

u/LogrisTheBard has another great discussion on DAO governance

I wrote recently about multicameral governance designs. The responses that have come up in response to this post have taken 2 forms:

Voter participation sucks and we need to concentrate power to make anything work around here. I’ll address that a bit in a different post.
Isn’t this going to devalue the governance token? What is the point of a governance token that only has a minority power over governance?

I’d like to take a few paragraphs to discuss what I think the rights and responsibilities of permissionlessly tradable governance tokens should be in a multicameral governance structure.

Among most modern DAO designs there is usually a singular governance token. This token usually serves two purposes. The first, as the name implies, is it acts as a force in governance. The second is it serves as a fundraising tool potentially by multiple mechanisms such as ICO, bond, inflation schedules, or call options. There are a few other minor uses as well that I go into here. When people buy this token they do so with the expectation that they have a claim upon the future profit of the system the DAO governs. Ultimately, greed fueled speculation is what gives governance tokens most of their tradable value.

The abysmal governance participation we see for most DAOs today is a strong indication that the governance power of governance tokens is not the primary source of their demand. Therefore, adopting a multicameral governance structure and diluting this governance power should not overly affect the usefulness of a governance token as a fundraising mechanism.

That said, care must be taken to protect the contractual rights of the governance token for its primary purpose. If clarity on this is not provided, investor confidence will wane, and the DAO will quickly find itself unable to raise funds by issuing tokens. At that point the DAO either must have a self-sufficient product, rely on charity from necessary participants, or watch as necessary participants stop doing their necessary work and the system fails.

One guarantee the DAO can provide to the governance token holders is to escrow the treasury funds directly within the governance token governing body (the capital module). System profit should be automatically sent to the treasury. At minimum, since each governing body controls its own state, this gives the token holders the ability to revoke token approval to these funds to the parent DAO. This guarantees those token holders a contractual right to the treasury should the DAO dissolve or they want to revolt. All they have to do is pass a policy to pay out the treasury to themselves.

Another guarantee the DAO can provide the governance token holders is to make it very difficult for the parent DAO to change any fund flow related policies without their approval. The capital module needs to have confidence that their power over the purse can’t be whimsically revoked. Different types of proposals in the parent DAO can potentially have different rules required to ratify them. This is also consistent with granting governance power over topics to those it affects the most. The governance token holders are those most affected by changes to monetary flows and should have a greater say on changing certain parameters related to that than other governing bodies. This satisfies a design goal of fairness.

The last guarantees all come from the ability of each governing body to maintain its own internal state. The parent DAO can only invoke functions on the governing body contract that it allows. Any control over these matters the capital module grants to the parent DAO are inherently revocable. This gives the capital module ultimate control over the issuance of the governance token and all matters dependent on that such as how to incentivize liquidity depth for the token, how to structure bonds, its inflation schedule, etc.

In summary, it is my belief that so long as the governance token holders have faith in the future revenue of the system and their claim right to it the token should retain value. So long as it has value it can serve its primary purpose as a fundraising mechanism. I don’t believe diluting the governance power of these tokens will destroy their value, but I do think it can lead to a DAO that is more resilient and likely to succeed in the long term for reasons stated in my previous post. The main ingredient we’re missing to try this somewhere is a guinea pig and a fairly small software package. I think it’s a much better direction than what Rune is doing to Maker with “neural tokenomics” for example.

u/somedaysitsdark starts a discussion after a recent block proposal

Recent Kraken block (18122994) with tornado cash transaction

I posted this to the EVM discord, but figured it would be healthy to blast here too:

I proposed my fourth block recently 🥳. But because my mev-boost min-bid is set to .05, if I don’t receive any bids higher than .05 my client builds the block itself. That is working fine, so far 3/4 of my blocks have been homemade. But, my most recent block had my first tornado cash transaction in it.

I’m just annoyed by regulatory lack of clarity on whether or not I should care as a US operator.

I could run mev-boost with no min-bid and point it at only ofac compliant relays is what the government might say in the future?

What happens eventually once we have proposer builder separation? That’s the plan right? I’m not super familiar with how that works.

If US validators ‘currently’ aren’t held to KYC regulations- which I believe is accurate, then we shouldn’t care at all even if someone wants to transact with an OFAC-list address? Maybe that is a bad assumption.

If I need to be OFAC compliant, then I need to know for sure. That way I can either just do it, or move my server out of the country? Would that even be sufficient? Even Coinbase still validates non-compliant transactions, or so I’ve heard, I haven’t actually confirmed this. I’m gonna go look.

According to this blurb, they run some validators without mev-boost deliberately to prevent censorship: https://www.coinbase.com/cloud/discover/news/earn-pbs-enabled-mev-rewards-with-coinbase-cloud

Prime and retail Coinbase users are opted in to mev-boost automatically btw.

Just starting to peep etherscan to see what the big exchanges are doing:

Recent Binance block (18121064) with tornado cash transaction

Recent Coinbase block (18120973) with tornado cash transaction

Most I’m finding are Lido blocks, but that is hardly surprising.

u/TheHansGruber and u/FutureofEverythingz checking in from Permissionless 2023

u/TheHansGruber:

I’m here. Venue is awesome, probably a little bigger than necessary but it’s better to have the space then not. The main talks haven’t had any real alpha so far, lots of wagmi and “down bad, haha” talk. The regulatory panel was fun to watch, but again, no pertinent info was learned. It was inferred that for any reasonable change in the regulatory situation, Gary would litteraly have to just wake up on the “right side of the bed” one day. And no one on the panel suggested they thought it was likely. Legislation (in the US) needs to be passed. Rep. Emmer was hopeful on this.

Swag game has not been as good as ethdenver or devcon. But we are in the depths of the bear, so…..

Rainey street crawl was last night. I’m not a bankless citizen so I didn’t go to their closed event. Had a Hella good waygu smash burger at a place across the street though.

Overall, it’s still fun to be spending a few days with so many like minded people in a fun town. Bear market conferences are the best for this reason. Only the real degens are here. If any actual news or info is discovered I’ll be sure to drop it in here.

Next year’s permissionless is on the books for October 9th-11th 2024 in salt lake city.

u/FutureofEverythingz:

Hanging out with u/the-A-word and u/jtnichols at Permissionless II. Taste testing some early offerings from JT’s smoker and talking DAOs, solo staking, and the history of r/ethfinance. No reason to go to the main event like I planned, too much fun.

👋 I’m a 🇨🇦 and longtime ETH community member currently building sobol.io Also am early contributor to BanklessDAO plus tons of other DAO communities (total DAO need).

Nice to find the daily because my Twitter feed is pure noise. Thanks for the gift of gud BBQ and good vibes today 🙏

u/asdafari12 comments on the pros and cons of possible government actions

I would rather the US not allow spot ETFs than red-tape defi, which is basically what is happening with the proposed rules that are perhaps impossible to follow. ETFs are probably great for price action but they aren’t crypto.

I remember how excited I was in 2020 about synthetic stocks, defi, insurance, gambling and other use cases happening on Ethereum. Now we know that synthetic stocks are a massive regulatory no-no. I am overall happy about what is possible in defi but it looks like all frontends will require KYC in the future (for US users at least). We are lucky that an exception was made for validators. They wanted KYC of all TXs, which is obviously not possible. That’s one of my issues, it has become obvious that regulation doesn’t come from a fair, logical and neutral point. It’s a bit of a circus and impossible to guess what will come.

u/alexiskef introduces MetaMask snaps

🦊 I just got a Metamask email, informing me that Metamask Snaps Open Beta is live!

🔥 Here is the announcement on the MM Blog 🔥

MetaMask Snaps allows users to customize their MetaMask wallet. But what is a Snap? Individual Snaps are features and functionalities created by third-party developers that you can install directly into your wallet.

Metamask says that: All Snaps available in the directory today have been audited by the Metamask team and third parties. Our decision to have an allowlist was made both out of an abundance of caution, and because we have ideas for how to add additional safety for a permissionless model that will take longer to implement. Over time, we plan to open up the auditing process to create a fully permissionless platform.”

More info can be found on the Snaps FAQ

Users can now install 30+ Snaps across three main categories:

1)Transaction Insights

Saferoot, Assets Risk Detection, Forta, Kleros Scout, Threat Intel, Blockfence, Wallet Guard,Tenderly TX Preview

2) Interoperability

Solana Wallet, Algorand Wallet, Sui Wallet, UniPass, StarkNet, EthSign Keychain, Tezos Wallet, Leap Cosmos Wallet, Connect by Drift, Vega Protocol, CubeSigner, MinaPortal, Aptos Wallet, Rarime, Cosmos Extension, Identify, Masca, Arweave Wallet, Zion, Partisia Blockchain, ShapeShift Multichain, Sign in with XMTP, Casper Manager

3) Notifications

Walletchat.fun, Push V1

edit: tried to install Forta, failed. Tried to install Arweave wallet, worked flawlessly!

u/haurog looks into the future of Gnosis chain

Some time ago we had a discussion here about gnosis chain and its future. Today I watched two talks from DAPPCON23 by two gnosis developers/researchers. They seem to look into possibilities of becoming a validium L2 to Ethereum. This is all very exploratory and nothing has been set in stone. As far as I understand they could write checkpoints to Ethereum and keep the validators as is for data availability. This seems to need a lot of more work and especially making it trustless seems to be a bit tricky. The approach they are looking into now seems to be more taxing to the validators as they would need also need to be able to verify the Ethereum chain at the same time. There seems to be some ways around it though. Ethereums future looks quite good to me, everyone thinks about becoming a rollup/L2.

The first talk is by Philippe Schommers and talks generally about the future of gnosis chain towards the end he talks about possibilities of turning gnosis chain into an L2.

The second talk is by dapplion which describes in detail the approach they are looking into at the moment.

I hope the youtube links work as the videos are still streaming youtube seems not to like to link to a timestamp directly. It worked for me.

Sep 08, 2023 - Episode #34 | Prince Jindal

Special guest Prince Jindal joins us from Lantern Finance, a KYC American-based staking provider.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1649

0.0627

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Ever since the merge,

Block production converge,

Distrust too may surge.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 780,933 (+2,004)

Pending validators: Joining 44.4k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -1300 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 16 and a half days for the entry queue to clear
In around 2 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,475 to 2,700.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/-FilterFeeder-

There once was a burly crustacean

who would not brook a price aberration.

It made the charts boring,

so instead of just snoring

I packed up and went on vacation.

u/barthib shares some big news which was almost missed by this sub!

U.S. Court calls ETH a commodity while tossing investor suit against Uniswap

This forum must be very dead to totally ignore this nice news:

u/MinimalGravitas posts their idea for reducing Lido risk on Ethresear.ch and u/nomad-nuance replied with their thoughts

u/MinimalGravitas:

I’ve finally turned my idea for reducing the risk of Lido’s dominance into a post on Eth Research:

https://ethresear.ch/t/reducing-lst-dominance-risk-by-decoupling-attestation-weight-from-attestation-rewards/16523

Have never posted anything in the ‘proper’ Ethereum forums before, and so feeling very intimidated. Thank you to those who gave me confidence that it’s possibly not a completely moronic concept!

u/nomad-nuance:

My biggest issue with this is they could get rich quicker, then flip to control ethereum quicker and or after something goes wrong for them

You need to add something that stops that possibility imo

Something like locking in some or all of these mega validators stake for that extra reward, so that they are basically in service to eth in order to continue earning rewards to make back their locked stake.

And even with that, that semi only puts the problem back 20-50 years imo

Mostly thinking about 3% apr (y?) and also they would likely have to pay back their customers?

u/tricky_troll my man has it been 10 days?

u/Set1Less shares MakerDAO's latest questionable move and u/hanniabu adds on by criticising the move

https://forum.makerdao.com/t/explore-a-fork-of-the-solana-codebase-for-newchain/21822

u/Set1Less:

MakeDAO wants to launch their own chain….and its a fork of SoLaNo. Lol

Honestly thought it was parody at first.

u/hanniabu:

Maker is a husk of its former self. Rune can’t help but introduce more and more centralization. The endgame is value capture.

The most important reason for why NewChain is needed, is that it will allow the ecosystem to use hard forks to gracefully recover from the most severe form of governance attacks or technical failures.

Ah yes, lets move to a LESS SECURE chain to protect against governance attack 🤡

The second reason is that the Solana ecosystem has proven its resilience

This keeps getting better, all that downtime really prove ReSiLiEnCe

The third reason is that there already exists examples of the Solana codebase being forked and adapted to act as appchains

There already exists examples of rollup codebases being forked and adapted to act as appchains

u/Syentist explains why he is surprised that there hasn't been more eyebrow raising in response to Maker's recent move which effectively made them an unregistered money market fund

Maker has deposited north of $1.2 billion of the $ backing DAI into US treasuries. The yield on the US treasuries is paid back to DAI holders who have deposited to the DSR contract. That is a near text book definition of a money market fund, except an unregistered version.

“But KYC is inherently evil. We should fight it when we can”. Ethereum already allows for two people to send and receive ETH with each other (=to transact) without intermediaries and without KYC. But if you are literally investing in a financial instrument offered by the US government, it’s hard to understand why we can or should bypass clear cut laws which exist for the rest of the members of society.

And the absence of KYC is only a small part of the problem to me. The bigger part is the pure unregulated nature of this enterprise. Rune is one acid trip in the Himalayas away from suddenly deciding the solution to world inequality is to arbitrarily donate half the USG bonds to some charity. I’m not joking - the Maker core team is, at best, chaotic neutral, with emphasis on chaotic. It’s insane for a $4.5bil stablecoin to rely on a group of centralized chaotic actors. And this is where registration of money market funds comes into play. You have designated legal responsibilities to core organisational members who’s details are known to the feds, you have clear auditing rules and what can and can’t be done with customer funds, and customers have clear legal recourse if or when the custodians behave outside of these narrow rules. Right now, DAI holders get ZERO of those clear cut protections.

And lastly, NONE of this fits within the original ethos nor objective of Maker, as an Ethereum centric decentralised stablecoin. Nothing in today’s Maker is decentralised nor fitting the core ethos of Ethereum, despite the team and the project having leached off credibility from the Ethereum ecosystem to bootstrap themselves to the current position as a major defi protocol. For example if Jump or Binance came up with a protocol with similar shenanigans to that exhibited by Rune and Maker today, it would at best, be a short term pump and dump excercise, not a protocol which attracts and retains billions in TVL over a long term. The only reason Maker manages to do that is because it managed to successfully leach credibility from the Ethereum ecosystem, before pivoting into the present circus. /end rant

u/coinanon updates us on account abstraction standards

I’m trying to understand the current state and the near future of account abstraction. From what I understand, there are two competing standards: the Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) architecture and the newer ERC-6900 architecture. Having one standard seems important because it will enable dapps and developers to create plugins/modules for AA wallets (automatic DCA, freeze certain assets, spending limits per “session key”, etc).

It’s very cool and I believe that it has a future (especially on L2s with cheaper fees soon), but which architecture will win? The Safe team is well-respected, but it sounds like ERC-6900 has some advantages.

Does anyone know the latest? Is the developer mindshare leaning one way right now?

This was a good primer on the different architectures: https://mirror.xyz/konradkopp.eth/7Q3TrMFgx2VbZRKa7UEaisIMjimpMABiqGYo00T9egA

u/nixorokish rebuts a pro-Lido argument

nonsense.

The counter-argument here is of course that threatening to throttle and/or fork out Lido, if it doesn’t adhere to the will of a handful of core devs/researchers/influencers, is the surest way to kill any notion of better and safer property rights

Psyops to convince people that the “will of the people” is to hand over governance to Lido DAO when not even a supermajority of LDO token holders really want this (https://twitter.com/DrNickA/status/1697610036841726414) - the delegates who vote with the most LDO just overshadow everybody else

Sacha is trying to paint “a handful of core devs/researchers/influencers” as an elite group trying to maintain power. In reality, these are the hundreds of people who are building the Ethereum protocol layer and are trying to make it impossible for anyone to capture the Ethereum consensus layer. Like I said, psyops.

My personal perspective here is that it would be extremely irresponsible for Lido to gain a dominant market share without first significantly improving its resilience to long-term tail-risks – and reducing the impact of those tail-risks on the Ethereum protocol

“Yeah for sure Lido in its current form shouldn’t control Ethereum. But I think it eventually should and will, it just needs some tweaking before it’s ready”

I think it bears repeating here that Lido is not a single entity. It is a co-ordination layer between a multitude of stakers and node operators.

It is 31 operators who can be removed at any point by one entity: the Lido DAO. Which is swung by a few majority delegates. Many operators receive a significant portion of their income from being Lido operators - the threat of losing this income is a source of influence you can’t ignore.

Sacha’s whole deal is coming up with long-winded posts that masquerade as research to justify Lido DAO governance expansion. Start with a conclusion and build arguments to meet up with it. He writes in a way that often impresses people into thinking it might be a good argument but he never actually gives us new information - he’s not looking for an answer or doing research, he’s just finding new ways to say “It’s okay for Lido to eventually become the middleman between you and Ethereum.”

u/696_eth made a big step in their solo staking journey - they made a beacon chain deposit!

Staking: Finale

I’m proud to say that I’m officially a Beacon chain depositor!

I started my journey in late November, early December last year. After researching and getting all the parts and setting up NUC I took quite a long pause. It was still on my mind even though I wasn’t following through with that. As I finished addressing more critical priorities in my life earlier this year I knew it was the time to do it. It looked honestly impossible but I trusted that with the help of this community, EVMavericks and my friends that I would be able to achieve the feat! Staking aligns with my long-term financial goals as well as with with the future of Ethereum that I want to see and I wanted to do my part. Running minority clients too to promote the health of Ethereum.

Big thanks to Haurog for basically handholding me, thanks to everyone here and EVMavericks discord for answering my many newbie questions, shoutout to Ethstaker for helping me out too, also to a few of my friends from the Dopest private chats and to so many other people who were willing to lend a hand but I already had enough support. I took my time to understand, learn, experiment and to feel relatively comfortable. I’m sure it’s not fully done yet as I might be sweating when I pass the entry queue but so far everything has been looking good. There’s still a few things to set up bandwith wise for me and in terms of how to monitor (so far I have grafana and just look at beaconchain site).

Not sure what else to add but if I remember something I’ll add later. if you also have questions, lmk!

Can’t wait for my money printer to go brrrr and print me blocks w 69E rewards!!!

u/PhiMarHal outlines a big opportunity for web 3

Google lets scammers buy adspace and makes no effort to moderate this.

Twitter is letting spambots run free as long as they pay $8 for a blue checkmark or $1000 for a gold one.

Discord is adding a feature to let you hide links so they redirect to a different place.

There is a fundamental incentive problem with the law ruling big service providers should have no accountability whatsoever for the content they host. Let criminals use your platform AND get paid for it? Why shouldn’t they take that deal.

This is especially inane when said platforms do take moderation actions for various ideological or political motives. You’re either a neutral service provider, or you have administrative rights and exercise editorial content. Can’t have both. In the latter case, you should be help responsible for your content, and sorry but not sorry if this doesn’t play well with big-tech business model of harvesting value generated by user content while running only minimum human intervention.

There is an obvious answer here. If these platforms were run as credibly neutral infrastructure, as part of distributed ledgers nobody can unilaterally censor… Those laws regarding lack of accountability would make sense.

The mainstream Internet as it exists today makes no sense as web2 whereas it would be sensible as web3.

u/ThatGuyThatGuyThagay brainstorms some solutions to the Lido problem and u/cryptOwOcurrency adds to it with a great reply

u/ThatGuyThatGuyThagay:

I see the solution to Lido problem as follows:

1) Reduce the advantage of pooling by burning MEV - all validators, get equal beacon chain rewards. Solo validators have advantage over pool, because of LST fee.

2) Protocol level smoothing of block proposals or similar, same way in PoW, people use pools not because it gets the bigger rewards, but because they get them more consistent.

3) Make solo staking more accessible. (how comes there is still no double-click executable on windows that get you staking in no time? Even shitcoins have them).

Protocol level smoothing of block proposals or similar, same way in PoW, people use pools not because it gets the bigger rewards, but because they get them more consistent.

Block proposals themselves really don’t earn a lot of consensus income - only about two weeks worth of attestations.

Once the impact of MEV is removed from proposal income (due to MEV smoothing pools and/or MEV burn), I don’t think block proposals will need smoothing. That’s a good thing!

Make solo staking more accessible. (how comes there is still no double-click executable on windows that get you staking in no time? Even shitcoins have them).

I agree on this. Back in the early days of Bitcoin, I used to keep my Bitcoin client running in the background to help provide bandwidth to the network (and keep my wallet in sync!). You would just double-click the Windows executable and then forget it in the system tray. GPU mining was like that, too.

It should be just as easy to stake on Ethereum. The process should go like this:

Double click installer exe. Install.
Run. Wizard prompts you to choose consensus and execution clients, with a short blurb about each one and a note about client diversity.
You get kicked out into the main UI. Your clients are now syncing. There’s a little progress bar that shows how long till they’re synced enough to be staking-ready.
When sync is done, you click the little “plus” button at the corner of the main UI, to add new validators.
(For first time adding validators only) - Wizard generates staking seed phrase, prompts you to write it down, forces you to retype it.
Wizard prompts you to enter the amount of validators you wish to add, previews how much ETH you need.
Wizard prompts you for the withdrawal address you want to use for these validators.
Wizard generates deposit data json file, prompts you to upload it and deposit ETH using the Staking Launchpad.
Wizard reads the blockchain directly and recognizes your Staking Launchpad deposits. Kicks you back out into the main UI where you can see the pending status of your validators, along with an estimate of when they will be through the queue.
Once they’re through the entry queue, the app basically acts like a native version of beaconcha.in, showing your attestations and effectiveness, proposals, income graph, stuff like that.

u/cryptOwOcurrency explains a cool little defensive measure in the Ethereum protocol which protects against 51% attacks

Hey it just occurred to me - a 51% attack is not actually profitable to Lido in terms of ETH, at least in the short term. I forgot about this little quirk (smart design decision) in the Ethereum protocol:

The reason why no validators receive attestation rewards during an inactivity leak is once again due to the possibility of discouragement attacks. An attacker might deliberately drive the beacon chain into an inactivity leak, perhaps by a combination of censorship and denial of service attack on other validators. This would cause the non-participants to suffer the leak, while the attacker continues to attest normally. We need to increase the cost to the attacker in this scenario, which we do by not rewarding attestations at all during an inactivity leak.

So by 51% attacking Ethereum, LST pool providers would be hurting the LST’s own holders (and their reputation for making profit) by forgoing staking rewards for the duration of the attack. People would obviously rush to try to pull their money out, or at least they should.

An attacker could avoid this mechanism by attacking with 66% of the stake. 66% is the point at which an attacker can attack the chain without forgoing short-term staking rewards.

I just wanted to share this, because it’s a factor I had forgotten about, and it throws a curveball at any 51-66% attacker.

Sep 01, 2023 - Episode #33

The morning trinity

u/SplinterCole

Ethereum

🦀🦀🦀$1648 🦀🦀🦀

0.063

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

The charts start to bend,

Hello candle my old friend,

The pullbacks will mend.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 765,591 (+2,071)

Pending validators: Joining 54.4k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -400 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 21 days for the entry queue to clear
In around 8 and a half days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,475 to 2,700.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/cryptOwOcurrency

Zero Knowledge Proof explanations really be like

Example 1: Peggy plays a simple game with two colored balls.

Example 2: Peggy plays with a Where’s Waldo book.

Example 3: Peggy calculates the solution’s hash in the last round; i.e., H(914783256) = 0515. She then rewrites it as a decimal number, i.e., 0515 = 1301, and applies the mapping; i.e., 1301 mod 27 = 5. She proceeds to translate 5 to row i = 6 for the next query and adds the solution of row i = 6, i.e., 256391478, to the proof string. Last, she attaches the hashes of the Merkle tree nodes needed to check whether the result matches the commitment to P.

u/haurog doesn't accept the Lido narrative and u/nixorokish reiterates the kind of threat Lido poses

u/haurog:

I find it the most interesting that the Lido narrative: ´there will only be one LST and because of that it is better it is us (Lido) than any even more centralized player´ is so readily accepted by many people. This narrative enables Lido to aggressively grow through dubious means like the karpatkey partnership. Karpatkey manages many large DAO treasuries and apparently karpatkey bought steth with these treasuries and blocked adding other LSTs. Only after public outcry some DAOs intervened and now hold a more diverse LST portfolio.

In my opinion, accepting this narrative makes people complacent and fall in line behind Lido, because the alternative, e.g. binance dominating the staking market, is obviously a worse outcome. Lido propagates this statement because it helps them to justify their means. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy which again helps Lido. It is not surprising that Lido now aggressively spreads this narrative again on various platforms like bell curve podcast, bankless and twitter. Lido is well connected and they can place their narrative quite effectively in the space.

Does the narrative actually make sense? At the core the narrative is ´The dominant LST has the most integrations and the largest network effect´ and due to this all ETH will flow to it. In essence it reduces the complexity of staking products to one or two quantities and argues the end state lies at the edge, i.e. one dominating LST. This pushes people into becoming convex thinkers, which in this case helps Lido to divide up the market ‘You either support us or you support big centralized exchanges’. The simplicity of the narrative to me is similar to some very simplified arguments by (hobby) economists which are then surprised that actual market data contradicts them. They then argue that people are not ‘rational’ actors. But what actually happens is they dumbed down the complexity of a system to a level which makes it easily calculable but the outcome of this simplified system does not match reality anymore because they unknowingly removed some essential mechanics.

Even the market itself does not support the Lido narrative If you look at market data, like the recent glassnode insights report. Lido grew by 54% since January 2023, and rocket pools rETH grew by 157%. How is this even possible because I thought according to their narrative they would win automatically because of network effects. rETH is by pretty much all quantifiable means an inferior product: Lower network effect, lower liquidity, fewer integrations, lower yield. People now even pay a premium to own rETH. Is it because people are stupid? I would argue that the simple convex thinking of the Lido narrative removed a lot of the actual complex decision making of market participants and that is why the Lido narrative should at least be questioned or even rejected outright.

But why does Lido dominate. They were the first LST. Making staking accessible for everyone. They are less centralized than Binance, Coinbase and Kraken. They did not really have any competition in the market until about 1 year after the Beacon chain launch when Rocket Pool started. And now there are alternatives, some better, some worse and new entrants will come. Sure, due to historical reasons Lido will be the larges LST for years to come, but I am personally not convinced that they will inevitably reach 90% market share because of network effects alone.

And now to a more personal note. Does it make a difference for me to buy an LST from an established player compared to a new entrant? Yes definitely. Storing my ETH in a tested smart contract has its value. Having access to degen plays is great. Being able to borrow money against my LSTs is necessary. But does it make a difference if the established player has over 30% dominance or 3%. Not really. rETH has enough liquidity and integrations for me with just about having 4% of the staking market share. The marginal utility of network effects of a larger LST protocol is already pretty close to zero and other parameters, like systemic risks, become more important.

TL;DR: The Lido narrative of ‘There will only be one LST’ has been spread quite efficiently by Lido. This simple narrative leaves out nuance and makes the community complacent. Even the market itself does not seem to support the narrative. Be careful accepting or spreading it further.

u/nixorokish:

to reiterate something that seems confusing to casual users:

Lido’s threat is not a threat on top of Ethereum. It’s not about centralizing the economy running on top of it, it’s not about a widespread smart contract risk (though it does add that, too).

This is what the strategy leader at Lido (Hasu) laid out on his recent Bankless episode:

Solo staking will trend down to <1% of the network

Liquid staking is the superior form of staking and all staking will migrate there

LSTs will converge to a single LST

The result of this is that 99% of Ethereum’s validators are controlled by Lido. That means that Ethereum is governed by the Lido DAO. The Lido DAO can choose to censor, blacklist, or finalize whatever they want on the chain. They become vulnerable to government pressure or human corruptibility to do these things. They can pressure their very small operator set to do these things in the shadows (especially once forced exits are implemented).

This fundamentally changes what Ethereum is. It becomes the Lido DAO chain. Might as well use BNB chain at that point. Ethereum’s validator set is absolutely core to its decentralization, permissionlessness, and credible neutrality.

u/alexiskef educates us on EIP-4844 with u/domotheus's latest blog post on blob space

🔥 Blobspace 101, by Domothy 🔥

Copy/pasting the authors own intro: “this article aims to approach the concept of blobspace, from the ground up. We will go through a quick overview of the problem of scaling a blockchain and how the concept of blobspace is the answer that Ethereum is betting on. Then we will delve into the more technical aspects of blobspace, first from the perspective of EIP-4844, since it’s about to roll out, and then we’ll quickly look into what “full danksharding” will entail in the future.”

u/SikhSoldiers comments on comparisons made between Lido and Bitcoin mining pools

This was a response lower but I think it merits a full text. Lido situation often gets compared to the bleak bitcoin mining pool situation where 3 pools account for >75% of all hashpower.

I think the lido situation is actually worse than bitcoin mining pools.

Switching hashpower between pools is easy, switching stake from one LST to another requires the entry and exit queues which are multiple months long and thus entrench one lst. Eg. If lido went corrupt and starting doing reorgs to steal MEV then the rate at which they lose stake is limited by Ethereum consensus. Further, there’s actual economic irrationality to switch away since lido earns more in this paradigm (assuming no user activated slash).

The point being is that there are no economics that inhibit mining pools and this has been proved through voluntary self limitations.

Ethereum is struggling with this.

u/bagogel12 created a dystopian Ethereum/Lido theatre script

Act 1: Uncertainty Unveiled

(Scene: A bustling virtual realm resembling Ethereum’s landscape. Characters Lido, Operator A, Operator B, and DSA Representative are present.)

Lido: (Addressing the audience) The enigma of the future looms over Ethereum like a shadow. The path ahead is hazy, as we navigate uncharted waters.

Operator A: (Whispering to Operator B) Have you heard the rumors about DSA’s interference?

Operator B: (Nodding) Yes, word is they want to certify operators with their software. It’s like handing control to a new sheriff.

(Enter DSA Representative)

DSA Representative: (Authoritatively) Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the new era of certified staking. The Divided State of America demands compliance with our guidelines. Only those who bear the badge of “certified operator” shall stake and govern the network.

Act 2: Compliance and Consequences

(Scene: Lido’s assembly hall. Lido and a group of Operators are in discussion.)

Lido: (Addressing the Operators) We stand at a crossroads. DSA’s decree is clear, and we must decide how to respond.

Operator A: (Raising a hand) What about those of us who don’t wish to comply with DSA’s terms?

Lido: (Serious) Dissent is a luxury we can’t afford. Compliance is the path we’ve chosen, for now.

Operator B: (Angrily) So, we relinquish our autonomy to become mere pawns?

Lido: (Solemnly) Our choice is stark, yet we must weigh the consequences.

(Operators mumble among themselves.)

Act 3: The Shadows of Cartelization(Scene: Ethereum’s digital realm, depicting bustling stakers and traders.)

Operator A: (Defiantly) I can’t ignore my principles. I’m unstaking.

Operator B: (Worried) But the queue to restake is overwhelming, not to mention the enticing profits we’d be leaving behind.

Lido: (Observing with a sinister grin) As DSA’s grip tightens, chaos unfolds.(Operators reluctantly withdraw, some out of principle, others due to sheer inconvenience.)

Narrator: (Voiceover) The Ethereum ecosystem stands at a precipice, as Lido’s influence swells, furthering the consolidation of power.

(Lido’s dominance continues to grow, its ominous shadow looming larger over Ethereum.)

Operator A: (Resolute) We can’t let this tyranny persist. A fork is our last resort.

Operator B: (Doubtful) But Lido’s stranglehold is formidable, and with DSA’s support…

(Lido faces a pivotal decision: Embrace cartelization or confront dissent.)

Lido: (Calculating) The road ahead is murky, but our grip on power is undeniable. Ethereum shall bend to our will.

(Curtain falls, shrouding Ethereum’s future in an unsettling darkness of cartelization and control.)

u/Tricky_Troll defends of Gitcoin while u/STRTRD brings in the context behind the post along with some of their own thoughts

u/Tricky_Troll:

This comment was a reply made on a comment with little attention at the end of yesterday’s daily so I am sharing it now. Basically, in light of people complaining that “Gitcoin lost its way”, often pointing to the use of money from Shell in one funding round and another controversy around funding for minority groups in the ecosystem, here is my counter argument.

One could argue that Gitcoin is doing what it was designed to as a protocol. It’s supposed to be modular for many different types of funding rounds with many different organisations. Funding from Shell, funding for minority demographics etc. This is all controversial due to your subjective opinion on what you want Gitcoin to be. Well the Gitcoin vision was for it to grow up and become a protocol for all, not to remain a niche technical Ethereum native app. Much like how there are many Linux distros for whatever niche you want, this is a feature and not a bug.

Just because I don’t like the fact that Ubuntu exists and adds telemetry to an ecosystem which is generally much more private than other operating systems, doesn’t mean I see Ubuntu or Linux as a failure. Of course not, Ubuntu invites newbies into the ecosystem and if they want to progress from there they can. Meanwhile, there are privacy focused distros and ones which stick to core OG Linux community values. Same goes for Gitcoin.

u/STRTRD:

Here is the whole comment thread for the context: https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/163cqkk/comment/jy5cw5i/

u/keynya counter argument:

I do not know what OP thinks but if you want to focus on the negative I have a few points:

Took them a year to revamp their website which only now is usable again.

They spent a lot of effort to have gitcoin rounds on Fantom which barely had anything useful to support instead of integrating L2s. The last rounds were therefore super expensive to contribute. Only now they support optimism.

The last few rounds were invite only, which probably hurt new devs and teams because they were excluded from gitcoin.

At the start of this round all DAI contributions failed. People lost quite a bit of money with failed transactions and the website said ˋdonation successfullˋ. I you looked at the earliest failed transactions they were probably from the gitcoin team. They knew about the problem and still enabled DAI contributions. No idea why.

Why waste developers time on running your own L2, the PGN networks? It does not make sense to me, We have enough very good L2s by now why make your own.

The whole Shell collaboration was a PR disaster.

There was also a diversity round in spring where one of the judges also had a project in the round. This round was special and the judges had extra power over who gets the money. This judge was a very controversial figure in the space already and they nevertheless took her on. The whole situation was as also a pr disaster.

All these points above tell me there is a lack of control, oversight and quality standards in the gitcoin organisational structure.

With all the list of negative points I have to say I personally still love gitcoin rounds. The website now is so much better than last year. They are in my view a pillar of our space and I love donating to projects I use.

I’d like to touch on Gitcoin and their passport with which they are trying to become decentralised proof of human/anti-sybil standard while constantly changing stamps to accomodate whatever new KYC-grab your ETH shady project they partner with like Proof of humanity, Civic etc.

Other stamps are connect your social networks, like sybils have problems with that.

One of the stamps is GTC staking, stake our coin to prove you are human?

Complete antithesis to web3 and it is getting a lot of praise.

u/lanternfinance shares their project for thosewho find solo staking a bit too daunting

SHOUT OUT TO EV Maverick /u/lanternfinance because his team is building something I think many would and should be interested in if solo staking scares the shit out of you.

If you live in any of these states, would you be open to chatting with a team called Lantern Finance? Staking as a Service. Pure play staking service provider.

They are launching October and looking for early people in these states to talk to about participating in a feedback session.

Right now, though, they want to talk to some folks about their journey and history and get feedback on their current experiences/struggles with staking.

They are doing SAAS using KYC through Persona, custody through BitGo for custody with insurance, and are building a simple and effective U.S. based service complete with tech support/phone support etc. They have onboarded a team of around 8 iirc.

Super easy to talk to and I hope some of you can line up a quick meeting. Highly recommend even if you aren’t from these states. I’m planning on joining the early feedback cohort in October and I hope some of you can too. (this meeting isn’t about investing! Just about experience with staking in general they want to know what features to focus on)

If you want to reach out: prince@lantern.finance and jung@lantern.finance

California
Pennsylvania
Illinois
Virginia
Massachusetts
Tennessee
Missouri
Wisconsin
Colorado
South Carolina
Utah
Kansas
New Hampshire
Montana
Wyoming

Prince was at Hodlercon Super nice fella!

From the team: “Lantern Finance is a US-based, pure-play ETH staking solution. We’re focusing on security, peace of mind and ease of use for staking. We’re looking to do ~30 minute user research interviews where we get insights on what an ideal staking solution looks like for them. We also want to understand their crypto journey, what they like/dislike about their existing platforms, and feedback on what we’re building.”

u/coinanon breaks the good news and u/Papazio adds some detail

u/coinanon:

Uniswap wins lawsuit accusing them of being liable for scam tokens: https://decrypt.co/154312/uniswap-lawsuit-dismissed-defi-crypto-exchange-not-liable-for-scam-tokens

u/Papazio:

This is dope!

An important distinction between the smart contracts deployed by Uniswap and the actual token contracts and pools launched by the scammers. The judge concluded that Uniswap’s contracts cannot be inherently illegal, the issue is with whomever made a scam token and then scammed people with it. Watch out SEC, this is coming your way.

Here’s some choice bits:

Judge Falia’s decision said that smart contracts underlying the exchange’s core functions should be viewed separately from code underpinning liquidity pools, which are drafted by token issuers and enable newly created tokens to trade.

“These foundational contracts are distinctive from the token contracts unique to each pool and drafted by issuers,” Judge Falia wrote. “The contracts relevant to Plaintiffs’ claims are not these overarching codes provided by Defendants, but rather the pair or token contracts drafted by the issuers themselves.”

u/cryptOwOcurrency becomes a full on FUD-fighter, rebutting some claims made in a podcast

Here are the claims made about Ethereum between those time stamps, and my rating for each one.

JP Morgan owns a lot of crucial Ethereum infrastructure - MOSTLY FALSE

While JP Morgan does have some financial ties to Ethereum infrastructure, they don’t “own a lot”. JP Morgan owns less than 10% of Consensys (Consensys is the parent company for Metamask, Infura, Besu and Teku). Of course while Metamask and Infura are both influential and widely used, they are not the only games in town and they are not “crucial” to Ethereum’s survival. And while 10% may be enough to demand a board seat and sway some close votes, it’s a far cry from “owning infrastructure” in the sense that it’s under their thumb.

JP Morgan dollarized the Ethereum network - FALSE

Circle (USDC) and Tether (USDT) did the most to dollarize Ethereum, imo. Circle is owned in part by the venture capital arms of several big banks, but I could not find JP Morgan Chase listed as one of them in any VC announcement. Tether is privately owned by 4 rich dudes.

Stablecoins represent more value on the Ethereum blockchain than ETH itself - FALSE

By roughly adding up the top dozen stablecoins on CoinGecko, Ethereum’s stablecoin market cap is less than $150B. Compare this to ETH’s market cap of $204B.

JP Morgan and Citigroup basically own the NY Fed - MOSTLY FALSE

There is no ownership in a corporate sense. While banks are required to “own” shares of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve answers to their Board which is directly accountable to Congress, and profits are never distributed to shareholders. It’s a strange corporate structure, but that’s government agencies for you. Many consider Congress to be bought and paid for by private interests though in the end, so that’s why this only earns a rating of “mostly” false.

Elon Musk bad - TRUE

Aug 25, 2023 - Episode #32

The morning trinity

u/Kitchen-Pudding8750

Ethereum

u/Zeebrasurfer

$1649

0.063

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Ask your reporter,

On to the final quarter,

Supply gets shorter.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 751,257 (+1,812)

Pending validators: Joining 58.6k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -600 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 23 days for the entry queue to clear
In around 14 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,475 to 2,700.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/savage-dragon

Ben Cowen is calling for eth coming home again.

u/intothecryptoverse (Ben Cowen):

Honestly it’s comical that people even listen to that guy

u/SikhSoldiers compares the pros and cons of on-chain vs off-chain swaps

Cowswap is awesome. You generally get the best price for execution and you have gas abstracted away. It’s so good that uniswap is more or less copying them for univ4

However, the Coincidence of Wants that CoW is famed for is an off chain matching system. If we have the largest dex in the space move liquidity / market making off chain, we will be making a huge shift towards a lunarpunk ethos in perhaps a negative way.

Onchain liquidity numbers have been super transparent and is the basis for most risk analysis. I’ve gotten reth accepted as collateral on many different lending platforms and have read through a number of analyses. The one common point across all of these platforms has been proof of lasting liquidity. In fact, it was this consistent request across protocols for probable liquidity that formed the basis for reth having liquidity incentives to begin with - we needed to prove reth was liquid.

Back to the issue at hand, when market makers move off chain they will no longer be sourcing from onchain LPs. There was a tweet a few days ago (if I wasn’t banned I’d find it) that showed only a small handful of people provided most of the ETH/usd liquidity on uni. If these people decided to become searchers in the cowswap or univ4 system, then they wouldn’t have public liquidity and slippage would become hard to predict.

I am very favorable towards privacy in certain cases; public liquidation levels is dumb as fuck. However, onchain liquidity is like a global proof of reserves. The whole world benefits by being able to have reasonable ideas about slippage.

Perhaps we can get the best of both worlds. It’s not unreasonable for these off chain market makers to have to post zk proofs of their holdings on chain somehow. It doesn’t have to be individualized since we only care about the picture globally. This system would also warn people when liquidity vanishes which is an issue otherwise.

Not to mention SUAVE makes this whole problem worse by abstracting liquidity at the block building level

u/ethacct celebrates their cake day by reflecting on the last 7 years...

it’s my cake day 🥳

seven years ago I realized I was posting too much crypto stuff on my main account, so i decided to make an ‘ethereum account’ instead. these days my main account is long gone, and i have fully become ethereum account 🫡

bear market things + life changes mean i haven’t been around as much, but still lurking here from time to time, and still shitposting on twitter/X/whatever it’s called now. I’ll be back when there’s exciting stuff to talk about again (pricewise or techwise or both).

u/pa7x1 shares a mental model of scaling via L2s vs scaling the L1

A few days ago someone asked on /r/ethereum what’s the advantage of scaling via L2 vs L1. I started drafting my response but life got in the way and couldn’t give a timely answer. I will instead post it here, most of you will understand well this topic. But it might benefit someone that didn’t think about the problem in these terms or give you another way to explain it to newcomers.

Here is a very simple mental model to understand the scalability trilemma, or why blockchains don’t scale in a trivial/naive manner.

The scalability trilemma basically states that from the following 3 properties; decentralization, security, scalability. A blockchain can only pick two. The moment you try to attain the other, you start to give up some of the other properties.

The easiest way to see why is to understand the two trivial/naive ways to scale a system. They are called horizontal and vertical scalability. Horizontal scalability is, in essence, adding more instances of the machine to solve the problem in parallel. For instance, your CPU has multiple cores to scale it horizontally. Vertical scalability is about adding more resources to a single instance, to make it able to process more per unit of time. More memory, faster CPU, faster internet connection…

The thing is that these 2 techniques are directly at odds with the other 2 properties of the trilemma. Vertical scalability is at odds with decentralization. And horizontal scalability is at odds with security.

In essence, if you make the requirements to run a node bigger (vertical scalability) you make it harder and harder for anyone that wants to run an instance. Instead of being able to run it in a consumer grade PC, you will have to run in an AWS intance, or a mainframe. Or whatever ridiculous machine you need to validate Solana. So if you simply increase the resources needed to run a node you end up centralizing the network. This is what Avalanche, Solana, and various other alt-L1s that promised to have solved scalability did. They are just giving up decentralization for scalability.

And horizontal scalability essentially requires splitting the network in shards, each of which validates different sets of transactions, so you can validate in parallel. But if you do this in a naive manner, it’s obvious that the security of the network suffers because the cost to attack each shard is proportionally smaller as there are less validators verifying the transactions.

The roll-up roadmap is a non-naive way to scale the network. It uses sophisticated cryptographic techniques to build compressed proofs of computation, that basically enable to scale the same blockspace by many orders of magnitude, as many transactions can be batched together and posted in a compressed form. It also enables parallel (sharded) execution, you can have multiple roll-ups each of which executes transactions in parallel, without sacrificing the security of the network.

u/PhiMarHal, u/superphiz, and u/Tricky_Troll share their different takes on friend.tech

u/PhiMarHal:

Every good ponzi, by lasting long enough, hits a moment of capitulation. At that point, initial haters are swayed by its resilience, and join in despite their misgivings.

If the ponzi is especially good, this moment is properly enhanced by an announcement. Lever capitulation into full-blown FOMO.

I believe we hit that moment yesterday with friend.tech. The Paradigm stuff, airdrop points. My timeline is filled with otherwise reasonable people hopping on board.

“But why, Phi, why do you call friend.tech a ponzi? I’m having fun. They’re going to release more features. Social tokens are the future.”

My own perspective comes down to simple math.

The price curve for shares is supply squared. Goes up fast, goes down faster. You get that high initial growth, tricking your brain into extrapolation, even though in reality it’s pricing people out; then once sentiment turns and people dump, you’ll get a catastrophic fall, with everyone and especially late buyers scrambling to get out.

Platform fees are 5% on every trade. Open up your calculator app and type $1000. Multiply it by 0.95. Then do that same operation again and again. See how much money you have left after 3 trades, 5 trades, 10 trades; see how much value is extracted from the userbase by the developers.

You add these two together, you have a recipe for a heavily negative sum game. The money is siphoned away from the system no matter what, a minimum of 10% (in + out), and more the longer you stay in and trade.

I’m a reckless gambler myself. I’m not going to tell you you can’t have fun in a ponzi, I’m not going to talk to you about morality. But I would tell you this is one of those times where don’t-put-any-money-you’re-unwilling-to-lose should apply strongly. It will come crashing down, and there will be many more losers than winners; the math makes this inevitable.

Any money you put in friend.tech is a greater’s fool theory bet where the odds are stacked against you.

In 2013 I was part of a local bitcorn group. We had this one member, “Tammy” [not his real name], who attended every meeting and always contributed to really insightful discussion. The thing was, Tammy never bought bitcorn or any of the altcoins that were springing up the time. He explained that if he never bought coins he could never get scammed. He prided himself on understanding the fundamentals of every coin, and he was very sharp at identifying potential weaknesses of different coins. But he never bought in. To this day, I’m still not sure he has every held crypto.

My point is that it’s no fun to participate in crypto if you avoid new things. It’s no fun to sit on the sidelines and point out flaws. I don’t want anyone to blow their stack, and I’m very honest about what I believe are valuable tools, and what I think are fads, but it’s OKAY to check out fads. Could you imagine still being unwilling to hold jpg NFTs because they’re just pictures? Pretty much anyone who holds that view is still living in 2019.

So I urge EthFinance to relax a little bit, stop being so scared of things that are likely to be fads and just check them out with care and caution. I have a group of fad enthusiasts and we’ve explored three fads this month and all of them have been a ton of fun.

Give yourself time to grow if you need it. Skip this one, no harm, but commit to sticking a pinky toe in the next thing just so you can enjoy the ride.

u/Tricky_Troll:

Not going to lie, I’m getting pretty sick of the nuance free takes about Friend.tech. It seems like everyone either convinced it is the future and super disruptive or a basically just a ponzi scheme. Can we please get some nuance in here?

IQBellCurveWojakMeme.jpeg

Low IQ end of the curve: Woah I can buy shares in my favourite influencers! This is the future!!!11!!1!!!!

Mid curve normie take: “iT’s jUsT a PonZi ScHemE”

Big brain take: “This is both an innovative platform and an app with major hurdles and design flaws to adoption. It has unique utility like token gated chat rooms which will almost certainly be valuable in the future on some kind of future platform but it might not be this one. Friend.tech has many weaknesses and in particular it uses a highly volatile uniswap V1/2 based curve for pricing of influencer shares. As a result prices fluctuate wildly and will leave many users with a sour taste in their mouth when they get dumped on. This is a big hurdle to mainstream adoption and the price dumps are why all the normies leave and talk shit about crypto in a bear market. 95% of people don’t want to speculate on this shit. Furthermore, there is also an enormous 5% fee on all trades which quickly bleeds users of their investments if they trade regularly.”

Edit: I agree with a lot of your takes in the replies, my point isn’t that any one of them is wrong, just that your nuanced takes are what I have been wanting more of and less one sentence posts whining about it or shilling it.

u/Fheredin is interested in a hypothetical decentralized Wikipedia and u/OkDragonfruit1929 has some great thoughts

u/Fheredin:

So…is anyone interested in brainstorming a decentralized alternative to Wikipedia?

If you aren’t familiar, Brian Lunduke just posted this video on Wikipedia’s finances.

TL;DR? Wikipedia’s expenses are roughly a third of their revenues; the difference goes to “charities” which have some strange political ties.

I wasn’t born yesterday. A defacto information platform like Wikipedia donating 2/3rds of its revenue to political entities is going to end with Wikipedia itself censoring opinions to protect their donation streams, and perhaps to curry favor with politicians.

Things get even worse when you consider Lunduke’s previous financial investigation. Mozilla gets most of its revenue from–drumroll, please–Google. I swear, Big Tech has monetary incest problems which make FTX look solvent.

u/OkDragonfruit1929:

Any Ethereum L2 based decentralized Wikipedia alternative should focus first and foremost on censorship resistance. Financial incentives are secondary.

Censorship resistance should be the top priority to prevent the platform from censoring opinions and information based on pressures from outside entities purchasing the right to edit articles. Without proper censorship resistance, the alternative Ethereum L2 based Wikipedia alternative will quickly fall into the same issues as Wikipedia, where donations and political ties influence what information is allowed or promoted on the platform.

Wikipedia donates 2/3 of its revenues to outside organizations, many with concerning political connections. This creates a dangerous incentive for Wikipedia to censor information to protect donation revenue streams or curry political favor. The power to control information is far too valuable enough as it is without adding the possiblity of profiting if some sort of cookie-cutter financial DeFi game is uesd and applied to a wikipedia alternative on an Ethereum L2.

If the alternative platform relies on tokenizing as a way to weight one user’s edits over another, the incentives could lead to censorship and conflicts of interest around what information is allowed or promoted. Financial rewards or incentives for users should be secondary to creating a platform resistant to all forms of censorship and bias. Rewards based on “truthfulness” could easily turn into subjective censorship.

Any form of censorship, no matter how well-intentioned, can be exploited to silence dissenting opinions and shape narratives. Maintaining censorship resistance should be the highest priority.

Without proper incentives and protections, all platforms, even L2 Ethereum dApps, are vulnerable to becoming tools of censorship. The alternative must be designed from the ground up to resist this.

u/benido2030 is structuring the community made EthFinance Bull Case for Ethereum.

As stated last Friday, this week I have started to structure all of your feedback for a potential “EthFinance Bull Case for Ethereum” post, which could also be used for a short video.

Ethereum the network

No competition for decentralized blockspace
Only credible neutral blockchain/ network
Ethereum is green since Proof of Stake
Ethereum still number 1 for developers
Ethereum is the only blockchain/ with multiple clients
The EVM is lindy
Ethereum is scaling via L2s / there is enough blockspace/ “infra” now / cost per tx will go down with 4844
ETH (and Layer2) is home to native stablecoins
ETH continues to attract big companies developing payment solutions (VISA/ PayPal) and even nation states introducing CBDCs (on EVM and not ETH?)

Ether the asset

ETH as a triple point asset
ETH as Store of Value
ETH is needed for transactions plus collateral plus money
ETH has a risk free yield via staking (narrative)
deflationary asset (“supply go down, number go up”) // supply shock
Multiple nation states and corporations buying and staking ETH to ensure the decentralization of the network
only with ETH you can build a decentralized stablecoin?
Demand from developed countries

Some comments:

These are obviously just bullets, so I’ll add detailed thoughts once we all agree on the structure and I am not sure this is the best structure yet. For example you could add a third a third category with “Narratives” which could include the “ETH is green” or “Risk free yield” bullets. Also something like “Use Cases” probably could be its own category as well. Looking forward to your thoughts and potential changes you would like to see!
I have tried to write about Ethereum and ETH, so in a way that’s not comparing it to any other network/ asset. I really liked these statements made on Friday, but have rephrased them.
I have added my own points, so some bullets are “new.
If you feel your points are not fully covered or inadequately worded in these bullets, feel free to drop a comment and suggest a change

Next steps (from my point of view, but also happy to receive feedback when it comes to the process!) would be to collect your feedback, change the structure/ reorganize all arguments, enhance every bullet or even split them to make sure everything is covered. After that I will start drafting short paragraphs for each point, but also encourage all of you to draft a bull case yourself or at least pick your favorite point(s) and draft a small text for those.

u/Set1Less shares some sad news for another Tornado Cash dev

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1702

Tornado Cash founder arrested by FBI….

God Speed brothers. We will pour a drink when Kim Jong takes your revenge

The power and integrity of sanctions derive not only from OFAC’s ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List but also from OFAC’s willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish but to bring about a positive change in behavior.

Lol. When does the Treasury think they will see “a positive change in behavior” on the part of the immutable EVM code that resides at 0xd90e2f?

u/stevieraykatz shares a quiet win for the ecosystem

Three of the top 15 eth burning/gas consuming contracts on mainnet are L2s. That’s such a quiet win for the scaling space and it’s JUST beginning.

– This has been your daily dose of hopium

Aug 18, 2023 - Episode #31

The morning trinity

u/kraftverk_

Ethereum

$1672

u/Dray11

0.0634

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

One more layer two,

DeBank is now coming through,

Price surge avenue.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 735,915 (+2,069)

Pending validators: Joining 61.3k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -1500 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 24 and a half days for the entry queue to clear
In around 20 and a half days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,475 to 2,700.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: nixorokish

how to move crypto through a CEX when you usually just transact onchain:

Do a test transaction to your newly generated CEX address (don’t reuse old ones!). Check to see if balance has updated. Forget that CEXs take a while to see the transaction. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.
Stare at screen for 30 seconds and then move on to something else while you wait
Remember 6 hours later that you were doing something when you come across the window in your tabs
Repeat

u/hanniabu shares Coinbase being based AF

https://twitter.com/cbventures/status/1689639117016137734

Coinbase will be operating a few hundred Rocket Pool minipools

We know the Rocket Pool team shares this belief and we’re delighted to support them via active participation in their Oracle DAO and using ETH from our corporate balance sheet to operate several hundred nodes on the Rocket Pool network alongside our friends Unit_410.

u/\_WebOfTrust thinks new Safe feature could be the future of wallets

https://twitter.com/safe/status/1689313162817093633

Exciting development from wallet space from Safe

New experimental feature unlocked!
Social Login: Sign up with Google or Apple ID on Safe {Mobile} iOS.

not only we can create new social wallet but we can also migrate existing wallet, no seed phrases hassle and could help onboard folks with limited technical knowledge.

out of curiosity, i look and found this EIP-7212

https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-7212-precompiled-for-secp256r1-curve-support/14789

From proposal “Many hardware and software solutions use this elliptic curve as signing algorithms, such as TLS, DNSSEC, Apple’s Secure Enclave, Passkeys, Android Keystore, and Yubikey, which can be used in the EVM.”

Lot of math and havent digested the whole thread but future of wallet management looks bright.

u/etheraider has a call to action for the latest EVM project!

For those who didnt see 2 days ago EVMavericks kicked off a novel idea to create a community sourced decentralized art collection around a central theme!

To my knowledge this would be the first of its kind, right now we have close to 40 people/artists that have committed to creating art for the project. Would be awesome to hit 100 and showcase a unique robust collection in Ethereum!

Any and all funds raised from it would go towards whatever initiative the artists decide on.

One of the members just suggested a broad theme, “Decentralization”, so that or something like it may be what we go with!

I personally am excited to see all the different takes/art styles/perspectives on something abstract like “decentralization”, would make for a pretty compelling artistic experiment!

If youre interested in participating and contributing art join the discord (dont need an EVM)and head over the public untitled art channel and hit the thumbs up on the first message!

u/OkDragonfruit1929 just had a bunch of firsts worth sharing!

Just wanted to share my excitement - today’s been full of firsts for me! I used the Arch User Repository for the first time to build frame-eth from source, and successfully used the Frame Wallet and managed to bridge to Base. But wait, there’s more… I also minted my very first Base NFT! 🎨🔥

I’ve been hearing a lot about Frame wallet, and I figured with the official launch of Base, I could use this as an opportunity to test out two new tech innovations at the same time. Finally took to the Arch User Repository and installed the latest Frame wallet from source and it’s genuinely a feeling I can’t quite put into words. The whole process was much smoother than I expected, and I’m really excited about the potential of decentralized tech.

For anyone still on the fence, just dive in! The waters are fine, and the learning experience is invaluable. 😊

Cheers to firsts! 🥂

u/Nomadic8893 critiques the current state of L2s and u/PhiMarHal replies with coming solutions

u/Nomadic8893:

From a user experience standpoint and someone who identifies as both a “normie” but also has slightly bit above average knowledge of crypto/blockchains, imma just say it: L2s UX is a mess.

You’re expecting the TikTok/plug and play/ iPhone and iPad generation to know how to setup Metamask, to bridge over ETH to one of 10+ L2s, do DeFi/NFT with fragmented liquidity amongst the layer 2s and 8 versions of AAVE/Uniswap/Sushiswap/Blur/OpenSea, wait 8 days to bridge back to mainnet, and keep up with whats possible to do on different L2s….? Don’t even have to get the point about lack of decentralization on the L2s.

It seems to me the current structure of the Ethereum blockchain enforces favorable tokenomics on the layer 1 (capped blockspace and throughput, deflationary issuance, hardening of ETH) while giving users an option to opt into a low gas fee/high throughput environment, which on the face of things, is ideal, best of both worlds. But in reality, I feel that it severely degrades the user experience, creates multiple friction points, and ultimately deters Ethereum from any sort of mass adoption, mainly catering to the crypto-crowd. Hope I’m wrong and Ethereum thrives, but this user complexity is, for me, is one of the largest issues that Ethereum has to contend with for long term expansion and adoption.

u/PhiMarHal:

Personally, I expect most people to experience blockchain through account abstraction, and for the driver to be a dapp rather than a blockchain/rollup.

i.e. you’re on Base mainnet because you’re playing words3.xyz, but really you don’t even need to know you’re on Base mainnet. You hold a Reddit NFT but you don’t even know it’s a NFT, or where it exists.

Even in the EOA world of today, this is smoothed out on wallets like Rabby handling the network switching quite smoothly.

As for those dapps existing on different places, I think that existence is pretty fungible. It doesn’t matter to me if Uniswap liquidity is fragmented when I can technically get the same execution price within 0.1% of general market price. More exotic assets will have to pick and choose, but then I wouldn’t expect normal people to invest in esoteric tokens.

To me, getting to subcent fees while maintaining essential decentralization, security and credible neutrality properties is more important. Perceived user complexity is mostly a consequence of the space exploring many venues to this day.

u/the_swingman shares their thoughts on a few things

Hope everyone is hanging in there and keeping your heads up. Bearish/crabish times can sometimes feel like an extended hunger pit in your stomach. This too shall pass and brighter days will come, rest assured.

I started up my weekly buys again back when we last touched the 1700s and will continue to do so for better or worse, until we are out of the crab range above 2k with solid seeming resistance.

Fam and friends who hold ETH will periodically check in, fishing for price predictions from me.. I tell them the same thing over and over, that I don’t expect any meaningful positive price action (anywhere near ATH) to happen until US inflation is tamed, fed fund rates are cut down to a more normal rate, and not during any sort of recession because of rate cuts. We need to be out of those woods before I feel the sentiment will change with risk assets.

Tall order but that order will be filled. And as some have speculated here, the soonest I think that’s going to happen would be sometime in 2025. Obviously just a best guess and honestly, an optimistic guess in my point of view. Time passing without catastrophic events happening in crypto would be a blessing. We need time to heal the wounds of the great Terra/Luna collapse and all the subsequent fallout that was left in the aftermath. We’re already starting to see some closure type things happening.. Mashinsky arrest, SBF back to jail, some blockfi funds are being returned, etc.. while we still have far to go, Gemini still in the lurch with Earn, SEC drama and so forth. Time will sort all of these things out and I believe for the better.

Meanwhile, growth is ongoing in our space, another time dependent variable. Mistakes will be learned from, innovation is inevitable all in good time.

Personally, somewhat recently, I’ve been working on some lifestyle changes.. which started with getting a check up at the doctors. Blood pressure, cholesterol, diet, exercise.. all very important to keep up on. I even grabbed an oura ring to help monitor sleeping habits. I feel as though I’m training mentally and physically for the next bull run lol. But in all seriousness, it feels great to trend in a healthy direction. I work for myself, so keeping motivated and energy levels up are a persistent goal. I’ve also been traveling with more frequency and doing my best to travel with friends. The times I get to vacation a bit with friends, I realize they need it just as much as I do. Anyways..

Lastly, I might not chime in here much but I certainly read the daily everyday and have since long before the migration to r/ethfiance . I very much appreciate this community and the effort of those who do take the time to post in here. Thank you all!

u/magnushansson looks back on a recent big achievement of theirs

Hello r/ethfinance!

As summer draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on the incredible journey I’ve taken this season. I’m thrilled to share that I have successfully defended my PhD thesis titled “Decentralized Finance and Central Bank Communication”, with a primary focus on the market microstructure of DEXes. This achievement was by no means a solo endeavor, and I owe a significant debt of gratitude to this community.

Throughout the research process, the insights, discussions, and support from r/ethfinance have been invaluable. Many of the comments here have enriched my understanding and shaped my perspectives on the evolving landscape of decentralized finance.

I’m excited to start a new chapter as an Assistant Professor at Stockholm Business School. In this role, I will continue to dive deep into the intersection of market microstructure and DeFi, fueled by the passion and knowledge I’ve gained from this community.

In essence, I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude to every member who posed challenging questions, shared enlightening resources, or simply offered words of encouragement. Thank you! / Magnus

u/nixorokish noticed a shift in Ethereum "competitors" and u/LogrisTheBard shares insights into system design

u/nixorokish:

this is an interesting shift - we’ve moved on from serious competitors trying to replace Ethereum’s L1 and now we’re looking at entities trying to become Ethereum on top of Ethereum. the provider that becomes ubiquitous and that people build on top of - Eigenlayer, Lido v2, DVT protocols creating their own spec - they’re all trying to become the dominant layer that people must use

Lido v2 believes that all liquid staking will eventually happen with stETH because defi markets want to converge to a single liquid staking token, so any staking protocol will just need to use Lido to open up a pool (“module”) and they can optionally issue their own token in addition to stETH. Eigenlayer wants to be the layer that protocols use to bootstrap services. SSV, Obol - they want to build a DVT protocol that every other provider conforms to (multi client architecture, but clients must use their spec).

but all of them are doing it in a way that’s antithetical to the reason (imo) for Ethereum’s success - its credible neutrality and the fact that no one is the overlord here. In the example with DVT - multi client architecture is good, but not if the parent structure is centralized or not credibly neutral. They’re all trying to capture what wasn’t captured when Ethereum’s model was developed. Humans are corruptible - DAOs are not the answer that makes something decentralized - does a serious competitor to Lido develop something that looks like Lido v2 (and Stakewise V3) but actually decentralized?

u/LogrisTheBard:

In my consulting work I bring up these topics a lot when I encounter any type of hostage collateral in system design. If the service is chain-adjacent I usually bring up Eigen Layer. If it’s an L1 I bring up running their L1 as an L2/L3 on Ethereum. I’ve done this for over a dozen projects. If it’s an app on chain I bring up LST collateral. I have never received a sound technical argument against this suggestion. Their argument is predictably about retaining token utility because they own a bag and want it to be worth more. When I bring up vampire attacks, the usual and sole response is that a social moat will protect them. This feels like wishful thinking to me. These approaches are going to devour the crypto space in the next decade. When we see the first vampire attack of something like Chainlink succeed where an attacker just forks their code and changes the collateral it will send off a tidal wave of copycats just like YFI did to liquidity farming with Sushi, Curve, Harvest, Aave, Kyber Rainmaker, etc. Eventually, layers of interest bearing collateral with different risk tradeoffs will be the only hostage collateral and every chain but the top few that can pay for their own security will settle on those few top chains.

I think the LST space is actually fragmenting and isn’t likely to consolidate. It will look like the stablecoin space where there are dozens/hundreds of LSTs. Ideally Lido will be subject to repeated and sustained vampire attacks and will just service as a gateway into staking. I do think there will be actually decentralized LSTs but I think it’s too late in the game for them to dominate. That ship has sailed, Rocketpool was our best chance and they blew the opportunity by not using the oDAO RPL rewards for liquidity farming to bootstrap themselves to massive adoption.

u/OkDragonfruit1929 is shocked by a recent big step towards mainstream adoption

So… I just minted a “Stand with crypto” NFT with my VISA debit card and I finally understand why VISA letting you pay gas fees with your VISA card is such a big deal!

No need for anyone to create an exchange account and buy ETH, it just works in the background!

I am absolutely stoked about the convenience of using a VISA debit card to directly mint an NFT without the need for creating an exchange account and purchasing ETH (Ethereum) separately. This approach makes the process more user-friendly and accessible to individuals who might not be familiar with cryptocurrency exchanges or the technical aspects of buying and using Ethereum.

Using a debit or credit card to directly mint NFTs simplifies the process by abstracting away the steps involved in acquiring cryptocurrency like Ethereum and then using it to pay for minting fees or NFT creation.

It’s a step towards mainstream adoption by reducing the barrier to entry and allowing more people to participate in the NFT space.

u/superphiz stands up for himself in front of a disingenuous accusation

it really guts me to come here and find myself getting shit on. You don’t have to know me, you don’t have to trust me, but I’m proud to say that every action I’ve ever taken has been in the best interest of promoting greater security and decentralization of the beacon chain. I have never acted in any way contrary to these values and it’s offensive that the same people keep dragging my name. YES, I accepted the role of oDAO member for Rocket Pool, a role that I am STILL very proud of, and YES, I got a lot of money for it, just like the other 18 odao members who participated in the protocol the way it was designed. YES, I voted to reduce that and have encourage further development of RP in a way that doesn’t require an oDAO at all. You know what else I did? I proudly promoted a platform that has onboarded over 3000 nodes to the Ethereum network. And I’ll do it again if I can. I’m not going to get shit on like a little bitch by people who haven’t done shit to bring success to our network. I would STILL accept fair money for my time to support and promote other projects that are highly aligned with our goals, and I’ll never mince words about projects who risk our future. Sorry. Getting a little heated here.

Aug 11, 2023 - Episode #30

Aug 04, 2023 - Episode #29

The morning trinity

✨E✨t✨h✨e✨r✨e✨u✨m✨

0.062

$1833

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Vyper labyrinth,

Compiler masonry tricks,

Curve pools broke a plinth.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 706,796 (+1,631)

Pending validators: Joining 75.5k, leaving ~0

Entry queue -1600 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 31 days for the entry queue to clear
In around 6 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,250 to 2,475.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/Glittering-Duty-4069

Consider this: The SEC (Securities and Exchange Consideration) Consideration deliberating on whethere they should once again reconsider their previous considerations considering to consider reconsidering ETH ETF for deliberation and consideration.

u/cryptOwOcurrency has your daily dose of hopium

I held my tongue back in that thread, but I found that sentiment bizarre too. If ETH development were basically dead like Bitcoin I could maybe understand the logic of the market capping out soon, but ETH is still a rapidly developing and improving technology, and still has a lot of not only adoption but simple low-hanging improvements in market efficiency in front of it. Even if core Ethereum development completely halted today, ETH would still have at least another market cycle worth of juice in it.

There still aren’t any ETFs in the US. Big brokerages only just launched crypto custody less than a couple months ago. Roll-ups and zk tech still aren’t mature yet. The general public still thinks NFTs are an environmental nightmare. It’s been less than a year since the last PoW block was mined on Ethereum, and barely three months since its literal consensus system was completed! The queue isn’t even clear yet, for god’s sake!

These are probably a lot of the same people who called for $10k last cycle. Now that we’ve been crabbing for a while, they get all depressed and doom-and-gloom. When the bull market picks up again, they’re probably going to start calling for $20k+. Then we’ll top out at like $16k and they’ll watch their generational paper gains slip through their fingers again.

u/Set1Less has an update on the struggling US stablecoin bill

https://twitter.com/JBSDC/status/1684589699564728320

Anyone following the Congress stablecoin bill?

That seems to have died today too. The law just created a legal structure for stablecoins (with actual legal protection) and allowed businesses to use stablecoins, but the bill has died

Good threads on it:

https://twitter.com/JBSDC/status/1684570863432257538

So fucked up…. even a stablecoin bill cant pass. A proper crypto bill is just DOA

u/bleeddonor covers the relevant Mullvad VPN situation for stakers who use a VPN

https://www.hackread.com/mullvad-vpn-office-raided-police-user-data/

It appears that some of you aren’t aware of what happened with Mullvad.

Mullvad is a VPN outfit located in Sweden, which has strong privacy laws.

Mullvad gets raided by the police who want user data:

Mullvad frustrates that effort by not having any user data.

A little over a month later Mullvad is forced to withdraw their forwarded-ports service, which I’m sure some of you know is what you want to have if you’re trying to run a node over a VPN:

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/

Not privy to the exact details of course, but it isn’t rocket science to anyone who has been online for any length of time and relates to controversial political content, you poison the well. Suddenly somebody starts using a forwarded port for child porn, the complaint is made, and now the police come back to Mullvad asking for proof they weren’t they weren’t the ones who produced it. Or something like that.

Result? Anyone here who was using Mullvad as their VPN for staking now has to a) find another VPN and b) wonder how long it will be before the same proposition is made to that vendor.

u/pr0nh0li0 points out the wrong ETH supply values on major websites

None of Coingecko, Coinmarketcap, Coinmetrics, or Bitinfocharts have the right supply listed for ETH. They seem to be either accounting for new issuance but not burns, and/or they may be double counting ETH that has been withdrawn (as technically the ETH doesn’t ever actually leave the staking deposit contract, but is instead re-minted at a 1-1 rate when “withdrawn”). It’s almost been a year since the merge and almost 4 months since withdrawals were enabled. How have they not addressed this? Each of these sites has supply listed somewhere between ~120,700,000 and ~120,800,000.

CryptoQuant seemingly has the opposite problem–accounts for burns but not new issuance under PoS (supply is under 119MM according to them).

Etherscan and Ultrasound.Money seem to get it the most correct (although it could also be noted that Etherscan has a slightly lower total supply than Ultrasound.Money).

Would be nice if we could get some consistency here. To be fair, the set up for the withdrawal contract and BeaconChain make it a bit of a mess of accounting, but I feel like there should be some more urgency to address this issue at the big metrics sites.

u/Syentist complains about the SEC and u/edmundedgar has a fair balancing take

u/Syentist:

The SEC writes a not-so-subtle letter threatening accounting firms against working with the crypto industry, including dangling the threat of legal liabilities

Some unelected fuckface sitting in a federal agency with no legislative backing from Congress is able to threaten private service providers to cut out a legitimate American industry, using the full weight of the American government to back his threats. Raw, unelected power.

Just as with the FDIC shutting down some banks because they are associated with crypto services, and deciding to save others which are not. Just as with Operation Chokehold 1.0 and 2.0. Unelected, authoritarian power from the Administrative State, trampling on American rights.

Watching the Supreme Court castrate these federal agencies ruling by ruling is one of the few bright spots in politics rn.

https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/munter-statement-crypto-072723

u/edmundedgar:

Always read the actual thing, not the twitter crypto influencer’s summary of the thing.

We’ve had some really shady cases like the Tether attestations where they’ve engaged auditing companies to do “attestations” that are deliberately designed to make people think their money is safe, while leaving loopholes so they don’t have to actually keep the money safe. With Tether they literally wired the money from Bitfinex into a bank account, had the auditor certify that it was all there, then wired it right back out. Tether made a bunch of statements to make people think they’d been audited, and we only found out about it because the New York regulator figured out what was happening and got the information into a public filing. This is the SEC saying, if you do an attestation that isn’t an audit, you have to be honest about what it proves, and if the client starts lying about what it proves then you have to speak up about it or you could have legal liability too.

I know it’s complicated to have to fight on two fronts because we need to defend ourselves against the regulators as well as the scammers but can we please stop reflexively taking the side of the scammers who keep trying to scam people all the time?

u/Kallukoras breaks news of the Curve hack. Then u/skythe4 and u/bagogel12 outlines some of the collateral damage. Finally, u/LogrisTheBard gives us an ELI5 on how it happened.

https://twitter.com/Blockanalia/status/1685732007400079360

u/Kallukoras:

32m crv drained:

Sad 8year anniversary for ETH with one of the main (bluechip) DEFI projects getting rekt hard and spreading to projects having pools there.

https://twitter.com/spreekaway/status/1685686694811496448

u/skythe4:

Alchemix got hit by this reentry bug too today and it doesn’t seem to be a white hat sadly:

Seems that ALCX exploit confirmed NOT a whitehat :(

https://twitter.com/vyperlang/status/1685692973051498497

u/bagogel12:

So many more:

PSA: Vyper versions 0.2.15, 0.2.16 and 0.3.0 are vulnerable to malfunctioning reentrancy locks. The investigation is ongoing but any project relying on these versions should immediately reach out to us.

Jpged 10M (frontrun by MEV bot) https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1685645064364822530

Hi @JPEGd_69, you may want to take a look: https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa84aa065ce61dbb1eb50ab6ae67fc31a9da50dd2c74eefd561661bfce2f1620c

Metronome 1.6M https://twitter.com/spreekaway/status/1685669149911990273

Another curve pool (this time Metronome Synth ETH) hit by a similar exploit for $1.6m profit

Curve just tweeted: https://twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1685696639325933568

To be clear - the dangerous combination was the affected vyper version AND using pure ETH

u/LogrisTheBard:

Peckshield Twitter has some info. It’s a bug with certain versions of the Vyper compiler. Main victim right now are certain ETH based Curve pools. Newer pools (like most LST pools) are unaffected just because the Vyper compiler was newer at that time. I’m surprised that when Vyper changed this code they didn’t see a bug in the old code and notify people.

u/asdafari12 discusses the regulatory threat

https://reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/15da5v5/us_house_committee_passes_keep_your_coins_act_to/

This is why I check r/cc from time to time, that and sometimes the “story” posts interest me. Their knowledge of crypto is very superficial but they are often on-track with general news.

So apparently “protect self-custody” passed in a committee (every republican voted in favor and every democrat against). I am not from the US so didn’t understand how the process works and I see few do on reddit, but it is basically like this. After a committee approval, it then needs to be passed in Congress, by a majority. Then in the Senate by 60% and then Biden needs to actually sign it. He can veto and it would then take a 2/3 vote to overturn, vetoes are rare (Biden has 6).

The regulation side probably interests me more than most here. So far, Ethereum is mostly only used for Defi today, not gaming, betting, insurance, tokenization of real world assets etc. NFTs is maybe the second use case but doesn’t interest me. If defi were banned or I thought it would be, I wouldn’t hold ETH anymore since I thought other assets would appreciate more. For example, I never bought any Monero, it’s a regulatory nightmare imo. The US market is the most important because it has the most capital, being a large country and a lot of foreign investments. We buy stock in your companies (mostly tech), I doubt you invest much in foreign companies.

Very often, the western world also try to follow, or even copy US regulation. I used to be interested in flying drones and in 2021 my country (Sweden), introduced new laws that were an exact copy of the US rules. You have the nice round number 400 feet as height limit, we have 120 meters, which is the equivalent in feet and we adopted the rest too. If you sanction Iran, our companies have to comply, if you close your country due to Corona, we do the same (which I think was the correct decision). There are so many things we would never do first, but if you do it, we do it too. You lose a little bit of faith in your politicians when you become aware of this. We have clear and decent crypto rules, but they could change quickly from outside pressure. We are still a progressive country with few “backwards thinkers”, so that compensates a bit though.

I don’t think the US will ban defi, I think it is more likely than in 2020, but I think more red tape is coming and some of it can be impossible to live up to for Americans. Like KYC on all defi protocols, making private wallets (sometimes called unhosted/dark wallets) illegal, whitelist/blacklist of dapps. I am not seeing good regulation be passed in the US that will prevent the next FTX, the next stable coin crash, clarify uncertainties or allow companies to use defi. Imo, the Ds are against good regulation that is passed by Rs and in favor of bad regulation that will hurt defi. “You want to vote on a bill to make stablecoins less of a blackbox? Fuck no, every D go out of the room so we don’t have quorum and can’t vote on it” - it’s a clown show. A couple of days ago the Senate (D majority) passed a really bad bill that would make controllers or large investors of protocols responsible for what happens on them and require bank-like AML. If North Korean hackers used Uniswap, there are no controllers but they could go after Uniswap labs, if it passes. The Rocketpool oDAO be responsible over their products. Maybe a dapp gets hacked, they could probably go after the devs working on it and punish them.

Hopefully this might lead to something good and make Defi more anonymous and less centralized than today. As Voorhees said, if there are controllers, it’s not defi. But yea, if Blackrock enters, even with a defi ban in practice, maybe none of this “matters”, price wise.

u/hanniabu shares the big news from the IRS

https://nitter.net/TheCryptoCPA/status/1686098439979798528

Today, the IRS issued a Rev. Rul. 2023-14 saying that PoS staking rewards are taxed at the time you gain dominion & control (D&C) over the token.

D&C occurs when you can sell, exchange or sell the reward.

If the tokens are “locked”, you won’t have D&C so there’s no income to be reported on your taxes.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-23-14.pdf

u/doctor_schmee breaks down Hex and it's recent charges from regulators

Bloomberg Opinion article on whether index funds should be illegal discussed Richard Heart and his alleged fraud if anyone is interested in reading below:

Hex

Here is an economic system, or a system anyway:

I make up a crypto token called MattCoin. I can issue an unlimited amount of MattCoins, since I made them up.
I sell them to people for money.
You can use MattCoins to make term deposits, with me: You can give me back your MattCoins and I will keep them for some specified time period (say, a year), and at the end of the period I will hand them back to you with interest.
The interest is paid in MattCoins.
The interest rate is high, say, 38% per year.
This is the only thing you can do with the MattCoins. They’re not useful for payments, they don’t run smart contracts on a blockchain, all you can do is trade them on crypto exchanges and deposit them for a 38% yield paid in kind.

So you pay me $100 for 100 MattCoins, you deposit them with me for a year, and at the end of the year I give you back 138 MattCoins.

At the end of the year, how much would you expect your 138 MattCoins to be worth? I think the main options are [1] :

$138. You put in $100 for 100 MattCoins, meaning that they are worth $1 each, and in a year you get back 138 MattCoins. If they are still worth $1 each, then 138 MattCoins are worth $138.
$100. You put in $100 for some MattCoins, absolutely no economic activity happened, and in a year you get back 138 MattCoins. This is like a stock split: You had 100 shares of a pot worth $100, now you have 138 shares of a pot worth $100, each share is worth less but the pot hasn’t changed.
$0. You put in $100 for some MattCoins, absolutely no economic activity happened or will ever happen, in a year you get back 138 MattCoins, but I keep the $100 and you don’t get to exchange your 138 MattCoins for real money again. There is not actually a pot with $100 in it; I just took the $100! You put in $100 and got back a pile of magic beans that are not redeemable for anything. The pile grew bigger over the year, but it remains worthless.
More than $138. You put in $100 for 100 MattCoins, those MattCoins offered a 38% yield, other people see that 38% yield and said “I want some of that,” they buy some MattCoins, the price of MattCoin rises, still other people see the rising price and say “ooh I want some of that,” the price rises further, it’s a virtuous cycle, eventually each MattCoin is worth like $10,000 and your 138 MattCoins make you a millionaire.

I think that Answer 3 is the standard answer that traditional financial analysis would give you: You bought an electronic token with no cash flows ever, so it’s worth zero. I am drawn to this traditional analysis, but it has not really worked all that well for understanding crypto.

I think that Answer 4 is the standard answer that crypto would give you. This is a completely accepted mechanism of crypto finance: You have some token, the main thing that the token does is generate more tokens, you call those additional tokens “yield,” people are attracted to the yield, they buy the token and its price goes up. The “yield” does not come from any economic activity in the real world; it just comes from printing more tokens. “Ponzinomics,” people sometimes say. Loosely speaking, this is the thought process behind crypto “Ponzicoins” like OlympusDAO and Wonderland. Loosely speaking, it is the thought process behind many algorithmic stablecoins like TerraUSD. Loosely speaking, it is the thought process that Sam Bankman-Fried once described to me on Odd Lots: “You start with a company that builds a box and in practice this box, they probably dress it up to look like a life-changing, you know, world-altering protocol that’s gonna replace all the big banks in 38 days or whatever. Maybe for now actually ignore what it does or pretend it does literally nothing. It’s just a box.”

u/hanniabu has a call to action for the EVMavericks

I have a call to action for EVMavericks.

Something I’d love to see and I think EVM is aptly positioned for is to fill a gap I’m constantly seeing mentioned: digestible updates on what’s happening in the ecosystem.

Map out the various different sectors (defi, NFTs, L2s, modular chains, RWAs, social, gaming, infrastructure, staking, development, security, etc)
Assign 2-3 people to each sector (some may need sub-sectors)
Those people will focus on monitoring what’s going on in that space….new projects, updates, airdrop potential, etc
Have a separate channel for each sector/sub-sector to drop these updates
Have an additional person per sector/sub-sector to organize and condense those feeds and assign pre-defined metadata to each of the updates (new project, project update, airdrop, etc)
Have another 2-3 people collate that info into weekly summaries

From here you can monetize it to create an revenue stream which can then be used to pay contributors, grow the treasury, and fund more projects. How to monetize?

Start out offering this newsletter for free, this will help gain exposure/following as you get the process down and subsequent steps
Move to a freemium service similar to Bankless, where you offer more basic info for free and have the rest behind a paywall. Substack can be used for this.

This platform can then be used to:

Use as a launchpad for EVM projects
Use to push certain initiatives (such as various decentralization/diversity efforts)
Help raise funds for public goods
Advertise for additional revenue

Jul 28, 2023 - Episode #28

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1864

0.063

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

zk washing spy,

Scan the center of your eye,

Earn until you cry.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Active validators: 693,231 (+2,032)

Pending validators: Joining 80.9k, leaving ~0

Entry queue +300 from yesterday’s number
It will take just under 34 days for the entry queue to clear
In just over 12 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,250 to 2,475.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: cryptOwOcurrency

https://np.reddit.com/r/cardano/comments/15976z4/spectrum_finance_cardanos_first_fully_open_source/jtdoqgs/

Congratulations Cardano for releasing their first DEX today! You can now swap tokens without full reliance on a third party.

Creating this DEX appears to be the culmination of years of hard research, study, and academic achievement. It pays to take your time to do things right the first time without rushing.

Sometimes I wish we had DEXes on Ethereum. They sound like a really neat technology.

u/haurog discusses Gnosis chain's recent developments and future roadmap

u/shiftly linked to a gnosis chain talk yesterday by Frederieke Ernst, a gnosis co-founder were she talked about L2s, Rollups and Sidechains. I watched it on livestream yesterday as I am generally interested in the gnosis ecosystem and their chain. Shiftly mentioned being surprised by the vision of gnosis chain as they have thought it being more like an incentiviced testnet.

I am financially and technically invested by being a solo validator on gnosis chain. So take any positive sentiment I have with a grain of salt. The history of gnosis chain is quite an interesting one. It was born as xdai chain as one of the earlier EVM compatible alt L1 chains. The interesting thing they did was not having their own coin, but using xDAI, bridged DAI, as the base token to pay for gas. No own token meant no speculative frenzy in the last bull run. They developed rather quietly the only bigger deal they made was with POAP in 2020, that is why all our POAPs life on there now. And thanks to xDAI chain POAPs can often be minted for free as the gas costs are pretty negligible and are being paid by POAP. I still remember the pre xDAI chain POAPs which sometimes would have cost me $50 to mint.

In Summer 2021 Gnosis got interested in xDAI chain and took them over. xDAI chain rebranded to Gnosis chain. They started changing the consensus layer from a more permissioned set to a permissionless Ethereum approach. For this they started using the GNO token as a mandatory staking token. One validator costs 1 GNO, which is about $120. Much cheaper than Ethereum. There are about 130000 validators on Gnosis chain, about 6 times less than on Ethereum, but the economic security is obviously much lower due to only 1 GNO being staked per validator compared to 32 ETH for a single Ethereum validator. There are some large staking as a service providers, but nevertheless there are a substantial number of solo stakers, making the gnosis chain pretty decentralized. Unfortunately, I do not have any statistics available, as the websites I used before are defunct since a few months ago.

Now to the vision. The following description is how I understand it and is from public sources I read over the last 2 years. Generally, I think it is very hard for any alternative L1 to have a value proposition as Rollups most probably will eat their lunch sooner or later. At the same time the Gnosis founders have been in the crypto space for so long, I assume they know what they are doing and how hard it is to have a value proposition. At first, their idea was for Gnosis chain to be like an incentivized testnet, like Kusama is to Polkadot. The idea was to first test hard forks on Gnosis chain and then deploy to mainnet. Reality threw a wrench in that idea, the merge on Gnosis chain was a few months after the Ethereum merge, same with the shapella hard fork which will be in 2 weeks on Gnosis chain.

This brings me to the talk linked by u/shiftly yesterday, which describes the new vision I have not seen described before. I definitely have seen more critical talks by Gnosis chain people aginst rollups in the last few months but did not really know why. The Gnosis team pivoted Gnosis chain to being more of Cosmos like ecosystem around Ethereum. They build a trustless bridge to and from Ethereum. And also gnosis pay will make jumping from the various chains as simple and trustless as possible.

Will it work out? I have no idea. Rollups for me have been the big disappointment of 2021 and 2022 and still are far away from the final version of being as trustless and decentralized. On the other hand Optimism and Arbitrum have become pretty reliable for everyday use and various ZK rollups are coming out left and right. Nevertheless, for me Gnosis chain is a hedge against the Rollup vision not working out as fast as necessary. Gnosis chain might be able to get some more usage in the coming years. Will Gnosis chain end up as a rollup on Ethereum? Maybe. But even then, due to the decentralized validator base, they might have a headstart for sequencer decentralization compared to othe rollups which first have to achieve that.

Tldr: Gnosis chain, formerly known as xDAI chain, pivoted in the last few months to a more Cosmos like vision for the Ethereum space consisting of EVM chains connected to each other by trustless bridges. Will it work out? Who knows.

u/Bob-Rossi has some delegate updates on Arbitrum and HOP

Little Arbitrum DAO update for everyone as a delegate. I’m assuming ARB links are still shadow-banned, but want to get the picture across regardless.

There has been push over the last month or so to get some type of grants framework started with the DAO. Two of the big proposals were Plurality Labs and Questbook.

Plurarlity Labs is looking to start a grants program over multiple phases. Initially running the program, but with an end goal of phasing themselves out once a way to run grants on-chain is solved. I voted “For” this proposal (Snapshot) and it has narrowly passed. The DAO has been slow to start and somewhat directionless, so I’m hoping this will help with that. While grants will be handed out with this project, the scope is more about the big picture process that develops over the long term.

Questbook was originally tied in with Plurality Labs, but split off into it’s own request. It has a similar goal - a method to run grant programs - albeit with a more focused approach. They have a system they have implemented with other projects they are looking to bring to the ARB DAO. I have been, I guess, ‘sponsoring (?)’ Questbook as I have been working with them to post the Snapshot / Tally votes. Snapshop has passed (Snapshot) and the Tally Vote (Tally) has just started up. I’ve voted “For” on this, as once again I think the grant projects are good for the space and like to see different ideas take a stab at growing the Aribtrum space. Having talked to the people there it seems like a good project!

An additional note. If Questbook passes, keep an eye out if you want to get involved. There will be a two week window where knowledgably crypto-ians can apply to be a Domain Allocator. Essentially, you would take over 1 of 4 target grant domains (Gaming / Developer Tooling on NOVA / New Protocol Ideas / Education, Community Growth and Events) to help decide if projects can get grant money. It is a paid role, so something to think about if your into that. There are details in the votes.

It’s been a minute since I made any HOP updates too! Not too much since I last posted, a lot of housekeeping votes (multisig refills, sybil hunter airdrops). Of note tho:

Liquidity discussions continued with a Temperature Check on providing liquidity for the HOP token. Ultimately ‘failed’ to no change. It is a small-cap so a lot of debate on how much of it is simply the marketcap. Regardless, as a temperature check I did vote in favor of incentivizing HOP/ETH. I honestly don’t lean one way or the other on this type of thing. I do see the value and think slippage is high, but I also see the argument against throwing money after market forces of a low-cap. I voted in favor as a signal I’m open to the discussion.
The minimum delegate threshold to get pay-outs for contributing to the DAO was voted down to 30,000 HOP with HIP-35. I voted for 30,000 out of the options (30k, 40k, 50k, no change). I’d like to see more voices join, so we are hoping lowering the threshold might attract more activity. We shall see!

u/hanniabu is drumming up support for getting Lenster to add Reddit-like threads and mod tools

https://lenster.xyz/posts/0x0d-0x03ea-DA-27346e91

What feature do you want if u/lenster have communities 👥?

If you have an account it’d be great to show support for reddit-like threads and mod tools. You probably won’t be able to comment on this post but there’s a few comments that say something similar that you can like to give a sentiment boost such as this one: https://lenster.xyz/posts/0x1d6e-0x092a-DA-0563fbdf

u/Syentist explains a potential use case to send ETH and OP skyward

Worldcoin goes live as a member of the Superchain today.

Im not fully sold on an eye ball scanning billionaire, but it’s undeniable that Sam Altman is one of the hottest names in tech at the moment, and him using a very ethereum-centric product for a digital identity solution coupled to a financial system (literally what we have been harping about for years) is pretty…interesting. For eg they are not just simply using the OP Superchain, they are even spending effort on shipping 4844 along with Base

It’s also screamingly obvious that online presence (social media, financial txs etc) need to be tied to some form of identity to prevent bot spam, and even worse, AI powered bot spam. So if this triggers a gradual “aha” moment among the tech zeitgeist, that decentralised and interconnected identity + social media + financial systems running on Ethereum are a very elegant solution to the problems of today…it could be unbelievably bullish for ETH and OP.

Or it could be one of those retrospectively ridiculous ideas which were born and died in the depths of bear markets. We shall see soon enough.

Edit: big V dropped a blog post on biometric proof of person hood today!. Worldcoin team is listed in the acknowledgement line so some synchrony there. Reading through it, I’m more convinced than ever that Proof of Person hood/decentralised identity will cross the Rubicon and get recognized as an important “legitimate” mainstream usecase of public ledgers (and of Ethereum, specifically).

u/benido2030 shares their latest favourite podcast episodes

Uncommon Core (2.0): The Reboot feat Jon Charbonneau

+++ Benido’s favorite podcasts episodes +++
Some weeks ago, someone here asked for podcast recommendations and interesting episodes. Since I enjoy podcasts I thought it might be a service to the community to highlight those I really liked (or maybe disliked? Let’s see what the future brings). The first edition was okay I think, so here’s the second Top3.
Bell Curve: Is Liquid Staking a Winner-takes-all market? feat Hasu

This episode is interesting. It’s part of the “LST Season” of Bell Curve and the first episode after the kickoff. As most of you are probably aware Hasu is a advisor to Lido and was not really in favor of self limiting when the discussion popped up last year (or beginning of this year? I can’t remember).

What’s interesting here is that Hasu explains his arguments and assumptions about the staking/ LST market (e.g. CEXes and how they could capture a massive share withouth necessarily being ETH aligned, because it’s just one business for them). I followed the discussion back in the days, but didn’t really understand where he was coming from and understand him better now. I think we have to distinguish between his comments with regards to the market (“staking/ liquid staking is a winner takes all market) and specific LST providers/ protocols. He made a very interesting comment (apparently for the first time) where he basically says “its crucial ETH stays decentralized and the criticism towards Lido is correct”.

LSTs will be huge, listening to this one is a good time investment, even if you don’t agree with Hasu in the end.

Don’t worry, this one is not so much about Hasu :) It’s the first episode of Uncommon Core after 1.5 years, this time featuring Jon Charbonneau instead of Zhu Su (who apparently couldn’t make it).

Jon is also front and center in this episode. He is introduced and interviewed, his CV is interesting (though his statement that he’s in crypto “since just one year” is kind of funny, since he had been interested before, but now he’s full time. But if full time is a req, most of us aren’t into crypto…).

Jon is an interesting guy, since he is not really part of any crypto tribe, but seems to be rather ETH focussed. Since he is rather new and neutral, his point of view is interesting. I made some comments the past couple of days about L2 (de)centralization and most of those were inspired by this episode. I think he is not idealistic and I also don’t see him as a “decentralization maxi”, hence some of his positions will probably clash with some of us, but I also think it’s good to discuss counter arguments. Mostly because of this I highly recommend this episode (and probably also to follow Jon on Twitter).

Epicenter Podcast: Ethereum - MEV, Staking Derivatives and Privacy feat Vitalik

This guest doesn’t need an introduction. I picked this episode, cause it’s from EthCC, so last week, and probably VB’s latest thoughts.

It’s a good interview, nothing too crazy (though there was one comment that I didn’t understand, but can’t recall what the topic was and hence also can’t ask you to explain to me, FML), but still a very good interview.

I also picked it, cause I made a comment in the daily some time ago asking if there shouldn’t be a protocol that allows you to borrow against your validator. I even stated that “It’s probably way trickier than I make it seem?”… and yes, that’s the case. And the issue is not tech, it’s an attack vector with regards to security. Since you could basically borrow against your validator, setup more validators (repeat) and/ or basically attack the network “for free” (you’ll be slashed, but you have like 80% of the ETH value back in USD or so). Vitalik mentions this in a slightly different context, but this was a crazy moment (and I have to say I should have thought about this back when I made the comment 2 months ago).

So… this is it, these were in my opinion the best podcast episodes of the past weeks. The XRP case/ decision was also a very important topic and picked up in a lot of podcasts, but I don’t think it was as good as these 3.

I think I’ll be back mid August with 3 new episodes, since then I’ll be back from vacation and will listen to more podcasts on the way to work.

u/wolfparking updates us on CBDCs

Nice compilation of info on this site looking into the world of CBDCs. Interesting to see World economic dominance and powers changing gears around trade and the implications it might have for the US dollar. The article states that it is important to note that some countries build CBDCs in order to attempt to limit the United States’ ability to track cross-border flows and enforce sanctions. In the long term, the absence of US regulations and standards setting can have large geopolitical consequences, especially if China and other countries maintain their first-mover advantage in the development of CBDCs.

Russia just cemented their plans to create a digital national currency Digital Ruble. They were one of the last of the BRICS economic markets group to legislate and finalize a CBDC project; South Africa now being the last to implement plans and is still trialing different models before committing to a project. Under the above mentioned bill, Russians will be able to make payments and transfers from their digital wallets, which would be within the central bank’s platform or that of one of its partner banks. On the other hand, the CBDC can only be used for payments or transfers, not loans or deposits, according to the central bank. Testing will begin next month.

Brazil still hasn’t released their CBDC although it should come out sometime later next year in 2024.

India’s pilot program is ramping up. The India central bank aims to reach a target of one million CBDC transactions per day by the end of this year from 5000-10,000 currently. e-Rupee Article

China’s digital Yuan coin hits $249 Billion in transactions so far this year. LINK

Currently 130 countries, representing 98 percent of global GDP, are exploring a CBDC. In May 2020, only 35 countries were considering a CBDC. A new high of 64 countries are in an advanced phase of exploration (development, pilot, or launch).

u/accidental_green created an open source tool for client migration!

I created an open source tool that allows anyone running Geth to instantly swap to a minority client with 0 configuration or effort. Just 1 click, new client.

Switch to/from any execution client (Geth, Besu, Nethermind) to any other, as well as remove and reinstall a broken client. Instructions on Github and more info in the ethstaker post.

Feel free to check out my other open source Ethereum projects:

Instant Validator - Install a full validator from fresh Ubuntu in minutes
Validator Updater - Instantly update your Execution and Consensus client to latest version

I plan to do more projects like this, so let me know if you have any ideas to help improve the staking experience!

u/Hocilef covers the zkSync SyncSwap exploit

from Syncswap twitter “We would like to inform you of a security incident with EraLendu/Era_Lend a lending platform on zkSync Era.The EraLend team has detected and confirmed a cyber attack on their platform at (UTC) 2023/07/25 09:27:21.

The attack has already been contained, and the threat actor is no longer able to continue their actions, as per the official announcement from EraLend. The EraLend team is currently collaborating with cross-chain bridge partners and zkSync to prevent any further potential asset outflows.

Only USDC deposits on EraLend were affected by this incident.All other assets remain secure and unaffected, including SyncSwap USDC/ETH LP supplied on EraLend. However, it’s recommended to withdraw your supplied LP on EraLend if any until things are sorted out to avoid further issues. There is no need to withdraw from SyncSwap protocol as it’s not involved in the incident.

TL;DR - EraLend has been attacked and caused certain losses for EraLend USDC depositors. SyncSwap protocol is not involved; SyncSwap LP supplied on EraLend remains secure but you should withdraw them from EraLend.

Please follow updates from EraLend’s official Discord server and Twitter to keep up-to-date, and beware of scams! We hope everyone can stay SAFU”

u/logic_beach shares his 365th daily robot artwork NFT

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x0447433bd197f03be984a6053241ae8d347c5539/350

RobotADay

Logic_Bot 365

2023/7/26

“FIN”

When I first started drawing Logic_Bots, I was working in a regular 9-5 job and wanted to break into the web3 ecosystem. So I took the plunge, quit my job, and started focusing on Ethereum (etc.) full time. Since that first bot drop, I have found a solid footing in web3 and don’t plan on leaving anytime soon! I have learned a ton and have still lots to learn/build.

Thank you to the awesome web3 community who have supported me and everyone else who put up with me!

🤖💙✌️

u/RooftopPortaPotty explains Google's latest plans to try and monopolise the internet

Hanni, I appreciate your asking!

To start off, I have not heard of this before you shared it. This is going to be a long rambling of my thoughts and opinions.

This idea seems to be an absolute desecration of privacy on the internet. How would this even work when using an anonymizing service such as tor?

Google does have a long history of introducing new things that are not actual HTTP specs, purely as a way of forcing users to switch to chrome as their web browser.

Of course there are already solutions such as captchas, javascript checks, and services such as cloudflare which attempt to detect and prevent bots from interacting with web servers. That said, Web Environment Integrity seems to completely obliterate the usual flow of the world wide web.

Having such a centralized service(however the attesting API is implemented) is a devastating breach of trust of the client(though, servers should never trust clients). Who even controls this API? Google?

It seems that this idea could be utilized by servers regardless of infrastructure, which in some cases(such as enterprise intranet), may provide enhanced server-side security.

I absolutely agree with vivaldi that this is nothing more than DRM forced by web servers onto clients. Much more troubling is their note of the following,

It is also interesting to note that the first use case listed is about ensuring that interactions with ads are genuine

which leads me to believe that this has been created solely for Google’s ad business(after all, they are nothing more than a giant advertiser).

With chromium’s market dominance, widespread implementation of this monstrosity would most certainly lead to the demise of competing browsers.

The github link states ‘Don’t enable new cross-site user tracking capabilities through attestation.’ as a goal. This is completely contradictory to the goal of Web Environment Integrity, which is to gain as much information about a client as possible, and share it with servers.

Another goal is ‘Allow web servers to evaluate the authenticity of the device and honest representation’ honest lmao yeah fucking right google is honest.

‘Continue to allow web browsers to browse the Web without attestation’ they just admitted that there is no point to this service. If it is avoidable, then whats it for?

‘Enforce or interfere with browser functionality, including plugins and extensions.’ They know damn well that it will interfere with any functionality that doesnt play by their rules.

Every one of their ‘example use cases’ are laughable.

‘Detect compromised devices where user data would be at risk’ is especially ridiculous, as protecting the client is the opposite of WEI’s intended purpose. How would they even detect compromised devices where the compromised device is making a seemingly normal request?

The ‘how it works’ section is completely devoid of substance. Consider the following:

The website of a dapp uses googleapis, gstatic, etc for their operations.
Google retains an innumerable amount of data points regarding a user and their browser.
Google blacklists a ‘browser’(still not sure how that would work, and neither do the authors of this trash idea, as is apparent) for interacting with anything crypto related.

Ok I honestly cant take this any longer. Whoever whipped this up clearly knows enough to know that this idea is evil.

I only see 4 goals of this project:

Make google ads inescapable.
Gain as much information of users of competing browsers as possible
Blacklist those users, and force them to use chrome
Ensure that google is the final arbiter of internet-worthiness

Wish I could say its surprising…

Jul 21, 2023

Jul 14, 2023 - Episode #27

The morning trinity

u/https://reddit.com/user/wolfparking/

u/Etereve

Ethereum

$2007

0.064

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Recession looming,

Interest rates still glooming,

Ether keeps blooming.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 82.2k, leaving ~0

Entry queue +500 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 35 and a half days for the entry queue to clear
In around 25 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2,250 to 2,475.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Once again, I am off camping - See you all in the few days!

Shitpost of the week: ArcadesOfAntiquity

> be me

> open Chrome

> "oh, metamask has updated"

> new interface layout, looks significantly less janky

> go to copy my account address so I can paste it into some web3 site

> the copy address function doesn't work now

> "okay, I'll just open the explorer page and copy the address there"

> "oh, metamask removed the explorer page link and replaced it with a link to its own portfolio app, which doesn't display the address by default and just asks me to connect my wallet"

seriously, the metamask team seems to possess a special kind of stupid

I’ve put it off for too long… my new task is to abandon metamask completely

u/Tricky_Troll asks for others' experiences after some recent ChatGPT developments

https://reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/14ruui2/i_use_chatgpt_for_hours_everyday_and_can_say_100/

I use chatGPT for hours everyday and can say 100% it’s been nerfed over the last month or so. As an example it can’t solve the same types of css problems that it could before. Imagine if you were talking to someone everyday and their iq suddenly dropped 20%, you’d notice. People are noticing.

A few general examples are an inability to do basic css anymore, and the copy it writes is so obviously written by a bot, whereas before it could do both really easily. To the people that will say you’ve gotten lazy and write bad prompts now, I make basic marketing websites for a living, i literally reuse the same prompts over and over, on the same topics, and it’s performance at the same tasks has markedly decreased, still collecting the same 20 dollars from me every month though!

Is this the beginning of AI’s descent into the trough of disillusionment just like 2018 crypto? Whether it be due to OpenAI making changes for safety or cost savings, or increasing pollution of the data set with AI generated data leading to a kind of AI inbreeding, it’s hard to say what’s causing it but I’d love to hear if others have also noticed the same thing.

u/cryptOwOcurrency answers some staking questions

Here’s an expanded and fixed version that should help clarify.

One validator is randomly assigned to propose during a particular 12-second slot.
This validator proposes a block, either generated by them or a relay. (If they don’t propose a block, no one else gets to. The slot is “missed” with no block in it. Because there is only one validator assigned to each slot, there can never be 2 competing blocks. If a single validator proposes more than one block during their assigned slot, they are slashed.)
All nodes, both staking and non-staking, verify for themselves that the block is valid. After verification, they pass the block on to yet more nodes, and so on through the gossip network until every node on the network has a copy of the block.
Other validators attest the block is valid. These votes are counted/aggregated by yet other validators. The block reaches 2/3 votes, and is finalized. These messages echo back through the network, updating staking and non-staking nodes alike as to what the most recent finalized block is.

With this in mind, please rephrase any additional questions you have, and I can do the best to help answer them!

u/Set1Less covers a couple of the newer web 3 wallets

Re-installed Frame wallet to give it a spin, vs my main wallet now Rabby extension. Using both via a Ledger HW Wallet. Embarked on this mainly since another user had mentioned that Rabby was tracking wallet installs, so I wanted to explore another wallet that didnt track users, but still offered the same functions.

As compared with an earlier install, now Frame seems to connect well with most apps. However it still lacks a lot of features .

Rabby is still way more functional for someone like me who makes many txn every day, on multiple chains/L2s. From wallet security perspective, it has inbuilt transaction simulation results which show the changes to your wallet. (example for a dex swap txn it would show 0.1 eth out, 185 usdc in etc…) So you can visualize exactly what your transaction is doing before approving it. Rabby also has many other security features like warnings when interacting with a new contract for the first time, approval limit warnings, inbuilt approval revoke interface etc. Compared to this, Frame seems rather bare bones

On the downside Rabby is clearly tracking users via an identifier number given to each install of the extension, without any opt out. As reported by u/RooftopPortaPotty

The hunt for the best wallet continues. If Frame can add these security features, it would beat Rabby hands down for me

u/LogrisTheBard educates us on the tragedy of the commons

Today I’d like to talk about another tool from Moloch’s Toolbox. This one is like the inverse of first-mover disadvantage and it’s probably the best known pattern of coordination failure. Of course I’m talking about Tragedy of the Commons. Formally, there is a known Pareto Optimum but each actor is free to defect from that strategy and personally profit by doing so at the expense of all other actors. Common outcomes from this coordination failure are things like nature ecosystem collapses from activities like overfishing, market collapses from raced selling into a price inelastic market, and famine.

By this definition, there are many examples of things that are not commonly considered “Commons” that nevertheless fall into this category of problem such as the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma. The “commons” in this case is reduced jail time. In this scenario each actor is free to defect from the optimal solution and snitch to the police and reduce their personal prison time while increasing the total prison time. The net result is all actors inevitably defect and the system collapses to the worst possible value (what is the antonym of Pareto optimum called?).

To correct the incentives you have to change the local calculus of each actor. Recognizing that each actor is likely to locally optimize, you have to add external incentives for complying or external penalties for defecting from the Pareto Optimum. Typical solutions to this problem resemble fail-deadly deterrence systems which admittedly isn’t a source of optimism for humanity. A less seemingly insane variation of this requires that all actors submit to an common arbiter such as a government that makes defecting illegal but this solution breaks down when they don’t share a nationality.

Let’s look at fixing the prisoner’s dilemma as an example. If, prior to the crime, each criminal had to put up a hostage then their local optimum is to risk the longer prison sentence to protect their hostage. They would be willing to do this because they also know this is true of the criminal in the other room so they can rest assured that the other criminal will also comply rather than defect. After they get out of prison with their minimum sentences they can have their hostage back so it ultimately cost them nothing to enter this agreement (the hostage experience notwithstanding).

What I like about this solution is that it can be applied as a layer on top of existing systems without having to otherwise change those systems. For example, the criminals can enter this agreement without changing the dynamics between the criminals and the police and can do so without the consent of the police.

The example above breaks down in two situations:

1) There are actors outside the contract system. In the prisoner’s dilemma, what do the criminals do to secure the cooperation of an outside witness? How do you prevent overfishing from countries that refuse to pass or enforce laws preventing ships from their nation from overfishing?

2) The actors have nothing to use as a hostage.

To address the first case, the hostage you stake has to be something you can weaponize. For example, the criminals could stake a large sum of capital instead of a loved one. As long as the stake can be used to apply negative incentives against external actors somehow, you can use it to fix local incentives. For example, the criminals could make a conditional assassination contract against any witnesses and leak the information about this contract to the witness before they speak to the police or testify in court. This solution can be combined with a dead man’s switch so no active actions are required by the criminals to enforce it.

In the second case, you have to find some kind of negative outcome to enforce. The most common stake-of-last-resort example is the safety or life of the defector. For example, in The Dark Knight, The Joker made each criminal literally implant bombs into themselves. Assuming we can bootstrap reputation systems, reputation is a much saner collateral for less extreme use cases. That’s basically all your credit score is when Visa grants you a credit line without collateral. I like the idea of using reputation collateral better than having to implant oracle controlled bombs into everyone before we would have a chance at fighting climate change in any case.

u/wolfparking shares their RocketPool staking experience

What a day!

After waiting 49 days in the queues (Rocketpool and then Beaconchain) my mini-8s were scheduled to go active online at 1am this morning. During the entire day I checked my logs several times and felt confident everything looked good to go. Set an alarm and I slept right through it. Woke up 2 hours later and logged in to see how things looked. Failure. No attestations. Losing Eth. Fortunately, the friendly people in the Rocketpool discord immediately identified the problem and I was up and running within an hour. Fast forward to just a bit ago and I got a proposal! Not a huge amount, but still my APR is at 42% on one of my minis. Day 1! So tired, but gawdamn I feel like I’ve won a little lottery!

Anyway, no one really here to share this with, except you fantastic people!

u/dentonnn just got hired with a bonus!

Crazy update! I saw an open position on crypto-twitter and messaged for shits and giggles. Got an interview off it, hit off really well…and told the interviewer I am a node operator, read ethfinance, fan of the green pill, and watch youtube videos of MEV.

Few days later…received an offer with a 20% pay rise, a fully remote role, working on blockchain infrastructure!

Just wanna let you all know that I am so grateful for all of you! I absolutely would not have gotten the job without learning from you all, so thank you for this awesome community!

u/Dray11 is finally releasing their new NFT project!

https://www.autominter.com/mint/649c1151c70555000ed2ad58

Just to let everyone know, following on from my initial post the other week, the mint is now live!

All mint proceeds and any subsequent royalties will be donated to charity, which will be decided on by the holders.

Worked super hard on the this for the last few months so just hoping all that effort translates into a good amount being raised and donated to charity

Appreciate anyone who’s able to help

Mint here:

u/T0Bii explains MEV for those who are out of the loop

Not sure if trolling since I’ve seen you around for a while, but just in case someone comes around with no idea of MEV:

MEV = maximum extractable value is the reward a block builder can get by ordering transactions in a way that profit them.

Example: Someone makes a buy transaction on uniswap with up to 5% allowed slippage (bad idea). A bot will see this and create two further transactions. One to buy the same token (increases the price) and one to sell it again.

The the bot will submit a transaction bundle containing their buy transaction (increasing price), the victims buy transaction (increasing price) and their sell transaction (profiting from increased price) in this exact order.

This is called a sandwich attack and will earn them some money.

But other bots will be doing the same thing, so in order to actually be the one included in the block, they’ll also promise some money to whoever builds the block.

The money extracted by the bot and the reward for the validator is called MEV.

There are a lot of different kinds of MEV. Bad MEV like sandwich attacks, “good” MEV like DEX arbitrage which result in efficient markets.

In order to profit from MEV you could a) build a MEV bot (very very high effort) b) solo stake ETH (reasonable effort, high capital investment), buy LSDs like rETH.

This is very simplified, there are a lot of nuances around MEV. Feel free to research proposer-builder separation (PBS) and flashbots.

u/Yeopaa covers a major change in Google Play store policy regarding NFTs

https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/07/12/google-play-changes-policy-on-tokenized-digital-assets-allowing-nfts-in-apps-and-games/

Google Play Changes Policy on Tokenized Digital Assets, Allowing NFTs in Apps and Games

Jul 07, 2023 - Episode #26 | Frisson

Special guest Frisson joins us from Tally, an on-chain DAO framework.

The morning trinity

u/johnnydappeth

Ethereum

u/Yeopaa

$1910

€1761

£1503

0.062

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Indexer in RUST,

Beyond reorgs and their dust,

In good code we trust.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 87.1k, leaving ~100

Entry queue -1700 from yesterday’s number
It will take just over 38 days for the entry queue to clear
In just under 2 and a half days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2025 to 2250.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

I am going camping for the next 3 days, so no updates until the 10th!

Shitpost of the week: u/Tricky_Troll

On this day, 247 years ago, history began. Nothing of importance ever happened before then. Happy 4th July everyone. 🇺🇸

Obviously /s on the first bit

u/cheeky-gorilla reminds us to contribute to the latest clr funding round!

The 9th clr.fund round is open with a $56k matching pool for Ethereum-based public goods!

There’s all sorts of cool projects in there e.g. for stakers (Ethereum on ARM, EthStaker, Stereum, Rhino Review), core protocol development (Protocol Guild, ethers.js), different FOSS (LexDAO chatbot, rotki) and meetups (mainly in Latin America, e.g. Ethereum Lima).

Remember that even a small donation matters! Clr.fund uses quadratic funding to allocate funds from the matching pool to projects, meaning projects with many small donations get more from the matching pool than projects with fewer, larger donations!

18 days left to participate, gas prices are relatively low again so might be a good time to contribute! 🫶

u/Set1Less explains Coinbase's latest move in their lawsuit with the SEC

Dismissal is not realistic right away, but Coinbase still makes compelling arguments.

Mainly centered around the fact that even in 2021 confirmation hearing, Gensler says SEC doesnt have legislative authority to regulate crypto exchanges. Before SEC, even as a professor Gensler has said the same thing many times. Pre- gensler, Hinman speech is cited where SEC indicates even an ICO coin though a security at the time of issuance can eventually become decentralised and no longer a security

Then out of nowhere in 2022, contrary to Genslers own testimony and SEC’s earlier position, the SEC came up with the “come in and register” mandate, that every token is a security, and started suing various exchanges without even once engage in any rule making. All of this without any new law from Congress. Coinbase bring up Major questions Doctrine which means significant unresolved questions are not down to agency interpretation but require actual lawmaking

There is an outside chance that the judge decides to throw SEC’s case out. But even otherwise, I fully expect Coinbase to litigate this to circuit appeal and then to SCOTUS where the SEC is on a much weaker footing and Coinbase can win a lot of key battles

u/Syentist and u/pr0nh0li0 discuss US supreme court cases

u/Syentist:

With today’s Supreme Court decision on the student loan relief plan (which, for the record, I find unfortunate, so spare me the downvotes), it’s extremely likely that the SEC case against Coinbase would be dismissed if it escalated to the supreme court, under their Major Questions Doctrine

The administrative state is being gutted by this Supreme Court, for better or for worse (depending on which side of the aisle your views are). If Gensler had any sense, he would push his party members in Congress to work with the Repubs to have some form of regulations passed, instead of watching the agencies’ jurisidictipm eroded by the courts bit by bit. But political ambitions mask common sense, so no chance of that happening sadly.

Pretty good white paper summarizing and discussing some of the implications here

u/pr0nh0li0:

Lotta big news out of the SCOTUS today but just want to point out something lesser noticed that was just announced that could have big implications for crypto (and a ton of other things for that matter). They announced they would hear Jarkesy v. SEC in the fall session.

It raises a few issues, but one of the most important elements of this case is that the plaintiff alleges that his constitutional right to fair trial was violated, or as the fifth circuit put it when it opined in favor of the plaintiff:

The SEC “often acts as both prosecutor and judge, and its decisions have broad consequences for personal liberty and property” … that “flies in the face of “the Constitution,” which “constrains the SEC’s powers by protecting individual rights and the prerogatives of the other branches of government.”

I actually have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, I think yes, it’s clear the SEC and some other agencies overreach and make some decisions outside of their purview. On the other hand, this could have HUGE implications for all federal agencies, and could make a lot of important federal organizations like the FDA, EPA and FCC pretty toothless. Not to suggest that these institutions are perfect or even particularly good by any means, I just have a fear of how things could look if we neutered them even further and relied on the courts to adjudicate every single violation. No system is perfect but the latter system would be incredibly bogged down and inefficient.

u/oldskool47 wants us all to stick together despite the Reddit drama

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWc5gsU-eeY

My Fellow Ethereans,

I would like to beg every one of you to stick it out here on Reddit. I’m a boomer who doesn’t add value, but I’ll be staying put. I joined Reddit in 2014 to participate in r/bitcoin (lol) and I feel like this is my home, with our family. reddit on the browser, let’s give it a chance? Pretty please?

Signed,

u/oldskool47

Editor’s note: If there’s one thing good waffles do, it’s stick together.

u/shiftli shares a hack to keep 3rd party Reddit apps working on Android

To all Android users who are unsatisfied with the official Reddit app or the RiF hack:

RedReader is a very usable open source Reddit client for Android that got a “non-commercial accessibility exemption” and continues to work for the time being. It’s available on Play Store and also F-Droid, if you prefer to avoid google.

u/Tricky_Troll starts a discussion about the concerning UK online safety bill

Do any Brits want to weigh in on the Online Safety Bill which is getting closer and closer to passing? There’s a good outline of it here if you’re out of the loop: https://proton.me/blog/online-safety-bill

TL;DR:

The Online Safety Bill is currently working its way through the UK parliament, and it’s expected to be passed into law this autumn. This wide-reaching piece of legislation would force any “user-to-user service” (such as TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter) or search engine that’s available online in the UK to protect all its users from illegal content and children from potentially harmful content.

Clause 110 of the Online Safety Bill would allow the UK government to require any “user-to-user service” to use “accredited technology” to identify and remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or terrorist content “whether communicated publicly or privately by means of the service”.

In plain English, clause 110 would give the UK government broad powers that would allow it to require any online service available in the UK to monitor all user-generated content on its platform, including its users’ private messages.

This is a problem for end-to-end encrypted services, which can’t access their users’ content.

While UK lawmakers have stated they don’t want to ban end-to-end encryption, the only ways an end-to-end encrypted service could comply with the bill are:

Remove its end-to-end encryption

Weaken its end-to-end encryption

Install client-side scanning

Cease providing service in the UK

UPDATE March 6, 2023: Removed a reference to the Online Safety Bill applying to “large” companies. In fact, it would apply to companies of all sizes, placing a large technical burden on many medium-sized and small businesses.

I find this extremely concerning. Apps like Signal and WhatsApp have pledged not to weaken their encryption for such legislation and Signal will straight up leave the UK.

Regarding my personal situation, my lovely girlfriend lives in the UK and I am finishing a degree in NZ for the next year. After that, I plan to move to live with her since she isn’t really able to move to NZ in the next few years but long term is a different story. But I genuinely don’t want to move to the UK if this goes in to force and it’s either illegal to use encrypted messaging apps or not possible to privately communicate with Brits. I know that might seem extreme and I realise that it would be naive to assume such legislation would never come to NZ but for now that’s not the case. Plus of course it seems like Apple and Google want to implement client side scanning anyway.

But for me, privacy is a hill worth dying on (well not literally but it’s worth fighting hard for and moving to a quiet place in the middle of nowhere for). The way I see it, you cannot have a free democratic society without privacy. Though there may be a slight caveat for if the surveillance tools involve open source client side scanning with transparent and effective detection software but let’s face it, that’s not how it will be done. There are already too many stories of false positives and cases of guilty until proven innocent and it’s clear that legislators are either too stupid to understand the technical problems with backdooring encryption or are malicious and just want more surveillance.

I’ve got nothing to hide. If you visit me in person you’re more than welcome to go through all of my private messages and emails as long as you’re only looking at them with your own eyes. I genuinely don’t care. But I do care about people being able to hide perfectly normal things if they need to- it’s human nature. Plus, in a democracy, there will be things you need to hide to prevent malicious capture of the government by bad actors. This means privacy is worth it even if it means criminals will hide things too (though they’ll do that regardless of if there is mass surveillance or not- only normal people lose if legislation like this passes).

Am I going insane or is the average Joe too distracted, complacent and/or stupid to realise how big of an issue such legislation is?

Oh, and if you disagree with me, I’d love to hear why. Having strong opinions is pretty stupid if you’re never open to criticism and dissent.

u/ecguy1011 reminds us that it's our last chance to contribute to the KZG ceremony

https://twitter.com/CarlBeek/status/1675839250225405952

“announcing the final round of of contributions to the KZG ceremony.

if you haven’t contributed yet, now’s the time:

the minimum number of transactions has been lowered to 8
the blacklist was just cleared
contribtutions will close 23-07-23”

https://ceremony.ethereum.org/

u/barthib updates us on the debate around the 32 ETH validator limit

There is a disadvantage to this great improvement though: you stop receiving your rewards every 5 days. If you want to extract your yield periodically, you have to unstake and sell and restake regularly.

With all the delays implied, during which you get 0 APR, is it worth compounding? You can already compound by buying rETH or using an exchange, without locking your rewards nor unstaking.

Due to this drawback, will whales and exchanges really use this new system ? I doubt it , so I doubt that the number of validators will significantly decrease (which is the goal).

I’m afraid that we will end up with either rotating validators (the first idea suggested long ago to solve the problem) or a simple onboarding halt at 1M validators: the system stops processing the entry queue which grows and is only advanced each time an active validator exits.

u/bagogel12 has a PSA for anyone affected by the Orbiter Finance discord hack

https://twitter.com/Orbiter_Finance/status/1676478549627371521

Orbiter commits to refund some losses of their discord hack some weeks ago. Probably not a full compensation but something you could get. (I have not checked their discord, am on mobile I assume the tweet is honest and not another scam)

I remember some of this community were victim of the hack. If you remember the name, can we tag them?

u/stablecoin has a reminder for Gnosis chain stakers

https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/releases

Get your Gnosis nodes ready for Shapella (withdrawals)! Happening Aug 1 (UTC) according to Lighthouse.

Priest Witherspoon Latest

Summary This is a low-priority release for Mainnet, Goerli and Sepolia users. >However, this release schedules the Capella upgrade for Gnosis (#4433) on UTC Tue 01/08/2023, 11:34:20, therefore this release is high-priority for Gnosis users.

Jun 30, 2023 - Episode #25 | Gravning Amundsen

Special guest Gravning Amundsen joins us from Firn Protocol, a zero-knowledge privacy platform.

The morning trinity

u/Hocilef

Ethereum

u/OurNumber4

$1888

0.061

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Data location,

The storage destination,

Blockchain in motion.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 93.2k, leaving ~0

Entry queue +800 from yesterday’s number
It will take just over 41 days for the entry queue to clear
In around 7 and a half days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2025 to 2250.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/NeedlerOP

Solana backwards is Anal OS
Cardano logo is literally an anus
SHIB/DOGE - dogs literally have anuses and take shits

I’m a free market kind of guy but these are some real shitcoins

u/bman0920 built an awesome EVMavericks themed game for the buildathon

<https://www.youtube.com/embed/OyyGdpp6UcY?start=2706>

[original comment deleted by user 😢, pls stahp et]

Gameplay preview:

From ZombieBP on Discord:

Hey everyone, if anyone is interested. my EVMavericks Origins level is now live and available to play on Unity Play!

Couple things;

I temporarily removed the Metamask login, I have to fix a couple bugs there on the WebGL build. But I thought I’d launch the game without it so you guys can play now.
This is a demo release. I’m sure there might be a couple bugs or some things might not look right on your screen vs others. If you find any bugs or UI issues in the game, let me know and i’ll fix them and update the game on the next version.
This game isn’t Mobile compatible yet. I haven’t programmed any Mobile controls so if you try to play using your phone right now you’ll probably die in the game and won’t get very far. So please use your Desktop or Laptop to play
I forgot to put a controls section in the game (this is another thing I have to add), but its A = move left, D = Move right or left, right arrow keys and Space bar to jump
Press Enter to skip beginning cutscenes

Have fun, I hope you can beat my level haha. There are exactly 32 Ethereum (in-game) tokens in the game level. See if you can collect them all.

https://play.unity.com/mg/other/webgl-builds-354807

u/Liberosist is watching the piece falling into place

We’re roughly halfway through the journey I described in A Vision of Ethereum - 2025

Running behind schedule, but at the same time, I think the pieces are falling into place. We need better integration of smart wallets across L2s and their apps, and there’s progress being made there. One area where there’s been very little progress in the last couple of years is in the application layer - but that might be OK, even with the existing applications and usecases live or in development there’s plenty to grow as UX improves to what’s described in that post.

u/benido2030 appreciates the hidden talents in this community

You know what’s one of the best part about this community, at least for me? There is not only a lot of knowledge, but also so much talent. I don’t stalk people (really, I don’t… or do I?), but when you follow EVMs on twitter and check their bios… oh my… so many cool projects in the bios, big names etc.

So some time ago I started following this account on twitter, because despite not having an EVM PFP the name sounded familiar. Turns out I was right, it’s u/heyheeyheeey

So they started posting pics and we started DMing, because I love the art. Some posts are about NFTs from another collection, but they started experimenting with generative art themselves and imo they are very very talented. Apparently I am not the only one that loves it and soon (August 7th) heeey will launch their collection “bright” on Art Blocks. Yes, you read that right, Art Blocks.

So, save or buy some ETH cause we are going to mint some jpgs in August. And if we don’t, then I am even happier cause that means heeey’s art was so in demand that they are rich now because of a rather high mint price. In any case just being featured on Art Blocks is a great achievement, so congratz heeey!

Wanna know more and see why I am so exciting? Follow them on twitter or check their new homepage: https://heeey.art/

u/LogrisTheBard reminds us of the long term vision

The most beautiful thing about mankind isn’t his ability to understand the world as it is, it is to imagine the world as it isn’t and shape it. The denizens of the deepest parts of The Rabbit Hole, the areas furthest from common understanding, are dreamers. They can imagine a world where you are in control of your data instead of monopolistic companies, where identity theft is practically impossible, and where your data isn’t monetized and weaponized against you. They can imagine a world where you can contribute to common efforts, at whatever cadence you want, and receive fair rather than predatory compensation by doing so. They can imagine a world where honesty is rewarded, where reputation carries more weight than money on deciding things that matter, and where the best amongst us are elevated and empowered to maximize their potential. They can imagine a world where those harming us are held accountable, where violence is only required as a response to violence, and where there is always a pathway to redemption for those willing. They can imagine a world where coordination seems easy, where the actions of humanity are in alignment with our values, and where we are free to act together to shape the world of our dreams without asking permission to do so.

I can cite specific teams, projects, and people who are imagining all these things and shaping the world in small and large ways to bring their imagination to life. There is technology behind all of these things. It is developing right here, right now, even in the bear market when sentiment is at its lowest. They are making it real as much as they are able to in a largely uncaring and cynical world where every incentive is aligned to enshrine the status quo. In the face of active hatred from the willfully ignorant, in the face of oppression, threats, and violence by the government, the best amongst us are doing these things anyway.

To those of you sticking it out right now after seeing a Tornado Cash dev get locked up without charges for over a year, after seeing the SEC work with SBF but sue Coinbase, and seeing scams proliferate and society turn against you, you are heroes too. The institutions all want us to have to ask permission. They want that so they can say no, grant control to their donors, and protect the status quo. I dislike the status quo; that’s what makes me a dreamer. So I say no thank you to them. This technology cannot be bottled and stolen by Nestle and the like. It cannot be captured by a court order or an unelected bureaucrat somewhere. In the game we are playing, every country has a chance to defect from a strategy of oppression and reap economic rewards for doing so. The impacts of what we are building today will be realized over many generations, but society grows great when people plant trees they will never live to sit in the shade of. So we are dreaming of forests… and planting trees.

u/Papazio is not impressed with a major shortfall of most centralised exchanges

How has no CEX yet enabled a full history statement?!

Coinbase allows you to generate a report of all transactions in a nice pdf with your account details, but cannot include deposits and withdrawals.

Kraken allows you to download a full ledger of all kinds of transactions/deposits/withdrawals etc, but only as a spreadsheet without account details.

Another one I use is similar to Kraken but cannot do a full account history, only up to one year at a time.

How is it so hard for these companies to put together an account statement function that can include all of the above?!

Edit: WOW! Holy fuck the incompetence.

Speaking with Coinbase chat support, they send me a link to a document… a gain/loss report of ANOTHER PERSON’S account! Including their full name and email address. Presumably that person has my details now too. WTAF!

Edit 2: As soon as I pointed out what had happened, the initial customer service agent did not respond and passed me to someone else. The second agent tried to ignore the data breach but eventually said that as far as they could see my data was not shared. They provided some further advice to find my deposit/withdrawal history which entailed logging out of my account… that ended the secure chat (which I suspect was a ploy to get rid of me). So I began another chat with a third agent who looked into the issue and asked for the name of the user’s data I was sent, they then escalated it and I’m awaiting next comms from Coinbase. In the meantime I have contacted a law firm to discuss what’s happened, I’m not normally one to pursue mistakes by customer service agents but this is a serious data breach and it was initially handled extremely poorly.

u/etheraider shares the EVMaverick buildathon results

Buidlathon results are in!

We actually finished with an unprecedented 3-way tie between rETH Skimmer, Lidont, and EVMavericks Origins (the game)! Each project has received a little over 3 ETH each to help build out their vision!

Of course this is just the beginning for these projects, if you are looking to get involved/give input please reach out to the builders!

The entire goal of the competition was to encourage builders to take the leap and build something new and Im happy to say we accomplished that mission!

Congratulations to the winners!

u/Yeopaa explains the difference between EY's "____fall" products

EY’s Starfall responds to privacy concerns on the public blockchain. This transition is enabled by EY’s open-source contributions, Nightfall and Starlight. Nightfall enables confidential transfers of tokens between companies, while Starlight allows enterprises to implement unique business logic on the blockchain; the source code for both is available publicly. In addition, EY announced Starfall, which ties both open-source contributions together. It aligns smart contracts with transactions in Nightfall, enabling a single privacy environment while allowing unique business rules for each relationship. Interestingly, Starfall is proprietary to EY; it’s EY’s secret sauce.

u/Dray11 shares their upcoming charity NFT project 🎨

Hi everyone, can understand if this post maybe ends up being removed but I’ve posted a couple updates here on it during the last few months about a charity motivated project I had been working on; a small collection of NFTs where all proceeds recieved from the mint and subsequent royalties will go towards charities voted on entirely by the holders.

If ok with the Mods and there’s any interest from people in this sub then will post some links for further details on the the mint and the project.

EDIT

Seems to be at least a little interest so adding some details here:

Project name is Duck x Pop

Will be Minting on Polygon via Autominter here on July 10th

You can see more details and a sneak peak of the artwork on twitter here

u/696_eth has the EVMavericks weekly

EVMavericks Weekly #24: June 19-25, 2023

Homepage - EVMavericks Weekly

Twitter Thread

🦁Everything you need to know about the last week in EVMavericks in less than 69.6 seconds 👇

Buidlathon projects were presented, judged on aaaaand… we have ended up with a 3 way tie! Each projects gets 3.06E!
roar-y revamps DAO EVMavreciks Site highlighting EVM milestones and current activity
mtitus6 shares this useful site for those with validators
Ethfinance Weekly Doots #23 with our guest Pablo Villalba from Diva Labs

Security reminder: here’s a few guides

Additionally, if you are in EVMavericks discord, we have a security channel. You can literally mute everything else but that channel and only get notifications from there.

Jun 23, 2023 - Episode #24 | Pablo Villalba

Special guest Pablo Villalba joins us from Diva, a DVT staking protocol.

Jun 16, 2023 - Episode #23 | Kevin Owocki

Special guest Kevin Owocki joins us from Green Pill and Supermodular.

The morning trinity

u/0xBOBA

Ethereum

u/Yeopaa

£1304

0.065

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Cypher punks in Prague,

Defending the crypto flag,

Pride is in the bag.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 93.5k, leaving 0

Entry queue -1200 from yesterday’s number
It will take around 43 and a half days for the entry queue to clear
In just under 20 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2025 to 2250.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: u/Bob-Rossi

Job sends email about no longer having the option of being full remote.

“Ahh, time to retire. Surely all that ETH I bought 7 years ago will cover it.”

Opens Coingecko

“Ahh, time to call a therapist.”

u/hanniabu keeps building awesome things for us

PSA

https://ethfinance.org/ now redirects to the current daily thread.

For the new reddit design, you can use https://new.ethfinance.org/, but it doesn’t work on mobile because of a bug that incompetent reddit hasn’t fixed yet.

Why?

It’s convenient because the daily thread is where the action is but the link is different every day (u/superphiz will always be on the right page now)
If the community ends up moving to another platform due to these Reddit changes, you’ll be able to find out where we are from this URL
If we eventually end up going with a protocol-based solution, this URL can serve as a directory for the various frontend options

u/the_swingman assesses Ethereum's security-ness

While I believe most of us here already deduce that Ethereum is not a security. I’ll share some of my thoughts and thought process on the matter.. sorry in advance if this is a bit scattered and long..

Ethereum is in a constant state of evolution. Sounds obvious to us, but that concept probably isn’t so obvious to people not as well versed in the functionality of Ethereum. When I say this, I am thinking of a court room full of jurors, lawyers, a judge, etc. I am thinking about law makers, house of representatives and the senate; congress. Just listening in on recent hearings lets us know that there are a lot of people in powerful positions who are either un/ill informed or just flat out have a different agenda when it comes to cryptocurrency, let alone Ethereum. Etheruems’ constant state of evolution is important to note because while I believe Ethereum can get close to a final form, even then, there will be new frontiers and boundaries that I think Ethereum can explore and expand on to.

Each stage of evolution in Ethereum has attracted different collectives of people. In the beginning, the idea of Ethereum in its simplest form, thought to be a programable Bitcoin-like entity; a decentralized smart contract platform that extended the capabilities of blockchain technology. If you read Vitaliks whitepaper, a lot of eye opening ideas were conceptualized, and the first question on your mind if you wanted to be involved/interreact was, how do I acquire some Ethereum. In the early groups of Ethereum enthusiasts, you had builders/creators, investor/speculators, researchers and general crypto enthusiasts who saw that whitepaper as groundbreaking.

I don’t believe it was as black and white as:

  A. I am an investor. 
  
  B. I invest to make money. 
  
  C. If I invest in Ethereum, I expect to make a profit.

The intial ICO wasn’t a VC pitch, or promoted to a room full of investors with the promise of profit. It was however, a way to start funding projects on this new platform in exchange for giving people a way to interact with the network/platform by holding/using ETH as well as the potential for growth in value.

Society/Capitalism would argue that a profit expectation was present, especially if you were to compare the scenario to Bitcoin and Bitcoins historical growth in value at the time. While that may be inherent, it would be very difficult to prove that expectation as an absolute.

Eventually, when a court is deciding on how to classify ETH, and the court is reviewing the intital allocations of Ethereum and the intent behind those allocations, although probably more centralized in nature than we’d all prefer it to have been, I believe there will be enough transparancy to make strong arguements against the criteria of the howey test. Especially if the current environment of Ethereum is to be considered.

With all of the latest developments of Ethereum; Defi, NFTs, DApps, DAOs, Tokenization/Crowdfunding, Supply Chain Management, Web3, etc. Todays Ethereum attracts a new collective of people, while fulfilling the initial vision of Ethereum. I personally know people who are indirectly involved with Ethereum and didn’t purchase ETH with an expectation of direct profit, but were more interested in acquiring a loan or an NFT. Point is, there is a rather large and expanding ecosystem and community in Ethereum, one that makes the ETH token a utility in order to move about/participate within said ecosystem and community. As Ethereum continues to scale and more dApps and use cases come to surface, it will be increasingly difficult to classify Ethereum as a security.

Basic principles of that would signal a non security are: Ethereum has always prioritized decentralization and is decentralized. Ethereum has always been developed open-source and has been community driven and the ETH token was primarily designed as a utility token to interact with smart contracts and is still used that way today.

The regulators can try to apply old tests and laws to Ethereum, but I believe the outcome will be adapted tests and perhaps new laws likely favorable to Ethereum. I am as much an investor as I am someone who just uses Ethereum for utility at this point. I have open defi loans, I have NFTs, I have contributed to DAOs and use dApps. These law suits were a long time coming (it seems like the markets feel this way too) and my (our) real hope we end up with actual framework and clarity with path forward for innovation in the US and to finally be rid of regulation by enforcement that triggers these nasty FUD headlines.

@Kbrot welcomes us to Kbin

Hi all and welcome to kbin and m/ethfinance, our temporary-and-maybe-someday-more home while reddit learns its lesson.

I didn’t get a chance to reply to everyone in the previous thread, but I did read. Please feel free to ask me any questions about kbin, Lemmy, the fediverse, and I’ll try to answer. I’ve spent quite a few days now exploring it. I also encourage fediverse users to chime in, whether it’s from Mastodon experience or somewhere else.

The dev (@ernest@kbin.social) is lovely, responsive, and working hard right now. Feel free to chip in with suggestions at m/kbinmeta or if you have web dev experience, maybe consider reaching out directly to help.

No doubt you’re all noticing kbin is slow. It’s good to remember that the beauty of federated (decentralized) servers is also in the initial brutality. Servers can be run by anyone (great!) but servers must be run by someone (oof). Ernest is one guy, spinning up a server for refugees of a global conglomerate. It’s partly why I tried – and will keep trying – to open a server of our own.

I’d encourage everyone to have a little patience, be extra kind and gracious, and at worst, take a little time away from the screen if it’s crawling. They’re planning a large infrastructure change next week. In the meantime, try to enjoy the brave new world here. We haven’t had a truly “new” website to explore in many years. It’s kinda exciting!

Now back to the memes, lines, and triangles.

@Chromes takes decentralization seriously and is now a solo staker!

Checking in after my post about taking the plunge the other day. Spun up my validator and deposited. Took me, in total, about 10 hours (yes, really). I’m “Pending” on beaconcha.in.

I wrote down a lot of what I felt and did while trying to get it all together. I’m still kind of shell-shocked by the whole experience and I’m sure I’ll talk a lot more about it later. What I’ll say for now is that even the “for dummies” version of setting up a validator is significantly more intimidating and intense than most people think it is.

I’m proud of myself for (hopefully) successfully doing it, but even doing it on easy mode (dappnode) had a lot of issues, things that I didn’t fully understand, or things that almost had me giving up (I gave up about 3 times and then went right back to it after 5 minutes of having given up).

To be absolutely clear, that’s no one’s fault but mine. I’m absolutely tech illiterate, but, sadly, I’m actually probably more tech-y than most people. So I do think we have a long way to go before this sort of thing becomes something non-tech can just pick up and do. Things that I think most here take for granted are very scary or even indecipherable to someone like me.

That actually brings me to something that this whole reddit fiasco has me thinking about. One of the great strengths of crypto and eth in particular is the layer 0 stuff. It leads to great communities like this or Ethstaker. We have Reddits and Discords which are filled with people willing and eager to help. The problem is that it seems like it may have led to less focus on delivering a user-manual that makes sense to a new user who has no idea what they’re doing. Communities are great for fixing problems, but it seems like we rely on a nebulous social network to teach the basics. Even the best guides I found seemed to assume a lot of knowledge and I generally had 3-5 “1 stop shop” guides open at once as I did this.

The good thing with how tough it was was that, if everything works out and I start validating in a month and a half (thanks Celsius), I’ll really feel like I earned it.

@minimalgravitas calls out Ripple exec on misleading through omission

https://twitter.com/s_alderoty/status/1668601236344692737

An incredibly simple example of how to mislead by omission…

A Tweet by Stuart Alderoty, Chief Legal Officer at Ripple.

10/ On June 4, Hinman wrote that he didn’t see a “need to regulate ETH as a security” and would call Buterin later that week to confirm “our understanding.”

Emphasis is added by me, because that section is one of the things causing the XRP bagholders to tweet about ‘#ETHGate’.

It is clearly written to imply a shady agreement between Hinman and Buterin. However, in context the quote from the e-mail reads:

We also have a call with Buterin later this week to confirm our understanding of how the Ethereum Foundation operates.

So what this bellend is insinuating indicates some dodgy deal, is actually just a reference to a call checking some information.

I really do hate the way spreading disinfo is seen as a perfectly acceptable tactic by assholes to get what they want. If you don’t strive for truth then you do not deserve to have people listen to you, but so many people don’t really want truth, they just want feel special for knowing about a conspiracy and to believe things that will pump their bags.

@kingleo23 is glad the Prometheum nonsense got called out in the US house hearing

https://twitter.com/AlexanderGrieve/status/1668764481252478979

Glad the Prometheum nonsense got called out in the hearing today.

https://twitter.com/EugeneProko/status/1668745089164935168

Quite obviously a live action role play exercise

https://twitter.com/SGJohnsson/status/1668747275550740482

u/busterrulezzz reminds us of some of the good things Reddit has done for web 3

I get all the drama around Reddit API, but I want to point out something : so far, Reddit is by far the social network that is the most crypto-friendly. They onboarded millions of normies eith their Vault, community tokens and Digital Collectibles.

Just something to keep in mind while our community ponder its options.

u/PhiMarHal has your daily hit of hopium

I got your hopium, fam.

Tech is more solid than ever. Rollups make great strides, each in their own direction. Transactions get cheaper, design space extends.

AI is complementary with crypto. AI is the content engine. Crypto is the curation engine. An abundance, an infinity of content makes curating this content for relevance that much more important.

Innovation is happening at the app layer. Uniswap v4 was announced yesterday. Autonomous worlds is picking up as a concept.

We are right where we were in 2019. With everyone declaring crypto dead, and usecases “nobody” expected about to mature in a couple of years.

In a vacuum, I would add that however, we can’t be sure this will be reflected in the price as the last ATH went quite high. But this is where the real hopium shot comes in: great future multipliers are forged in the despair of many. When perception hits maximum pain while reality speaks of fundamental soundness still, those are the times of asymmetric opportunities.

In the end I’m just another wanker on the Internet, but I bought ETH today. I wasn’t a buyer for the past 3 months. This is financial advice.

u/Dysus1 keeps us in the US regulatory loop

For those who missed it…regarding Crypto Clarity in the US:

Hearing Entitled: The Future of Digital Assets: Providing Clarity for the Digital Asset Ecosystem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr9GD8hdD_U) Opening Statements occur at -Time Stamp: 41:39.

Some observed discussion points I found of interest:

The numerous times that stable coin legislation was mentioned and the importance, for the US Dollar to maintain its dominance as the world’s reserve currency.
New consumer protection of imposed Individual Blockchain investment limits of approx. 5% of Net Income.
Rules for Categorization of Blockchain projects for the purpose of Jurisdiction for SEC or CFTC, with a grace period for projects to become decentralized
Mr. Foster’s comments regarding ongoing “Classified Briefings” -Time Stamp: 3:15:32
Regarding the testimony of Mr. Kaplan, Co-CEO of Prometheum, an SEC approved exchange. It became obvious that he represented the Crony System (Supported by GG and a certain political party affiliation). It was interesting that certain members read perfectly scripted questions…that allowed for perfectly scripted answers. Which were undone by the following (note the body language): (5 min. each)
1. Mr. Luetkemeyer -Time Stamp: 2:00:43.
2. Mr. Loudermilk -Time Stamp: 2:42:40.
3. Mr. Norman -Time Stamp: 4:37:21.

Jun 09, 2023 - Episode #22 | Matt Finestone

Special guest Matt Finestone joins us from Taiko.xyz, a decentralized and Ethereum-equivalent ZK-Rollup.

The morning trinity

u/Hocilef

Ethereum

u/maninthecryptosuit

$1838

0.069

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Go after Binance,

Stomp down when you do your dance,

Lead to no advance.

The Queue: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 96k leaving ~100

-Entry queue +900 from yesterday’s number - New entry queue ATH. -It will take just over 45 day and a half days for the entry queue to clear -In just under 24 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2025 to 2250.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

This can also be tracked via https://validatorqueue.com/

Shitpost of the week: MinimalGravitas

Oh dear gang, with all the drama around Binance and the price crashing we’re seeing a big spike in stakers pulling out their validators. The exit queue is up to 8 minutes!

u/nixorokish has an important PSA for stakers

https://paragraph.xyz/@ethstaker/execution-client-diversity

EthStaker published a blog post to do a call to action for execution client diversity - Nethermind and Besu are ready for adoption in home operators but also for large scale staking operations as yorickdowne, who’s part of EthStaker, notes with his setup testing for Cryptomanufaktur.

Geth controls ~87% of the network right now a bug would be a catastrophic situation - say a bug happened where Geth produced an invalid block - most validators would follow it and we’d have to resort to one of three choices at the social layer:

Penalize and slash 87% of validators
Exit 87% of validators
Go with an invalid chain

Any option we chose would shake people’s faith in the immutability of Ethereum. The first one would be a massive amount of capital loss. And this is just one of three types of bugs - the most unlikely type of a bug, a double-signing event caused by a bug in Geth, would cause a total slash of 87% of validators. I mean all of it, people running Geth would lose their entire stake.

Super unlikely bugs but we’re ready for it and I’m sure that Geth is ready for the people to take the pressure off of them!

u/alexiskef dissects the fake Orbiter Finance airdrop

🕵🏻 Dissecting the FAKE Orbiter “Airdrop” announcement that u/Dreth warned everyone about earlier on:

🚨 “Due to major success of our “Orbiter Pilots NFT Series”, we have decided to launch our token $ORB” ☠️

👉 Grammatically wrong: Missing “the”.. As in: “due to THE major success”

👉 Logically wrong: Why would a company suddenly “decide” to launch an airdrop based on the success (?) of an NFT Series?

🚨 *“We will be giving away 5,000,000 $ORB tokens, which will be distributed to anyone who claims from June 1st - June 3rd”*☠️

👉 when announcing Airdrops, legit projects release extensive information on their token allocation. Usually multiple pages long, filled with all kinds of relevant information. NOT just a plain number..

👉 .. and they don’t distribute their token to.. “anyone who claims..”

🚨 “There is only a limited amount of token so act fast!” ☠️

👉 here they try to create a sense of urgency, to make you act before you think, before you notice all these red flags.. Also, notice the spelling mistake (token instead of tokens)

🚨 “Those who receive the tokens will be whitelisted to use our newest staking feature” ☠️

👉 here they are baiting (“whitelisted”) you again, trying to shift your attention from all the red flags by promising “new products” that can give you with extra yield/rewards..

🚨 “Any gas spent on claiming the tokens will be refunded via Orbiter Finance’s Smart Contract” ☠️

👉 in other words: “Don’t worry about high Gas!! Go one and claim NOW!! We’ll refund everything!!”. I.e. don’t wait, don’t look further into the legitimacy of this! Go ahead and hastily ignore any sense of “danger”, and sigh these txs NOW!

🚨 Claim $ORB here: https://orbiter DOT pm/ ☠️

👉 DOT PM? Using the “orbiter” brand to lure you into a fake sense of security. But dot pm? WTF is that??

🚨 PILOTS! Our distribution is now 77% claimed 🛸 ☠️

👉 the number keeps “going up”.. First 66%, then 77%, and so on.. QUICK, ACT FAST (AND DON’T STOP TO THINK) TOKENS ARE RUNNING OUT!!

u/Ethical-trade has made a proper document on the dire Lido situation

Thanks a bunch for signaling your support to prevent Lido from harming Ethereum’s decentralization yesterday. I’m glad to see that this problem is as important to you as it is to me.

I’ve gathered all the information we’ve shared so far in a google document that automod prevents me from sharing, so here’s a pdf.

Feel free to add comments wherever needed and let’s start fighting for this.

Edit: I also tweeted the doc with a new hashtag: #Lidont which has its own logo in the doc.

The document contains quotes from u/hanniabu u/etherenum u/MinimalGravitas

u/stablecoin educates us on Gnosis Chain validators

https://someresat.medium.com

Have to give my public support for Gnosis chain after a few posters recommended I run a node on my spare staking PC.

You can spin up a validating node with just 1 $GNO token. It’s the base token for the network collateral /staking, but funnily enough you need xDAI to pay fees so make sure to also transfer in $1.0 in dai to your deposit address.

You can stake like a whale too if you wanted, for about $7500 you can run 64 nodes that’ll probably net you 10-20 block rewards per day. Yield is around 16% which is just high inflation rewards, and so far there’s nothing in block rewards because tx are too cheap and there’s no MEV boost I don’t think. Gnosis Chain also hasn’t had their withdrawal fork yet so your locking up a little bit longer than ETH right now, but there’s no entrance queue either to earning.

The reason for the recommended is it uses the same software clients as ETH (geth, nethermind, lighthouse, prysm, maybe a few others now but not all are supported just yet). It’s literally a mini-me ETH network with its consensus and execution separated, using the same software clients you just select the Gnosis chain in your startup flags. I used Somer Esat guides to do all this, and just cross referenced the official setup guide from the Gnosis website (below).

If you are curious about staking at home, or looking to enhance your own Etherum node operating skills, running a Gnosis node is like training or studying using real money. For me that always forces me to take it seriously and even enjoy the process more, in addition to leveling up my own skills. You just get a good a feel for how the clients interact with eachother, and also how well your node links up to the network and other nodes. If you really mess up, then you are only out $116 per node rather than $60k. Plus, you are helping to decentralize transactions on a low cost Etherum aligned EVM sidechain. This further broadens the reach of EVM smart contract developers and gives you something constructive to do during 🦀 szn.

https://www.gnosis.io

u/T0Bii covers the Reddit API pricing drama

Ya’ll probably already heard about the reddit api pricing drama, but for those who didn’t: Reddit is getting greedy and is going to charge a ridiculous amount of money for the use of their API, thereby driving third party clients out of business.

There’s not much information about who will have to pay for what etc., but assuming that every API request will have to be paid for, this is the calculation I’m making for the u/nitter_not_twitter bot:

I’m currently checking the subreddit 6x per minute. I could reduce this to something like once every 5 minutes and I suppose it would still provide a good UX.

That’d be 12 requests per hour, 288 per day and 8640 per month.
The bot answered 170x in the past month as well so we’re at 8810 requests per month, or ~106k requests a year.
According to what we know, reddit wants to charge $12k for 50 million requests. That’s $0.00024 per request or ~$25 for the 106k/year.

25$/year for running a very small bot at 12 checks per hour instead of the current 360 checks per hour (which would be insanely costly).

I can afford that without a problem, assuming reddit will offer packages that small and at the same price.

But this still shows how insane the API pricing is.

Without 3rd party apps I’ll not be here as often as I currently am and this might be true for a lot of people here as well.

Maybe we should also think about joining the prostest: https://reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/13yh0jf/dont_let_reddit_kill_3rd_party_apps/ Here’s a list of already participating subreddits: https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/1401qw5/incomplete_and_growing_list_of_participating/

u/KBrot sets up an awesome Reddit alternative for us!

Alright, well here ya go. Our own little reddit alternative.

Welcome to EVM Lemmy. Our home away from home when we take down reddit on the 12th.

See below, then… Play around. Make some shit. Post some shit. I’ll polish it up as we go.

Remember I’ve never admin’d a site in my life so… Anything and everything is subject to me trying to fix an issue and accidentally deleting all our data so… yeah, screenshot anything important anyone says.

SOME. CAVEATS.

Obviously, you’ll notice it’s on http only not https. Because I can’t get the damn SSL cert to work. So, NO serious info should be entered here beyond your usual junk email and a junk password. It’s PROBABLY just me with access to the data but like, idfk, it’s http, trust nothing. Please just meme around and try to break the site, and skip entering your banking information and private keys.

Then if anyone can kindly explain why the http://url works in every browser of mine EXCEPT my main Brave browser, I’d appreciate it. Edge is fine. Firefox is fine. In fact, I can access it in a Brave Private window, just not the main. Why? What setting is on blocking http? Hell, I can even do it from Brave on my phone, same wifi network and pihole DNS and everything. Confused, I am.

And it’s also not actually federated because it’s 99% me not being able to figure it out yet and 1% apparently there’s some outbound DNS issue with Lemmy instances the devs are working on. Idk.

tl;dr servers are hard. yall need to be paid more.

Cheers.

UPDATE:

Despite the best efforts of fellow redditors, I have to call it quits for now on the Lemmy instance. I’m just not smart enough. Perhaps I’ll return to it.

In the meantime, please find our ethfinance alternative at https://kbin.social/m/ethfinance. It’s all set up and ready to go, and it’s federated. Think of Kbin as the scrappy newcomer ProtonMail to Lemmy’s Gmail.

I’ll leave it at that on here, but I’m happy to help people tour the fediverse in the Daily on Kbin. We’ll waive the “on topic” rule for a few days so folks can acclimate.

u/austonst shares a recent EthResearch post about beaconchain security

Increase the MAX_EFFECTIVE_BALANCE – a modest proposal

New ethresear.ch post by mike neuder, francesco d’amato, aditya asgaonkar, and justin drake.

Also see their notes on security.

Summarizing briefly, this change would keep the 32 ETH minimum for a validator, but increase the maximum by some factor (possibly 64x to a max of 2048 ETH). Probability of selection for various duties e.g. sync committee would be weighted based on balance. Operators running multiple validators would not have them aggregated forcibly, but could opt in to have their validators merged.

The authors argue the following benefits:

BLS signature aggregation is a big part of the consensus protocol. Producing, verifying, and aggregating signatures for the various committees leads to some significant compute overhead which could be reduced with fewer, larger validators.
Current proposals for single-slot finality (SSF) depend on aggregating signatures from every validator every slot. Reducing the validator set size, and with it the number of signatures needed, would reduce the computational cost of doing so, speeding up SSF development.
SSF is a prerequisite for in-protocol proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and MEV burn, so reducing the validator set size helps speed those along too.
Anyone with stake below the maximum will have their consensus-layer rewards auto-compound, as the increased validator balance smoothly leads to higher attestation rewards and proposal chances. The current lack of this is a big downside to solo staking compared to staking pools.
Partial withdrawals incur a large withdrawal load every epoch. If validators switch to the larger cap with auto-compounding, there will be 1) fewer validators in total to process partial withdrawals for, and 2) many who stay below the upper limit and don’t need regular partial withdrawals in the first place. Ultimately reduces withdrawal queue length.

As with any protocol design choice, there are some tradeoffs involved. Already a couple of good criticisms in the replies which are worth a read.

u/haurog is feeling quite positive on Ethereum

I am feeling quite positive on ETH and Ethereum:

The most powerful government in the world goes on a full frontal attack on the largest centralized exchange in the world and the overall crypto market cap drops by less than 5% and is now down only 3.5%. Price fluctuation wise, this is just a normal day in crypto. It looks like most people who are non-believers or are over-invested left or reduced their investment.
Every time the SEC does not call ETH a security it will get harder to claim it being one later on. Kind of like a Lindy effect.
Many alt L1 coins have been called a security now. I would prefer if the various approaches to building a modern blockchain would compete on a technical level and not a government restricting new entrants in the space by relative arbitrary and archaic regulations. But all in all this is positive for Ethereum, as I think the number of new “Ethereum killer” VC chains will go down.
Making it harder for newer chains to do an ICO could end up being extremely positive for ETH as projects will think hard on how to secure their chain and probably a rollup settling on Ethereum using ETH as the payment token will be the way to go for many of them.
For other non-rollup type projects they will have to find a way to secure their project without issuing tokens. Here comes Eigenlayer, which again uses Ethereum.

These are uncertain times, I have no idea which branch of the US government lashes out and attacks crypto next, but I am just feeling positive about the non-reaction of the market and the future ahead for Ethereum.

u/kainzilla speculates on the SEC's plan

This isn’t designed to be FUD, but rather to be realistic about what I expect to happen. Just to be clear, I expect this plan to fail at some stage along the way, because I think they let it run too long and it’s likely no longer stoppable:

The SEC is not governing in good faith, they’re definitely orchestrating an attack on crypto. It’s real easy to see “attacks” where attacks don’t exist, but watching the SEC chief do everything possible to not define Ethereum as a commodity or a security during the congressional hearings made it extremely obvious that they’re acting with intent.
With the fact that they’re acting with intent in mind, consider the recent lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, specifically the parts regarding securities: some in here believed that it was a positive sign that Ethereum wasn’t named. It is not.
The SEC’s problem is that if they try to get Ethereum declared a security right now, they’re very likely to lose that lawsuit. Their game plan in this case is to go after other coins - especially ones that are in fact much closer to a security, and after securing a win on these, they intend to try to use that to nail Ethereum next. That’s the only reason Ethereum wasn’t included in the list, is due to prior SEC comments and actions regarding it. As soon as they lock in any victories on similar assets, they will try to use this as support for attacking Ethereum.
Bitcoin users aren’t safe either. I’m pretty sure an additional facet of this plan is that any coins (including Bitcoin) that use Proof-of-Work mechanisms will be targeted by “green / environmental” legislation designed to shut them down / make mining them illegal. They can’t attack those via the SEC, so they’re going to try co-opting environmental legislation to shut this side down. With these two prongs, both Proof of Stake and Proof of Work assets will both be covered. Although I’m pretty sure this will be an aspect of the attack plan, I don’t know if it will run concurrently with the SEC attacks above, or if they’ll wait until it’s known if those will succeed.
While these plans are in motion, they will continue to attack exchanges in any way they can - “protecting” consumers by making accessing exchanges harder or more onerous, legislation to make self-custody illegal, etc. We’ve seen a few older and smaller US-servicing exchanges get shut down over the last year, and I expect them to start attacking Kraken and Gemini soon as well.

It’s crystal clear they’re working towards an agenda to shut down crypto as a whole. Tbh I don’t give a shit if it’s because “hur dur global banking cabal” or “oh fuck the USD is going to collapse if we don’t try to shut this down” or “I’m old and fucking stupid and I hate this cryptkeeper blogchain technology”, because the reasons are irrelevant; just know that they’re working with a coordinated plan here and Ethereum is on the hit list. Be realistic about the struggles that are coming.

u/696_eth reflects on a one year old ratio reminder

A few weeks ago I received a reminder to my sale of majority of my BTC to ETH.

At that time in 2022, btc - $30k, eth - $2000, ray - 0.067.

2023 prices, btc - $26k, eth - $1800, ray - 0.067.

So was that decision good for me and my future?

Some quick reflections combined with guesses-predictions on how things might turn out.

Due to prices and ratios being really similar, the trade has ended up being neutral. However, there’s taxes, hence I ended up loosing like 20%ish and it will probably end up being around 30-35% long term.
So one of the cool things for me right now is that I can borrow against my assets on Ethereum, even my ENS digits! I couldn’t do that on Bitcoin, I would have needed to wrap it which would’ve been a tax event, so while it was possible, it was not practical. Borrowing my end up saving me 5-10% long term, we’ll see.
On top of my Ethereum assets. I have an option to get yield now. The yield is really crucial because it means I have an option of getting something without sacrificing my stack and cashing out.
This leads me to my next point. My latest variation of the initial crypto plan was to cashout into USD or stocks, just away from the bitcoin, cause I needed to have money somehow to pay for stuff. They were not many bitcoin developments. Yes, it started being accepted here and there, mostly digitally. Anyways, that’s not the point. But the most useful use case to me was being able to send money quick and fast and relatively cheaply.
Well, now I don’t have to live. Quite on the opposite. It has also been cool cause there’s so many things going in the Ethereum ecosystem or around it. I’m sure waaaay more people used Ethereum than Bitcoin.
There’s actually something here than just pure money and just waiting for the next halving and next bull run in hopes of more money. In the years before, I actually had people IRL ask me ‘why would they buy Bitcoin and what utility it had?’. And for the decent amount of recent years, bitcoin community’s proposition wasn’t for P2P, which initially was soo cool for me, but more just to hodl this to have more money and that’s it lol.
This bear market has the most fun. Somewhat stressful too compared to other ones where you just zone out cause there was not much going in btc. But yeah, it’s pretty cool. I get to learn a lot and try out things I wanted to do in my life before. For example, I wanted to write before but I didn’t like college essays cause of word limit bs. I wanted to write but I didnt really know where to put ‘writing’ into my life, I did write a few things here and there, mostly psychology and mental health related but that’s about it. And since becoming involved in the communities here and in the ecosystem, I can do some writing and it works for me. And there’s so much room for growth too.

It’s getting pretty long and my flow is a bit off so here’s a few btc related takes.

I’m really interested seeing what happens when for the first time after halving when btc doesn’t hit new ATH. It would be a heavy downfall to many holders, I don’t think it will go to 0 but I think the main narrative of up only being broken would be a hard pill to swallow.
Prob one of the hottest hot takes: I think btc doesn’t hit $100k next bull run. But my takes are not know to be correct😅

And if you made it till here, here’s my last important point.

I’ve been trying to figure out the differences between my experiences within bitcoin and ethereum communities. To me it was mostly coming down to some social related movements. For example, seeing snippets of btc conferences during 2021 was so criiinge that I didn’t wanna be related with that sorta people in any way. On the other hand, there’s so many builders, artists, creators, degens and users in Ethereum that I resonate with. It’s kinda funny but I met some people who are still not a fan of Ethereum yet they work on some projects that are built on Ethereum and contribute to the ecosystem. I mean they can hold whatever assets they want but if they are spending their energy contributing to this ecosystem rather than contributing to the ecosystem the asset they believe of - maybe it says something. So I was looking for a short simple and best way to describe this whole social thing to start quantifying it someway so I can communicate with people better and pass on my excitement and passion about the space and I have realized that the term already exists - Layer Zero. That social layer. It’s the actual difference that drives things here, creates collaboration and unity rather than division.

I’m going to end this here, thanks for coming to my imperfect TED Talk.

All the best,

696.eth

Jun 02, 2023 - Episode #21 | Brendan Shakeshaft and Joe Van Loon

Special guest Brendan Shakeshaft and Joe Van Loon joins us from Auditware, a smart contract audit and security tooling platform.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1,889.56

0.0696

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Trustless sequencing,

Let data compression sing,

Rollups be dancing.

Queue update: u/Spacesider

https://validatorqueue.com/

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 78.5k, leaving ~10

Entry queue +1700 from yesterday’s number - New entry queue ATH.
It will take around 38 days for the entry queue to clear
In under 28 days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 2025 to 2250.

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

Shitpost of the week: u/IlIIIlIlII

Volatility so dead I don’t even have any memes to post.

u/o-l-o explains how a Trezor randomly generates a seed phrase

With trezor, you can read through their code and understand how they generate seeds.

Someone has already done this: https://medium.com/@brandonarvanaghi/analyzing-trezor-firmware-mnemonic-seed-generation-for-bitcoin-and-ethereum-4b03fbaad24d

You’ll notice that that article calls out that the default ‘random32’ isn’t suitable for production (and the code itself wanes you of this), so you’ll need to find out where Trezor implements ‘random32’. This is my first time looking through their code and it seems that the insecure implementation is the default implementation in their firmware, but I assume they replace that somewhere. Perhaps someone more familiar can point us to the newest RNG code because THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT TO CLEAR UP.

They do have a legacy firmware that has its own ‘random32’ implementation: https://github.com/trezor/trezor-firmware/blob/92045275fb79e532a5b9a86732c1b3206ef3bba4/legacy/rng.c#L27

You’ll notice that that code uses a few “RNG_” variables to produce it’s number, so the next step is to find out what those are.

We know that Trezor uses a Cortex-m4 Arm chip, and this is C code, so we can look at the chip datashet to understand what those do, or we can cheat and look at OpenCM docs: https://libopencm3.org/docs/latest/stm32f2/html/group__rng__file.html

You’d also want to go to the datasheet for the STM32F205xx to see that it has a “true random generator” hardware module.

That all looks really good, and I’ve heard that the modern Trezor firmware also includes static ram and host device data into it’s RNG, but I’m not familiar enough with their code to hunt that down at the moment.

u/Itswhatevermannn shares the cool new project that have been building

Hey guys, lurker here who’s been working on a project in his free time: https://betonchain.gg/

To keep it brief, I started out running a Chainlink node, deploying jobs and a consumer to update odds and game results data from an API I wrote to aggregate results and odds across various bookies. Eventually the goal became to offer the most competitive betting experience in terms of odds, privacy and transparency, while decentralizing the bookmaker by sourcing house liquidity from a community which receives house profits back. Soon after launch I aim to add support for futures and integrate player friendly tools such as contracts for auto-hedging parlays.

The platform is currently on Sepolia, if anyone is interested in testing the DApp please drop an address and I can send over some test USDC/USDT/DAI to place bets with. Hopefully there’s not too many bugs! I am considering launching polygonzkEVM but not sure yet.

Appreciate any feedback from you fine gents and ladies!

PS: If anyone has insight into raising funds, please let me know, hope to make this my full time job. Thanks again!

u/asus_wtf has the China news and it's not a ban?!

https://www.theblock.co/post/232404/beijing-web3-white-paper

Beijing releases white paper for web3 innovation and development

“…Dubbed the “Web3 Innovation and Development White Paper (2023),” the document states that web3 technology is an “inevitable trend for future Internet industry development,”…”

“The commission aims to construct Beijing as a global innovation hub for the digital economy.”

“ The white paper reportedly states that Beijing aims to strengthen policy support and accelerate technological breakthroughs to promote the web3 industry.”

u/superphiz thinks we are hitting a staking inflection point

I think we’re hitting an inflection point where staking is the “cool” thing to do with Ether. Lots of folks predicted that this would happen but no one really knew when. I’m basing this on two factors:

The deposit queue is growing at an accelerating rate despite long wait times.
The price of Eth is beginning to inch up against the flow of other assets.

The logical interpretation of this is that the supply squeeze delivered by staking & burning is finally upon us.

Does this mean Ethereum is successful?

Nope. Not even close. We saw something similar happen with Dash in 2018 (dash spiked when their staking program reached critical mass), but Dash couldn’t keep the gains. The only way Ether will lock in this success is if we build valuable products on top of a credibly neutral and decentralized network. If you’re hearing this, but not acting on it, you’re a bad puppy 😜

u/busterrulezzz experiences the Bitcoin BRC-20 and Ordinals user experience

I took a deep breath and tipped my toes into Ordinals and BRC-20 yesterday. UX is terrible, it took 12 hours (!) to process my bridging transaction from BTC mainnet to Stacks, and depositing into my trading wallet took about 10 minutes. It’s a very, very long time when you’re used to Ethereum. Xverse wallet is even worse than MetaMask in terms of showing human-readable information, and all swaps are done either via order books or P2P bulk sales.

The experience is not welcoming for a newcomer. I’ve been doing DeFi daily for the last 2 years, and I had to look around for hours before I was comfortable enough to do a transaction.

However, I think BRC-20s and Ordinals have a decent chance of becoming more popular in the next few months. I am not tech-savvy enough to understand the hurdles facing a better UX - until yesterday I thought an ETH NFT collection could be bridged back-and-forth to BTC… But I could definitely see how people could pile on Bitcoin DeFi projects.

Ethereum isn’t threatened by this, in my opinion. It is so far ahead in terms of development… Bitcoin looks like a 28k modem, while Ethereum is 5G. Still, I decided to allocate a small portion of my trading wallet to it. I feel kinda dirty using a PoW chain, but hey, ride the wave, don’t fight it, as they say.

u/BramBramEth is thinking about take on the next part of their web 3 journey

Hey ! Seems like I’m going to be let go at work soonish (Which is a good thing, my job got less and less technical over the years and I miss that part a lot). I’m a cryptographer with quite good skills in programming in a range of languages, so I was considering having a bit of fun for a couple years working in the ETH ecosystem. What I’m looking for is technical challenge.

What are my options ? My thoughts so far :

CL Client teams : Very new codebase (which is nice) - Mainly about implementing EIP specs, seems to be that challenge here is “low” as the heavy lifting is done at the research level.
EL Client teams : Older codebase - Mainly about improvements of various existing parts - a bit more challenge because there’s design/engineering tasks to improve stability and speed/latency/footprint of the clients.
Research teams : Way more focused on design / cryptography / game theory - Something I’m very good at, but I fear I will miss the coding part of it, which is somthing I enjoy.
A Layer 2 : I would probably prefer a ZKR since it’s more fun to work on, but I kinda think that OR are so ahead in terms of maket share that it’s an uphill battle to win as a ZK rollup.
Some protocol : Probably some game theory involved, but I don’t think I like the risk of being part of a project which has a chance of not taking off.
Do my own thing with a high probability it won’t be used : I would love to code some kind of ZK prover in GPU assembly for instance - This is probably the most fun for me, but also the most risky.
Flavor of the month : Work for a hardware wallet manufacturer with good open source values :)

Any other options you can think of ? I’m just in the process of evaluating my opions right now as the switch won’t be before a couple months.

u/nightfallsh4 reminds us of another cool use for your hardware wallets

Just a reminder to everyone if you don’t know already.

Both Ledger and Trezor device support Fido U2F, which means you can use your ledger or trezor as a security key (2FA) to login to your online accounts.

Of course if you are not comfortable taking your hardware wallet with you everywhere, maybe consider using it for online accounts you’ll only login from your home or in a safe place. But according to your specific threat model you can use HWs as 2FA security partially or fully in your online activities.

You can use them to secure your CEX accounts, email, password manager etc. And if you loose or break your device you can always restore it with the seed phrases in another device and all your 2FA security keys will be recovered as well.

Using a security key as 2FA for your online accounts greatly increases your general security online. And almost impossible to hack into your accounts remotely.

Before you implement that be sure to go through the ledger and trezor articles about using their respective U2F features.

Trezor also supports FIDO2 standard for passwordless login but it’s not as widely adopted yet like U2F.

Edit:- here is trezor’s article on using U2F- https://trezor.io/learn/a/what-is-u2f

Here is the ledger’s article - https://www.ledger.com/fido-u2f

If you’re moving away from ledger as your hardware wallet, you can atleast use it as a 2FA security key to secure your online accounts.

u/hanniabu is building awesome tools yet again

https://twitter.com/hanni_abu/status/1663605190543523840

I wasn’t happy with existing solutions to monitor validator entry/exit queues so I built this https://validatorqueue.com.

This dashboard shows the entry/exit queue, wait times, total active validators, and historical values.

Thank you beaconcha_in for providing the data ❤️

u/Bob-Rossi discusses the addition of rETH to HOP Protocol

https://twitter.com/HopProtocol/status/1663669978405691392

Not sure if posted yesterday, but even if it was it’s worth repeating. HOP bridge now supports rETH, with joint liquidity incentivization by HOP & RocketPool DAOs.

This is the first liquid staking token bridge (of any protocol) and I’m hopeful HOP can add more. Anyone who is in a LST community that has shown interest in getting a bridge set up let me / HOP know. When this was being voted on it seemed there was interest in adding more.

u/Ethical-trade discusses the dire Lido situation

The Lido situation:

A total of 19 million eth is staked on Ethereum. A total of 6 million eth is staked on Lido. More than 36% of all staked eth is staked with Lido.
More than 32% of all validators are using Lido.
Lido is the #1 protocol on Ethereum with a TVL of more than $13 billion. That’s more than twice the TVL of the second largest project, Maker. That’s close to 6% of all ether in existence.
The activation of withdrawals by Lido 2 weeks ago had almost no effect of their TVL. Over the past month, Lido’s TVL still grew by 10.8%. There isn’t any reason to expect their share to drop significantly in the future.

When Prysm contributed to centralization by having too high of a share in the consensus client market, the community launched an initiative aiming at reducing that.
This worked fantastically and Prysm went from more than 66% to now being second behind Lighthouse.

No real initiative has been launched in the case of Lido yet. There is no real equivalent to clientdiversity.org today, with explanations, educational material, and guides to switch to less centralized options. There is no real pressure by the community.

Are we really passively waiting for the 33% validator share limit to be crossed in order to start doing anything?? Will one more percent really make a difference? As a reminder, Vitalik suggested that no entity should control more than 15% of all validators. Lido already controls twice the stake Vitalik considers to be too much.

On May 22 2022, u/superphiz wrote that community action should start at a 22% share. With its 32%, Lido has now 50% more than that and yet no action has been seen.

To our Ethfinance friend u/hanniabu who created clientdiversity.org (big thanks for that): is there a similar website planned for staking providers? rated.network just doesn’t do the education job. Please let me and us know if there is anything we can do to help.

Feel free to share any idea about what we could do to.

This problem won’t just solve itself, there needs to be a community initiative.

May 26, 2023 - Episode #20 | Rhett Shipp

Special guest Rhett Shipp joins us from Gravita Protocol, a decentralized borrowing protocol.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

u/NeedlerOP

$1805

0.068

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Tax crypto traders,

The debt ceiling deal breakers,

Rug pulling raiders.

Queue update: u/Spacesider

Your daily beacon chain dose.

Pending validators: Joining 72.9k, leaving 0

Entry queue +2300 from yesterday’s number
It will take just over 36 days for the entry queue to clear
In around 2 and a half days the amount of daily validators that can both enter or exit will be increased from 1800 to 2025

These figures are based on the entry and exit queue at the time of posting

Shitpost of the week: u/somedaysitsdark

It wouldn’t take much volume from Fidelity to cancel out the… checks notes… negative ETH issuance

Shitpost of the week, part deux

u/monkeyhold99:

Ethereum is the only digital asset in the world that is all of the below:

decentralized
productive
secure
useful
immutable
permission-less
trust-less

Traditional finance people and most normies still have not figured this out. I know we’ve come a long way since 2015, but I really believe we are super early adopters here. Will be interesting to look back on these threads in 5, 10, 15 years time.

u/ajmonkfish:

Let’s rearrange that and get a catchy acronym.

Secure Trustless Useful Permissionless Productive Immutable Decentralized

ETH is STUPPID!

Great work everyone, take the rest of the day off.

u/cryptOwOcurrency explains why you shouldn't burn your scam NFTs

Imagine an Ethereum spam token as a small piece of land in the middle of the desert that has a big sign planted in it saying “/u/barthib owns this”. You have no idea who put the sign there, and the land is obviously worthless, so why would you bother driving out into the desert to try to claim it or to take down the sign?

TL;DR Hide it. Don’t interact with it or try to “get rid of it”.

Conceptually speaking, Ethereum tokens (including NFTs) don’t exist “in” your address like ETH does. They exist “in” their own token contract that maintains its own separate ledger. This contract’s code is determined entirely by the creator of the NFT.

When your wallet software checks your address for tokens, what it’s basically doing (through a couple levels of indirection) is pinging the smart contract that the token creator published, asking it “does this address own any of your token? If so, which one(s) does it own?” The token’s creator can, if they wish, tell the contract to respond to this inquiry with literally anything. They could tell your wallet that you own an amount of their token equal to the current block number, or randomize every day the tokens the contract says you own, if they wanted to.

When you interact with a token, your wallet is reaching out to the token contract and running the code defined there by the creator of the token, which can also be anything they want. So a situation like this could occur:

You try to send the token to the null address.
By doing so, your wallet calls the “transfer” function on that random token contract.
The “transfer” function is malicious, and tries to trick you into sending the attacker other tokens out of your wallet, or even just reverts (fails) your transaction causing you to lose your gas fee.

Edit: A classic scam is where they code the contract to revert/fail your transaction with a custom error message that includes the address of their scam website in it, telling you to go there for “support” on their token. You see your failed transaction with their custom error message when you go on Etherscan to check whether your transaction went through. So you visit their website and get on their support live chat, and they feed you some bullshit about you needing to install a wallet upgrade from a dodgy .exe file, or that your wallet is corrupted and you need to send them your seed phrase to fix it. Then they clean you out.

u/JayPeaEm shares an update from Japan

Grüezi EthFinance 😁

Been away in Japan 🇯🇵 the last 4.5-weeks or so for vacation. Didn’t use the phone much, went camping, did jiu jitsu, was a cornerman for an MMA fighter, went to a baseball game, sumo; just reconnecting and seeing how the ecosystem is.

Japan just hosted the G7 Summit in Niigata 🇯🇵 where the topic of cryptographic commodities was brought up. There seems to be a $3000 USD threshold put on commodities so anything above that amount is reported by the exchange/bank/etc. Seems a bit low relative to what… hedge funds do… ⛩️ 💴
Fun Fact. I’ve spent some time with some cryptographic security people here in Tokyo 🇯🇵 and I’ve been informed something like 33% of all crypto theft occurs to Japanese people. Sure enough, here’s an article with most of those details to back it up 🥷
I’m sure you’ve all heard about the recent Tornado.Cash protocol take over. Hoping anyone here affected is alright 🌪️
Seems we’ve been hovering at $1825 with a spike to $2000 not too long ago 📈
A lot of you are aware of recent Ledger/Hardware Wallet hacking. Here’s a video from Hak5 over 1.5 years ago cracking these wallets. I tried getting people to flash the alarm but I think these types of attacks will slowly become more common; that and juice jacking / wire jacking 🛜

I’m always here in the shadows doing my best to secure the Blockchain, provide liquidity, and help along newbies when I can.

Love you all, keep being ambassadors, and keep helping any- and everyone who asks for it!

Pröschtli 🍻

u/FrenktheTank shares a PSA for Google Authenticator users

Heads up for everyone using Google Authenticator 2FA app. While this might be old needs, the update was pushed around the end of April, this was new to me, so maybe some fellow EthFinanciers might find this useful.

This morning I opened my Google Authenticator app to find out that is needed an update. The update included a back up of the authenticator codes into my google account.
When I explored this a bit I found this:

‘With this update we’re rolling out a solution to this problem, making one time codes more durable by storing them safely in users’ Google Account. This change means users are better protected from lockout and that services can rely on users retaining access, increasing both convenience and security.’

Really, how can they think this is save. The whole point is to have a second step besides your standard login option like Gmail. What’s the point of storing your 2FA codes in a google account that when it gets compromised, your 2FA codes are compromised as well.

There is still the option to keep using the authenticator without the backup feature.

Remember, when it comes to online security, the ultimate responsibility lies with none other than ourselves. Stay vigilant, take proactive measures, and empower yourself to safeguard your digital presence.

u/pbrody wrote a book about Ethereum!

Hi everyone…I just got the final cover for my book back. I’ve written a little book about Ethereum!! Specifically about WHY Ethereum is the future of business. It’s called (no surprise) “Ethereum for Business”. If you would like to pre-order it, the paper copy should be in your hands in about 2 weeks as we’re nicely ahead of the official schedule and orders for eBooks on Amazon or Apple will follow in another 2-3 weeks. I’ll do a top-level post on why I wrote the book and what it’s about on the official release day.

View on Amazon

u/juxtanotherposition has an EVMavericks oDAO update

https://www.when2meet.com/?20153310-SNPGH

EVMavericks Rocket Pool oDAO update

There was a meeting planned for Monday but too many people could not make it last minute. A few of us had an unstructured discussion mostly about the costs of setting up and running an oDAO node and necessary archive node. u/haurog calculated some of the costs using on-chain activity and is willing to share a doc once complete and here’s another great resource (oDAO tab).
We’d like to maximize participation for those interested in working on the project, so please enter your availability for the next meeting here:

Enter a name (pw optional) and click Sign In, then select your available meeting times so we can schedule it.
If Discord meetings do not work for everyone we may consider using Zoom or other tool. Whether active on Discord or Reddit-only user, all are welcome and encouraged to join the effort.

u/LogrisTheBard thinks now is a good time to familiarise yourself with Curve

With crvUSD finally launching in earnest now would be a good time to at least familiarize yourself with the Curve ecosystem if you haven’t. It’s still the second highest volume DEX and might have just launched a way to double its income.

There’s a lot to unpack here:

Curve issuance. How much is being emitted? When are the scheduled emission reductions? Who is sucking it up?
Bribes. This is basically a way of reallocating liquidity from a trading fee optimal allocation to a CRV holder revenue optimal allocation. This takes a bit to get your head around.
Curve v2 pools. These are largely misunderstood. Unlike Uniswap or Balancer Curve v2 pools have a volatility instrument in there that flexes liquidity depth to minimize IL and adjust the target peg over time. This is a seriously undermarketed feature.
crvUSD. A new CDP style stablecoin that uses a gradual liquidation system so you get less wrecked. Lower risk for borrowers, no need for keepers to liquidate you, and it enables high LTV ratios. This is my favorite DAI-style replacement so far. LUSD puts your collateral at risk even pre-liquidation. RAI famously isn’t stable. crvUSD is just an improved design of the liquidation system and the peg can be backed by the entire DEX revenue for a stronger coupon bond failsafe than DAI could ever offer.

I do suggest you spend a few hours and familiarize with this system if you haven’t because it is the baseline so many other projects derive their tokenomics from.

u/Bob-Rossi has a delegate update

Not sure if it’s been posted yet, but the delegate week started yesterday. If you own any DAO tokens, it’s a great time reconsider who you are delegating too. Or even better, if you are on the fence about being a delegate might be a good time to jump into it!

Some more info here - https://delegationweek.com/ & if you are looking for a list of r/ethfinance delegates check out the daily doots page here - https://dailydoots.com/#delegates

If you own any HOP, now would be a good time to consider delegating - whether that is to someone new or just re-affirming with the person you already delegate too. They are using some of the grant funds to encourage people to re-delegate (or delegate if they aren’t at all) See - https://forum.hop.exchange/t/grant-proposal-delegation-week/878/11. Not a huge amount, and I’m not sure if those are the final numbers, but at a minimum should cover some gas costs + some beer money.

u/Itur_ad_Astra reflects on a famous crypto saying

Crypto wasn’t invented to make you rich…

I’ve been in Ethfinance for a few years, and every year, I understand this a little bit more. I joined before the big bull, made some profits, but you don’t make life-chaging amounts of money by investing spare change as a broke college student. So I obviously didn’t sell during the crazy highs. This year is the year in which I’ll be calling myself an “Etherean” for more than I was calling myself a “Bitcoiner”.

…It was invented to set you free.

I’ve got to say, I “converted” to Eth at a good time. Not a good time financially, but at a time where I was disillusioned with Bitcoin. I had heard about Ethereum much earlier, but ignored it, as it was obvious to me that Bitcoiners would not leave the biggest and best coin with zero improvements over multiple years, riding on the first-mover advantage alone. What a rabbit hole the Ethereum ecosystem was! What an insane potential of improving the way we interact with wealth and capital and as a result the human condition!

…But it will make you rich anyway.

If this part ever comes true, I’m ready, but I hope it’s not overnight. I don’t know if my mental health can take another insane bull, but I suspect that the next one might be even wilder. At least inflation and time have changed my definition of “life-changing money”. In any case… DCA on!

u/2Nice4AllThis is trying to explain Ethereum for dummies

I’m working on a few crypto beginner’s tutorials, with the main goal being to simplify information and for a better learning experience. Ideally, a lot of users don’t actually need long explanations of how blockchain and dapps work and just want to know how to use them.

Interestingly I wanted to compare simple transacting as copying and pasting an address, and I thought to compare this to being as easy as copying and pasting an IBAN number for digital banking transactions (like in many EU countries). But then it occurred to me that in the US, peer to peer banking transactions are still impossible (which is pathetic), so this reason alone makes explaining this way harder than it should be.

Just a funny observation. What could be a better metaphor for explaining transactions in a “crypto for dummies” kind of way? I was considering using email addresses as a metaphor, but I don’t think it’s the best way.

Also, is lack of p2p banking a problem that fednow is trying to solve? It should be a crime how far behind the US is due to lacking simple digital transactions as a standard feature for all bank accounts. Anyway, people generally understand PayPal and Venmo, but trying to explain crypto transactions automatically sounds way more technical if you’re not already familiar with similar concepts.

u/jtnichol is officially GreenPilled

I’ve taken some work with Supermodular.xyz and Greenpilled via Kevin Owocki!

My role currently will be creating video content for a variety of platforms and help spread the work to Regenerative crypto economics and human coordination. Here’s couple channels to follow when you get a moment.

Thanks /u/owocki for the amazing opportunity. Onward!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/UShoIJmSNok

Twitter: https://twitter.com/supermodularxyz

There is so much ethos aligned with Ethfinance and I couldn’t be happier to have the chance to help contribute to the vision of this incredible community.

I’ve been diving in on the Greenpilled podcast and will be making so much shorts content with great quotes from great minds. Mind blast incoming!

Cheers and Big Hugs from GreenPilled City

May 19, 2023 - Episode #19 | DCinvestor

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1805

0.067

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

The Ether city,

Its client diversity,

Mutuality.

Shitpost of the week: u/Set1Less

Doots for yesterday:

Ledger
Ledger bad
Ledger
Ledger

u/Spacesider gives an update on the queue

So around this time last year I posted a daily update about the beacon chain queue.

So here we go again for round 2!

Pending validators: Joining 50.3k, leaving <100

It will take just under 26 days for the entry queue to clear
In around 9 and a half days the entry/exit queue number will be increased from 1800 to 2025

Some extra stats for when I reference this post at a later time

Active validators - 572,820

Staked ether - 18,330,053

u/Maleficent_Plankton does a deep-dive on ERC-20 vs BRC-20 tokens

##What is the difference between a BRC-20 token and an ERC-20 token?

Expanded from my comment in /r/ethereum

####TL;DR:

BRC-20 is completely different than ERC-20. It has a similar name, which is very misleading because it works nothing like it.

Both are meant to be fungible.

ERC-20:
- A full smart contract with complete customizability (usually 8k-12k characters long).
- It must include all the functions that dictate how the token works, so its code is 100x bigger than a BRC-20 token’s code.
- Each ERC-20 token can behave very differently depending on their contract code
BRC-20:
- A tiny JSON object (usually 100 characters long)
- BRC-20 tokens are much more standardized and do not include any functional code
- You can only customize 4 properties: Ticker symbol, max supply, # of decimals, and the mint limit

##What is an ERC-20 token?

An ERC-20 token requires a complete smart contract with a full set of code that describes how the token operates.

All ERC-20 tokens must have these function names and parameters.

function name() public view returns (string)
function symbol() public view returns (string)
function decimals() public view returns (uint8)
function totalSupply() public view returns (uint256)
function balanceOf(address _owner) public view returns (uint256 balance)
function transfer(address _to, uint256 _value) public returns (bool success)
function transferFrom(address _from, address _to, uint256 _value) public returns (bool success)
function approve(address _spender, uint256 _value) public returns (bool success)
function allowance(address _owner, address _spender) public view returns (uint256 remaining)
event Transfer(address indexed _from, address indexed _to, uint256 _value)
event Approval(address indexed _owner, address indexed _spender, uint256 _value)

Only their names and parameters must match. A function’s code does NOT have to match the description of its name

I could make a valid (but scammy) ERC-20 token where the “transfer()” function actually mints tokens, and where the “approve()” function instead burns a large amount of your transferred Ether. And that would be technically valid as long as the code specifies it.

##What is a BRC-20 token?

First off … documentation on the BRC-20 standard absolutely sucks: https://domo-2.gitbook.io/brc-20-experiment/

I thought it was a joke, but that’s the full token standard documentation.

Some more info:

BRC-20 is just a short JSON object (a simple data structure) and does not contain any functions. It’s based on ordinal theory and relies on the ordinal nodes to operate on it and provide it with standard functions.

It only works with ordinal-compatible taproot addresses.

Here is the standard format of a BRC-20 token:

Protocol: Specifies the type of ordinal transaction. Always “brc-20”.
Operation - One of 3 different operations
- Deploy: Deploys the BRC-20 token
- Mint: Mints new tokens as long as it’s not past the max supply or mint limit
- Transfer: Mints a transfer function
Ticker symbol: A 4-letter ID
Max supply
Mint limit: Limit per ordinal transaction that users can mint themselves
Decimal precision

This is what the entire ORDI token deployment looks like:

{ 
  "p": "brc-20",
  "op": "deploy",
  "tick": "ordi",
  "max": "21000000",
  "lim": "1000"
}

Here is the format of a Transfer function:

Protocol: Specifies the type of ordinal transaction. Always “brc-20”.
Operation: Transfer
Ticker symbol: A 4-letter ID
Amt: The amount to transfer

To transfer, it takes 2 steps:

Inscribe the transfer function to yourself
Send the inscription from your wallet to the other address

Swaps require an off-chain 3rd-party to complete, so they’re not safe at the moment. It remains to be seen if you can build trustless DeFi around BRC-20 tokens.

Some other interesting facts about BRC-20 tokens:

BRC-20 tokens rely on ordinals and inscriptions to work. This uses the prunable witness section of a Bitcoin transaction that costs 4x fewer sats per byte.
BRC-20 Tokens currently account for over half of all Bitcoin transactions
BRC-20 tokens are so small (in terms of weight) that Bitcoin TPS has actually doubled over the past month. This is not due to more demand, but because the average transaction size has gone down (due to fewer batch transactions), so they can pack more Txs into each block.

u/cryptOwOcurrency breaks the news on finality issues and u/OkDragonfruit1929 adds details

Epoch 200,553 only had 40% voting participation!

I can’t wait to read the post-mortem for this one. What could it possibly have been?

u/OkDragonfruit1929:

It wasn’t catastrophic, but it easily could have been a serious, but recoverable, issue if it had persisted. Epoch 200,553 only had 40% voting participation, which means only 40% of validators selected at random for block creation were actively confirming new blocks. Normally, the participation rate should be much higher, so this could indicate a problem with the network.

Start of the problem: https://beaconcha.in/epoch/200551

Peak of the problem: https://beaconcha.in/epoch/200553

Recovery started: https://beaconcha.in/epoch/200554

Normalization achieved: https://beaconcha.in/epoch/200556

We need a thorough post-mortem before we can be sure everything is okay though, because a rogue event like this happening for no explainable reason would not be very confidence inducing.

u/superphiz updates on the loss of finality the other day, u/OkDragonfruit1929 gives an ELI5, and phiz follows up with more analysis

A tiny update on the loss of finality yesterday: The culprit still isn’t clear.

Some people have suggested Prysm caused the issue because they were hit hard by lost attestations and high loads, but this is very likely a side-effect of the turbulence rather than a cause. Terence described some optimizations they were making as a result of the turbulence, but that’s not an admission of fault.

I initially threw shade on MEV-boost because of my distrust for that stack, but there’s no evidence suggesting they are involved in any way.

The investigation is ongoing and the outcomes will be published in a detailed postmortem.

Terence just posted another update, but keep in mind, that this isn’t a finding of fault, they’re just exploring the incident.

Most clients (except Lighthouse) were hit hard by this, but Prysm stands out because they have a high representation of validators.

u/OkDragonfruit1929:

Terence just posted another update

, but keep in mind, that this isn’t a finding of fault, they’re just exploring the incident.

Here’s my best attempt at an ELI5:

CL clients were getting a lot of attestations (which are like votes or confirmations from other nodes) about older transactions that didn’t include the latest updates. This is like getting a lot of mail about old news that doesn’t include recent important events.

Because the nodes that sent these attestations didn’t have all the information for the recent transactions, CL clients had to spend a lot of time and resources to catch up. This is similar to how you’d spend a lot of time and effort researching recent events if you only had old newspapers. This caused the CL clients to work too hard and run out of resources, leading to issues like the system slowing down or even crashing.

During this time, a small problem in the Prysm system (which likely exists in other clients as well) was found that made it use the wrong information when trying to organize transactions. It’s like sorting mail into the wrong categories because you’re using an outdated list.

The Prysm team is working on improvements to prevent these issues from happening again. They’re improving the system’s memory management, and they’re going to implement similar logic which right now only exists in Lighthouse CL clients where they filter out unviable attestations (like disregarding old news that’s no longer relevant). The Prysm dev team plans to release these improvements next week.

So, in summary, the Prysm nodes were overwhelmed with outdated information, which led to system issues and revealed a minor bug. The Prysm dev team is now working on fixes and improvements. I am hopeful other CL clients follow suit and implement similar fixes.

Some analysis threads are starting to come in from the loss of finality event on 5/11/2023, I’ll try to link them here as I become aware of them. (Feel free to share as well)

u/wolfparking has a synopsis on the US House of Reps crypto meeting

##Summary/Highlight of US House of Reps session: Future of Digital Assets.

Pleasantly surprised by most of what was discussed. Almost all the guest speakers had excellent ideas and explanations in the discussion. However, each person was allocated only 5 min at a time, so it was somewhat limiting. Please excuse me if some of this is a little raw. It is a 3 hr meeting and I don’t have the time atm to format it correctly due to my excessive fiat mining op (work).

Intros of Committee and Guest Speakers:

Mr Johnson: Must be a bipartisan effort for a promising tech/market. Conflict between securities and commodities laws. Most of the G20 countries are ahead of us. We want to be the leader in this tech/industry.

Ms Caraveo: Digital asset activity grows, but so does non-compliance. Any legislation requires increased funding of CFTC.

Mr Hill: Can this industry thrive here in the US? Many Democrats calling for common sense legislation for months (not just a partisan issue). Can’t trust offshore exchanges (FTX), so we need to work on laws here for US exchanges.

Mr McHenry: We want a collab of CFTC and SEC to make laws and close regulatory gaps to protect consumers.

Guest speakers

Durgee: I’m the only non-attorney here. Already there are conflicting laws against other existing laws for crypto from the SEC and CFTC. This is a developing tech innovation that happens to be a digital currency as well. Adoption at this stage is not a tech problem, it’s a human conditioning issue. A 13 year old in their lifetime has grown up with BTC and only known a world with crypto in their life.

Mr Santori: Kraken is well established in the US and the world. Europe has more effective rules from tested principles unlike the US. Gaps in US have created litigation that doesn’t protect consumers. Mandates needed to protect us: https://www.youtube.com/live/gwJ1QAwP7UE?t=43m21s

Mr Massad: Confusion about commodity/security classification of crypto worsens the gap problem. How can we apply Howey test without this info? We need to pass a compliance law directing CFTC and SEC (or SRO; self regulating agency) to create laws and enforce them, without rewriting commodities and securities laws. Regardless of your stance on crypto we need this framework to protect consumers.

Mr Blaugrand: If investors could have traded digital assets on an exchange that was regulated like the NY Stock exchange, FTX situation wouldn’t have happened. We can use the established rules we already have and apply it to crypto with these 4 rules: https://www.youtube.com/live/gwJ1QAwP7UE?t=58m34s

Mr Steil (WI): We still have no path forward for regulation, even after Gensler’s meeting with Congress. Congress is ready to do the job. How do we not miss out vs overseas? W/Shoenberger: Switzerland made it very clear to define security/commodities. It gave them legal security and clarity that allowed them to proceed successfully. This framework that they provided certainly provided the legal certainty to be headquartered there and to have legal clarity around the classification instantly. W/Durgee: The rest of the world has more stability and growth in every avenue of crypto. 3x as much investments vs the US in some markets.

Mr Lucas: US is great because we embrace innovatio. w/Santori: G20 markets are ahead of us and are sophisticated. Kraken is expanding there, but we can’t deploy the same resources here in the US due to these regulatory gaps. Lucas: what SEC rules need altering for exchanges to succeed? W/Blaugrand: SEC needs an onramp with regulation so exchanges can grow in the US. They don’t because of regulatory vagueness. W/Satori: Flexibility of crypto is a perk. Broker/dealer construct can interact directly with consumers. We could limit exchanges and even close down exchanges after hours.

The negative:

Lynch (Mass): Not regulatory ambiguity; it’s mass non compliance with existing laws. Don’t argue security vs commodities, we should instead focus on intermediaries (exchanges, lenders, and wallet users). SEC is clear, consistent, efficient, and prevails in every 140 cases. crypto industry has failed. No separate regulatory regime necessary for crypto. claimed that creating new legislation for digital assets seems “redundant and unnecessary” given that the financial system’s current securities laws have “sustained massive innovation in our financial system for decades.”

Mr Casten: What return would I had if I invested in 12 cryptos during a time vs S&P (60% profit)? Loss 46% of investment, how is this a supposed way to close wealth inequality gap? W/Durgee: accredited vs credited access is important. Mr Casten: I’m happy to debate truth not lies. Everything stated here beginning to sound like SBF and FTX, what’s the distinction? Sounds like you want to regulate crypto with the least funded organization.

Mr Sherman: Buttcoin mod? An ignorant person’s lack of ability to learn anything new. Fossil garbage opinion. Uses term “crypto bro”. questioned whether digital assets should even have a future in the United States. He referred to cryptocurrencies as a “hidden money system that diverts capital investment from useful industries, and whose announced purpose is to defeat sanctions and tax laws. Crypto bros make money literally by making money, and they’ve made over a trillion dollars. They’ll accuse the U.S. government of making money out of thin air. Maybe we do, but we’re the U.S. government.”

Threaten Web3 Anonymity:

Mr Davidson (Chairman Housing subcommittee): Gensler’s hotel California’s regulation provides no path to exit/leave. Who should have the power of exit from intermediaries (power to have self custody)? w/Santori: Who is best placed to collect KYC info? Kraken is well paced to do that and doesn’t require KYC for every transaction, but we could do that if required.

Dr Foster (IL): Estimates of 95% trades are fake or wash trades in derivatives. How can we have a regulated futures market with this fraud and manipulation? What alternative to KYC at all levels is there to avoid fraud? W/Satori: Kraken provides this as a portal. Foster: we can’t stop BTC on the dark web with that. At a wallet level we must have mandatory monitoring with licensing like automobiles. Trusted digital identity from the government. W/Kulkin: CFTC had auth it could conduct surveillance under the rules and jurisdiction of the exchange thereby acting as an SRO in addition to the CFTC/NFA.

Conclusion

McHenry: Even if there is nothing of value in crypto, you would still need enforceable rights and protections already found in regulations and laws in the US. Must come together in bipartisan manner to protect investors.

5 days for additional legislation questions and responses granted from the panel. Plans for another hearing this month made.

Last month, McHenry said he expects that the President will have signed some piece of crypto legislation into law within the next 12 months.

u/T0Bii starts a discussion about different client pairs and the finality issues

Anyone else here whose validators had no problems during the finality issues?

What clients are you running?

What are your hardware specs?

I missed an average of 1 attestation per validator that day and my inclusion distance was around 0-1 as well. I’m running Nethermind/Nimbus.

But I saw a big increase in CPU and bandwidth use, between 2 and 3x of the usual average, spikes even higher.

That’s not a problem for my staking machine, but if others had similar spikes, I can totally see why many had issues.

u/Ethical-trade comments on the communication between EVMavericks and EthFinance and u/juxtanotherposition shares some notes from EVMavericks oDAO meeting

u/Ethical-trade:

Respectful criticism:

I’m a bit disappointed to see that despite the idea of the the ManeNet DAO joining Rocket Pool’s oDAO having emerged from r/ethfinance and having received great support from r/ethfinance, all of the conversation has now moved over to Discord.

I realize that this is a very specific topic and most of the conversation shouldn’t happen in r/ethfinance. But it would still be great to discuss ideas in this sub too when needed, and keep the entire community informed of the latest news.

For example, did you know that there’s a proposal being drafted that has been in the making for a week? Or that a dedicated meeting happened on Friday?

Like many others I don’t like Discord, I find it messy and a pain to follow so I don’t use it. Maybe I’m just too old for the “chat” format.

Would it be possible for one of you Discord guys to keep us informed in here from time to time? I’m sure many here would love to be kept in the loop and even contribute.

r/ethfinance gave birth to the ManeNet DAO after all, and all EVMavericks were Ethfinancers before becoming lions.

u/juxtanotherposition:

In the spirit of sharing more from EVM Discord to r/ethfinance and about the example that brought it up, I shared my notes from the 1st Discord Call about the oDAO on Discord, but haven’t shared them here yet:

I was taking notes for myself and I’ve put that into Pastebin (unlisted) (https://pastebin.com/nrmwEyGg). I’m sure there are lots of errors, incomplete thoughts, and typos.

Also, I tend to ignore Discord except for something I’m very interested in (like the oDAO). So I sympathize with the comment poster. As an EVM holder, I’m loyal to the dailies, but not the Discord. So I miss some EVM things when they don’t make it back here. h/t u/Ethical-trade

u/Spacesider shares how his node dealt with the beacon chain finality issues

So while I was gone and there was all that drama with the beacon chain, my Teku node got caught up in it and fatally crashed and was completely offline.

However…. I run a second Ethereum “stack” with Lighthouse as the consensus client, which the validator process switched over to and was able to carry on with no downtime like nothing even happened.

I was able to recover the Teku node in my own time, and once it was back in sync the validator process automatically switched back over to it as the primary endpoint.

Client diversity is awesome!

u/maninthecryptosuit explains the big Ledger drama

Ledger co-founder Nicolas Bacca confirms the seed phrase leaves the device (may only be applicable to Nano X.)

Just found this confirmation:

The device sends encrypted shards of your seed to different companies if you decide to use the service. You can of course still choose to backup it yourself.

But 2 days ago the same co-founder said:

Your keys are always stored on your device and never leave it

That’s what Ledger has been claiming for years as well.

If we assume the chap wasn’t lying 2 days ago, that means the new firmware ( one screenshot shows 2.2.1 for Nano X ) that just rolled out activates the backdoor “ability” to extract the seed.

More info: Wired article says:

Ledger is preparing to launch a new service called Ledger Recover that splits a wallet recovery phrase—basically, a human-readable form of the private key—into three encrypted shards and distributes them to three custodians: Ledger, crypto custody firm Coincover, and code escrow company EscrowTech. If somebody loses their recovery phrase, two of the three shards can be combined—pending an ID check—to regain access to the locked funds. Essentially, Ledger Recover is an additional safety net; for the price of $9.99 a month, it takes the jeopardy out of crypto’s version of stuffing dollars under the mattress. It’ll be available in the UK, EU, US, and Canada and come to other territories later in the year.

Ledger CEO Tweeted it out as well.

Why this is an issue - even if Ledger now cancels their new seed cloud backup service (because backlash), and says they will never make a firmware update use this hitherto unannounced “ability”, the mere presence of this backdoor means that bad actors/governments may be interested in it. I guess this is what we get for trusting a company that kept its software closed-source.

My next steps:

Immediately stop using Ledger Live
No more firmware updates
Hope and pray that my ancient Nano S devices didn’t have this backdoor

u/FriedChickenTrailer compares the best, most secure Ledger alternatives

With ledger (potentially) going full retard again, I’m updating myself on what hardware wallets are available in the market right now. Looking forward to if anyone has other suggestions, additions or corrections to my high-level assessments below.

I’ve been using this list for discovery (trying to narrow down the list of 387 wallets): https://walletscrutiny.com/?verdict=reproducible&platform=hardware

There is an insane amount of options in the market, but very few can fit these requirements;

open source everything, including firmware and hardware
uses a secure enclave for cryptography (extremely hard to get the private key material out of the device, apparently controversial given their closed nature)
has a display that shows information about what you’re signing (the bigger the better)
At the very least supports both EVM chains and bitcoin-type chains (bonus for other chains and other curves, e.g. edwards)
reproducible firmware builds, i.e. you can tell that the firmware blob matches the published code

I’ve discarded a bunch of products (e.g. ngrave) that have little to no information about their device or the software that runs on it.

What I’ve found that (superficially) gets closest to the requirements (in no particular order);

trezor

I have tried the trezor one, but the hardware died a few years ago
open source firmware, hardware
does not use a secure enclave
reproducible builds
has a display that shows information about what you’re signing
been around for ages so its been battle-tested (plenty of fixed side-channels issues etc) and its weaknesses are somewhat well understood (limited physical security etc)
works with BTC/EVM/Cryptonote chains and others

keystone

open source firmware
open source hardware
large display
secure element
unclear if builds are reproducible
supports btc/evm chains and a ton of other more oddball stuff like cardano, tezos etc
never heard of it before today, no idea how battle-tested it is

cypherock

never tried
open source firmware
open source hardware
no display!
uses secure enclave (smart cards)
reproducible builds
pretty new, haven’t seen anyone take it apart/try to break it yet

Bitbox02

never tried
open source firmware
open source hardware
small display, displays some information about what you’re signing
uses secure enclave AFAICT (ATECC608B)
reproducible builds
supports btc/evm chains
been around for a while, has had a few vulnerabilities (e.g. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-18673)

keepkey

never tried
open source firmware, hardware
reproducible builds(?)
small display showing information about what you’re signing
trezor clone?
supports BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE (and a few more similar coins)
been around a long time, has had multiple vulnerabilities (e.g. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-30330)

Grid+ Lattice1 (closed source)

closed source firmware, hardware
I have one of these, the UX is OK, but the device itself is huge
large display, detailed transaction information including native smart contract support (when ABI is available)
tamper-resistant
uses secure enclave (in device, and smart cards)
no reproducible builds as its closed source
pretty new, haven’t seen anyone take it apart/try to break it yet, but the described design seems sensible

u/Bob-Rossi discusses DAO delegation and reminds us of our duties!

To those who own governance tokens / participate in governance, you should check out Tally’s governance-week. They are coordinating with a bunch of DAOs to encourage people to delegate or periodically revisit your delegated tokens. A great place for ethfinancers to start is looking at https://dailydoots.com/#delegates to find out who on this forum is a delegate.

The HOP bridge protocol is one of the partners and will be providing some funds from the grant pool to support Tally on this project. The exact details on how they will incentivize is not finalized yet - initial discussions where subsiding gas fees, but looks like it might be shifting to a distribution to those who participate (the forum discussion is here). Either way, I’m happy to see HOP providing support!

That all said, whatever governance token you own please consider usings this week as a chance to re-visit your delegated tokens. It’s an important step for the health of a DAO, as set it and forget delegating can stagnate a DAO’s leadership and create a barrier to entry for new delegates to join in. And if you are looking to become a delegate this may be a great opportunity to jump in!

May 05, 2023 - Episode #18 | Daniel

Special guest Daniel joins us from Swell, a non-custodial liquid staking protocol.

The morning trinity

✨E✨t✨h✨e✨r✨e✨u✨m✨

1900

0.064

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Another one comes,

Another bank bites the dust,

More ethers combust.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Mason Marcobello explains EIPs and ERCs.
@2Yeahyeah discusses the the trade-offs of different staking options, concluding best return likely coming from wstETH or rETH synthetics, or staking directly with Rocket Pool.
ETH’s clamshell reads $2857 and ₿0.07416 on the sides.

In 2021:

After issuing bond tokens on the public Ethereum blockchain, the European Investment Bank calls the technology revolutionary.
With ETH at $2952, or ₿0.05213, Eth2’s deposit contract locks in $10 Billion.

In 2020:

ETH buys more ETH, at $215, or ₿0.02396.

In 2019:

Coinbase Pro adds the BAT-ETH trading pair, the first non-Bitcoin crypto trading pair on the platform.
Ether pays your lunch at $162, at ₿0.02946.

In 2018:

Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian says ETH will reach $1,500 by the end of the year.
The EEA releases a standardized architecture stack for privacy-focused web apps on ethereum.
ETH leads by example at $687, feeling confident at ₿0.0746.

In 2017:

ETH quietly knits $78 and ₿0.05339 together.

In 2016:

After Craig Wright claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, some guy announces he is the founder of Ethereum.
ETH shoots through time from $8.9 to $10.1, from past to future at ₿0.01968 and ₿0.02274.

Shitpost of the week: 18boro

https://etherscan.io/contractsVerified

Of the last 500 verified contracts on ethereum, 86 contains the word pepe. Probably a good sell signal :).

u/nixorokish shares the amazing new EthStaker website

If you’ve ever visited EthStaker’s website before, you’ll have seen that it was… largely unnavigable. Well - we wanted to build a new, open source one, so we put out a call on r/ethstaker to see if we could find someone from the community, familiar with staking, to help us do it. u/hanniabu is awesome and did it!

So now EthStaker has a new open source website!! Feedback would be most appreciated, especially from ethfinanciers. What would help you find the info you want about staking? I didn’t love giving people discord and subreddit links when they asked for resources, so I’m pretty stoked to be able to give them a website where everything is aggregated.

I’m also gonna post a series of ‘beginner guide to staking’ blog posts over the next couple weeks (at https://ethstaker.cc/blog), would REALLY love feedback on that from someone who sorta knows what staking is but wants to know more. Mostly for readability

u/696_eth discusses a new entrant in the decentralised liquid staking game

I looked into DIVA and wrote a twitter thread about them yesterday.

Here’s a quick summary for Ethfinance:

Diva is a decentralized way of staking
Distributed Validation staking thru Distributed Validator Technology (DVT). Trustless. Resilient. Secure. Cause of fully distributed network of validators. Entrance as low as 1E.
Liquid staking. You would stake to get divETH, which operates kinda like stETH. You can wrap into wdivETH which operates like rETH/wstETH. This can be tax advantageous depending on your preference of incoming vs capital gains.
You would have an option to run a node for extra rewards (split 50% between stakers and node runners in the final Phase 2 version on the mainnet). There’s some minimum hardware requirements.
It’s currently on the testnet. Should be live on mainnet in Q2

The key points is that I’ve learned is that combines liquid staking with DVT. Since it uses a smart contract to pool funds it can be as low as 1E. Honestly, I’m waiting for a bit more info after their testnet releases to see how it pricesly protects against penalties and bad actors and why 1E would be safe. Also, not enough info on Node Operators and right now you would not be able to run one on the testnet.

Side note. SWISE vaults might be in a similar vein I guess.

Diva’s site

An extra useful article

Please correct me if I misunderstood something or if you wanna educate me more, this was a new concept for me so it was a bit hard wrapping my head around it when figuring out how diva is planning to make it work not just in a theoretical way.

u/Tricky_Troll makes an analogy about crypto legislation

It’s the 1920s, you’re starting to see these fancy new self-propelled horseless carriages or “cars” pop up everywhere. They look really cool but they’re also quite dangerous. This is what the kerfuffle is about in the congress at the moment. Everyone knows that we need to protect people from the maniacs on the road. But astute observers also realise that we also need to protect the innovation and economic advantage these new-fangled machines provide.

Lawmakers are split on what to do. Representative Emmer thinks we need new laws. “Rules of the road” for all to comply with. Rules which all road users must follow specifically designed to create order out of the chaos on the road while still allowing for fast, efficient travel. But senator Warren disagrees. She thinks these new machines should be treated like horses under the ancient 1839 “Horse and Carriage act”. She doesn’t care that horses are slow, living creatures which need to eat, sleep and poop while cars are fast, furious and can run all day. She insists that these roads were built for horses and that makes anything on those roads a horse, dammit!

Don’t be like senator Warren.

Edit: If anyone with some clout on Twitter wants to screenshot this and run with it, go for it. Or if you reckon you can take the idea and shorten it down to the Twitter character limit, that would be impressive so go for it.

u/keystrokesinyourhead shares a RocketPool criticism while u/Datacruncha explains RocketPool's oDAO

https://twitter.com/ChrisBlec/status/1652498398459699202

u/keystrokesinyourhead:

Chris Blec posted on twitter and called out rocketpool. However… hes actually right?

I looked into oDAO and it is exactly what he describes it as.

Everything more and more just feels like decentralization theater…

The fact that it is invite only is despicable and counter to any ethos regarding decentralization.

u/Datacruncha:

Ethereum’s consensus layer and execution layer currently don’t talk to each other so you need oracles for something like rocket pool. The odao does all the oracle work for rocket pool and upgrades the smart contracts. They can technically collude and cause massive damage so the best way to prevent this is to overpay and only include trusted people. Yes, the work is fairly easy and not worth half a million a year and everyone wants a spot. Thankfully, a lot of the money goes to fund client teams which helps ethereum run and keeps it decentralized. 4 spots are allocated to the rocket pool team to help fund development. Sassal donates all his earnings.

Eventually, there will be less of a need for the odao with upgrades to Ethereum like eip 4788. If anyone has any technical or economic suggestions about the odao they can post in the rocket pool forum or the research section on discord. Please note, it takes very little effort to criticize and substantial amounts of time and coordinated effort to come up with working solutions.

u/etheraider kicks off the EVMavericks buildathon!

Hey everyone! 🦁 buidlathon is officially kicking off and the competition will run for a full 7 weeks starting today! 🎉 If you are interested in participating. head on over to the EVMavericks discord and hop into the 🦁│buidlathon channel and ask to be assigned the Buidlathon role! 🏃‍♂️ (No EVM Required)

Projects will be judged on their overall utility/ingenuity/technicals and the potential benefit they bring to web3!

General criteria for projects is as follows:

Has to use some aspect of web3
Need to have a product or service that is useable for alpha test release
Need to provide a statement on how your project benefits public goods/what does your project provide to the community
Valid project must be anything technical/non-technical that further advances ethereum education/utility/infrastructure/services
Projects >1 month in progress are not eligible to participate.

Upon conclusion of the competition on June 19th 2023, participants will demo/present/showcase their projects to the community and the voting will begin!

A panel of 4 technical/web3 judges 🧑‍⚖️ along with a DAO-wide snapshot vote (5th judge) will decide who will rule them all and win the grand prize! If you are interested in contributing in other ways (helping promote the buidlathon, being a judge in the competition, other ways) dont hesitate to reach out in the channel!

Here’s your chance to make your mark in the community and get 💰 while doing it! Happy buidling!🔨

u/MerkleChainsaw is looking for real adoption and u/silentjxhn makes a great list of examples

u/MerkleChainsaw:

Long term, I’m very positive that Ethereum will eventually dominate the crypto space and that it will address most major technical challenges, even if it takes another decade or two. I’m pessimistic about crypto overall though.

I’m still on the sidelines because I’m having trouble seeing how crypto overall will achieve true adoption anytime soon. I define “true adoption” very narrowly as significant demand for ETH to be used for some external purpose other than crypto speculation or facilitating crypto speculation. So for example providing DEX liquidity, staking/validation, and issuing most tokens or NFTs don’t count since the demand is mostly based on putting fiat into crypto hoping to get more fiat out. Things that do count include airline or concert ticket NFTs, using ETH contracts for supply chain tracking or audit, and so on. In these cases someone is willing to buy ETH because they can use it to solve an actual problem. I think most other successful technologies were solving real world problems by this stage in their development.

Where can this adoption come from? After all the scams, fraud, and hacks I’d have trouble convincing any company board to use public blockchains beyond maybe an NFT cash grab offering, if for no better reason than avoiding the reputation risk and liability from using crypto. Even a simple use case like accepting stablecoins as payment is tough because every major stablecoin has depegged at some point.

Though it’s small, I think EVMavericks is an example of true adoption. Demand for most people is based on “I’d like to be a member of a club” rather than “I’d like to sell this JPG for a profit”. Maybe some Reddit avatars count in this category as well?

Is there anything on the horizon that I’m missing? Financially I want to buy ETH because it has an asymmetric distribution of returns, and I believe Ethereum is one of the only projects in crypto being designed with good intentions and a long term focus. On the other hand I’m increasingly having trouble seeing where enough new demand will come from to justify a $220B valuation.

u/silentjxhn:

Simple large sum transfers with ZERO friction and instant settlement. (eg: transferring $193,000,000 with a fee of $0.17 (0.00000008839779%))
People in Turkey are using stablecoins (on Tron at least) for day-to-day purchases because of unstable local currency.
Stable coin total value settled surpassed Mastercard and VISA credit card companies in 2022, Stripe enables USDC payments, paypal crypto integration
VISA B2B settlements, along with JP Morgan
You donate pseudo-anonymously to causes which might be deemed controversial (war relief in Ukraine being the most obvious)
You can donate to public goods (gitcoin using their quadratic matching)
NFTs as crowdfunding and/or Patreon-like for creators with very little to no friction or middlemen
NFTs as brands or brand extensions (Nike, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Forever21, on and on and on)
Ralph Lauren’s new Miami Design District store will accepting Ethereum as payment
Epic Games (fornite) working on NFT games
Reddit’s avatars onboarded over 5 million users to NFTs. Over $11 million in total sales.
Streaming payments (llamapay)
Certificates (OpenCerts) in Singapore
Rio de Janerio accepts crypto payments for property taxes.
JP Morgan + Singapore doing defi transactions
EIB bonds
24/7 on chain T-Bills: https://twitter.com/openeden_hq
The Reserve Bank of Australia is piloting its CBDC, the eAUD, with @canvas_defi (starkx layer 2)
Maker Treasury bonds
Social Media (lens, caches)
No-loss lottery (pool together)
mortgages (tinlake)
insurance (Nexus Mutal)
pay-day loans (Alchemix)
lending/borrowing (AAVE, Compound)
CDPs (Maker)
Exchanges (Uniswap)
Yield Aggregator (yearn)
derivitives (dydx)

u/benido2030 has a monthly staking update

* https://beaconcha.in/validators#all

Here’s your new monthly staking update:

Validator overview - total: 619346 validators*

554322 active
18350 pending
7333 exiting
39341 exited

Client diversity numbers**

Consensus: Prysm 38% // Lighthouse 37% // Teku 17% // Nimbus 6% // Lodestar 1%
Execution: Geth 64% // Nethermind 16% // Erigon 11% // Besu 8%

Pool distribution***

Unknown 41,8%
lido 23,3%
Coinbase 9,6%
Binance 3,7%
Kraken 3,5%
Rocket Pool 2,7%
+ a lot of whales, smaller staking providers etc.

My goal is to show how things develop and answer questions like “How many validators will secure the network by EOY if net new validators are constant”, “Is client diversity improving” and “How is the dynamic between centralized pools and decentralized stakers”.

If you think something very important is missing, let me know and I’ll add it today or tomorrow, so we can work with it in June. Best case share your source, so I know where to find the stats.

This post will contain more information and probably some conclusions in the future, I hope this will be a good summary and help for those who don’t check numbers regularly (I basically didn’t do it and could not tell you how things are developing right now)

Some comments and sources:

All percentages are rounded, so this is not 100% accurate, but should be good enough to show changes in the coming months.

** https://clientdiversity.org/#distribution

*** https://beaconcha.in/pools

P.S. I wanted to do this yesterday, cause it was the first of the month, but I had no time cause of the bank holiday and also I was too stupid yesterday… So let’s pretend today’s numbers are those from May 1st.

u/Ethical-trade has a cool idea for EVMavericks

Here’s an idea: EVMavericks’ ManeNet DAO becoming a Rocket Pool oDAO member.

Aren’t we an ideal and trustworthy partner that highly values decentralization?

Edit: just realized how unwelcoming this post must feel to any new member. So let’s explain a few things for our most recent friends:

A while back r/ethfinance launched its own NFT collection, EVMavericks and used the occasion to launch a DAO, the ManeNet DAO. From its website: “ManeNet DAO advances the decentralized Ethereum Web3 ecosystem by aligning shared member incentives with funding, developing, and promoting public goods and education”

Rocket Pool is a liquid staking protocol, and the oDAO is “the group of special Rocket Pool nodes that are responsible for the administrative duties required by the protocol that cannot be achieved by Smart Contracts due to technical limitations”. The “o” in oDAO stands for “oracle”.

So basically the idea here is to have an r/ethfinance native DAO help Rocket Pool with some of its duties. This job pays rather well, and the money could, according to the ManeNet DAO’s mission, be used to advance the decentralized Ethereum Web3 ecosystem.

u/waqwaqattack proposed EVMavericks joining the oDAO to the RocketPool community on RocketFuel

Yesterday, u/Ethical-trade made a post about how the EVmavricks should join Rocket Pool’s oDAO. I loved that post so much, I covered it in today’s Rocket Fuel - making the case that I strongly support them joining.

I support ManeNet DAO joining the oDAO so strongly that, in the episode, I made the offer of lending the DAO the 1750 RPL needed to cover the bond if they are selected.

Also, I wore my EVMavricks t-shirt especially for this episode!
You can watch it here: https://twitter.com/waqwaqattack/status/1653776527203475458

u/Ender985 has the latest innovations in NFT finance!

Meanwhile, in NFT-land…

Blur, the incumbent NFT marketplace, just announced Blend: a peer-to-peer lending and borrowing platform that lets users leverage their NFTs as collateral to borrow ETH. These loans are perpetual (no expiration price or date), at fixed rate. The twist? Lenders can call the loan at any time, triggering a Dutch auction for a new lender to step in and take over the loan.

But wait, there’s more! Blend also announced a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) feature, enabling users to “buy” their favourite NFTs with just a 20% down payment, while the rest is borrowed from a lending pool. I wrote “buy”, because until the price is paid in full, the user can’t do anything with the NFT, except for listing it in Blur’s marketplace (ie try to sell it back and profit from the move).

As always, with great financialization comes even greater risks. Borrowing ETH to “buy” an NFT (BNPL) means going long on leverage (you profit if the price of the NFT rises). Borrowing an NFT and immediately sell it for ETH (Blend) means leveraging short (you profit if price falls). The result: when NFT values fluctuate in the opposite of the “expected” direction, users will quickly face liquidations.

We will soon see the impact of this development on collection prices. While leverage markets can help stabilise price fluctuations, they can also create massive liquidation cascades, so I’d expect some days of wild rides are ahead.

Apr 28, 2023 - Episode #17 | Evin McMullen

Special guest Evin McMullen joins us from Disco, your personal data backpack, making data and reputation portable across web2 apps, web3 dapps, IRL, and more.

The morning trinity

ETHEREUM

$1913

.065

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Good blockchain actors,

Suing the regulators,

Stifling detractors.

Shitpost of the week: 1l0o

Famous Crypto Last Words:

I’ll keep my coins on the exchange, I trust the experts more than I trust myself
I used a hot wallet for my withdrawal address
I took a photo of my seed phrase and encrypted it in the cloud
This NFT is going to be the next Mona Lisa
I used an exchange address for my withdrawal address
These DeFi APRs are insane, I should get in while I can
These governance tokens will jump in value with DAO voting and when utility is added
I wrote my seed phrase in a text file, encrypted it, and put it on my NAS
Everyone is saying the price is going down, better to sell now and re-buy when it goes lower
I’ll hold onto this air drop, it’ll be worth way more in the future
I sent my hardware wallet to my home address with my full name and real email in the order
This ICO will fund the killer DApp we’ve all been waiting for
I wrote my seed phrase on a piece of paper… somewhere…
Converting ETH to a liquidity token is definitely a like-kind exchange
These algorithmic stable coins will keep their peg under even the worst circumstances
I used my hardware wallet seed phrase as my validator creation seed phrase

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Johns Gresham releases NiceNode alpha, a simple app that runs, monitors, and controls an Ethereum node.
10% of the Ether supply is now deposited in Ethereum’s PoS contract.
ETH eats a $2936 sandwich laced with ₿0.07382.

In 2021:

JP Morgan states that as the backbone of the crypto-native economy, ETH has more potential than BTC’s store of value.
1729 pays ETH for learning Solidity with CryptoZombies.
The European Investment Bank issues its first ever digital bond on the public Ethereum blockchain.
The is no such thing as fear of heights for ETH at $2673 to $2746, or ₿0.04846 to ₿0.05.

In 2020:

OkEx becomes a validator in Ethereum 2.0 Testnet Topaz.
IPFS v0.5 increases uploading speeds by 25x, fetching content 2-5x, and finding data nodes 2-6x.
ETH looks with big eyes from below $198, or ₿0.02541.

In 2019:

Gods Unchained talks about how to efficiently create millions of non-fungible tokens on Ethereum.
Thanks ~~Obama~~ Ethereum for $157 or ₿0.02983.

In 2018:

ETH gets enlightened from $645 to $684, being all mindful and the such at ₿0.07322.

In 2017:

Bank of America, Mojix and Webjet demo products using ethereum on Microsoft’s New York City demo day.
ETH continues its hill climbing efforts from $62 to $71, reaching a great view between ₿0.04723 and ₿0.05358.

In 2016:

Vitalik Buterin pitches multiple ways to integrate Ethereum into Hyperledger
ETH visits the lows of $7.2 for one last time, stuck somewhere between ₿0.01741 and ₿0.01598.

u/SabishiiFury shares regulatory news out of a policy leader at Coinbase

https://decrypt.co/137339/european-parliament-approves-mica-law

“The European Parliament’s adoption of MiCA today is a pivotal moment for the crypto industry in the region, and the work of European policymakers should be seen as exemplary,” said Tom Duff Gordon, Vice President of International Policy at Coinbase. “The region is recognising the potential and societal promise that emerging technology can provide. The EU is stepping up to the mark, while other notable jurisdictions are struggling to provide a solid, cohesive regulatory framework that gives clarity to a burgeoning innovative industry.”

Lol feel the burn

u/Nonocoiner shares a disconcerting story reminding us to stay on high alert for scams

User Plastic-Resource-989 just posted a fake twitter link on r/cc about Uniswap announcing they experienced a hack.

The visual link was twitter.com, the actual link to twitter.cn.com

They messed up, as the link endpoint didn’t work.

It looked like some bots were quickly responding, no one seemed to have noticed the link didn’t even work.

Edit: the post has already been removed.

u/696_eth reflects on one year in NFTs

1 Year in NFTs: Ethfinance

As I mentioned in the previous day it was 1 year in NFTs for me a few days ago and I’m taking that opportunity to reflect on the last year (& maybe a bit more) and on a variety of topics and experiences. I’m also going to repost them here and maybe something resonates here and there. Of course, I’m starting it with Ethfinance!

I start my reflecting on 1 Year in NFTs from Ethfinance.

r/Ethfinance - subreddit that has influenced my Ethereum journey greatly, and thus - my NFT journey.

But how is it exactly connected?

I’ve heard more and more about Ethereum as some of my online internet friends started exploring other chains besides bitcoin. Ethereum was one of the most promising ones. Eventually I ended up hearing more and more about it and I thought it was time to start looking into it. I do not remember exactly how but I did find r/ethfinance sometime in the middle of 2020.

The discussion was amazing compared to the r/ bitcoinmarket’s daily that I had been frequenting for years. Not only people were talking about the tech, it was the majority of the talk there. Quite a contrast compared to only ‘number go up’ in the btc daily.

Fast forward to March 2022, there’s now talks about this NFT project - EVMavericks. Most active people where whitelisted. I had not. Why? Even though I’d been quite a frequent visitor - I was a lurker. Luckily, I made a few comments over the few years and that was enough to get on an additional list and then winning a raffle solidified my involvement.

Nowadays I still visit the Ethfinance daily, almost on a daily basis. Sometimes I get too busy with life. It’s still a wonderful place to ask questions, hear about new developments, be alerted about important topics, see the stories of community members and learn something new everyday.

After being one of the most active members in the EVMavericks discord and being still quite a strong lurker and even turning into a slight poster on Ethfinance, I can share a few of my observations.

I personally prefer the pace of the discord as it’s more of a live chat and closer to a real time conversation. Ethfinance has a higher quality and lower noise. Yet it doesn’t do one thing very well for me and I’d bet especially for the people who are lurking - involving you in being part of the community. You see, sometimes folks like me who are new and not technical have really nothing substantial to contribute. And even though some of us are still asking some questions from time to time which I believe are still valuable contributions, it just does not complete the puzzle. And I believe each of us has something to offer and we can learn something new from each other. And this is where discord comes in and that is what it allows you to do, and I feel that EVMavericks degen chat, in particular, is prime example of bringing folks together. It’s a glue. Still maybe for some but not others.

Now I’m not going to go into pros and cons of each platform but one more thing I will mention is that the subreddit is a nice free resource for new folks. And I feel the vibe is especially geared for people who are, hopefully, going to make it financially as well as being the ones who are understanding and embracing many aspects of the technology and tools that we discover and build.

Next up: reflecting on EVMavericks.

u/696_eth continues their 1 year in review series

1 Year in NFTs: Twitter Followers (4/21/2022-present)

I never really cared about Twitter prior to this point. I created an IRL account like 10ish years ago but never really used it. When it comes to crypto, most of my time was spent on Reddit - r/ethfinance.

Now, I’m not sure why I created this account, but it seems to be a day after I minted my Maverick. I know there’s usually lots of excitement during the early days (the honey moon phase), and people were eager to bond together and roar about the lion pride. Anyway, I ended up creating an account and following all the Mavs the EVMavericks account was following. One thing that was still weird to me is that so many web3 or crypto projects use Twitter, which is a full web2 platform that can and has rugged some of my friends’ accounts before. My account has been locked multiple times for no reason until you add your phone number, etc. to unlock it. One click on their end - you are gone.

Over time, and after getting more into ENS, I started caring more. I’ve changed sides of caring and not caring so many times now that I don’t remember all the details, but I do know the important parts. What I’ve come to and what I hold nowadays is that I am able to hold both of the sides of caring and not caring at the same time. I personally don’t care about it at all. When I’m in nature, when I’m doing things outside, when I’m engaged in the things that matter, and so on and on and on.

The nuance comes in because part of me does care. It does care for a very noble, specific set of reasons too. In the world where I do have more followers, I would be able to spread my values, educational messages, and even some funny memes to a wider range of people. All of that is nice, and yet it’s important to let go of all of that. Otherwise, it alters my behavior in a way where it’s still geared a bit more towards getting better numbers, while still keeping my true values. But then I wonder, and I like challenging myself with the question, “Why does a number of followers impact the content?”.

“If I am doing something good, wouldn’t it matter whether one or a thousand people see that?”

Again, there are, at least, two sides to the coin that I’m holding. And at the end of the day, I’m still human, and it does get very demoralizing to see all the people doing scammy (all other types of things) having more followers and more impact, which I judge as a net negative.

And why am I building in the first place?

I thought having a personal blog is nice addition that is like a journal, a resume, and basically an on-chain history of your identity. It seems we are not there in crypto, so that’s why I’m still using Twitter, as it does matter, but also playing around more with web3 projects like mirror.xyz and paragraph.xyz. Also, building on top of ENS, even something as simple as a site - 696.eth.limo, is a way of doing that.

Honestly, there’s still so much more to write about followers and how I have figured out some particular nuances, but, again, it doesn’t really matter to me at the end of the day.

Although I’d say I have tried to be consistent on a daily basis for almost a year, maybe missing a bit in the beginning, and have contributed content in a variety of forms, including memes, threads, questions, observations, analysis, videos, news, step-by-step guides, etc and I have gotten to 2275 followers. That’s also including all my NFT related communities and ENS.

I’d like to end it on a note that’s future-focused. What am I going to do going forward?

Obviously, I don’t have enough reach, and that’s also a good thing for me mentally, as it gives me so much more room to experiment and make mistakes.

The most important to me is to be true to my values and certain things like curiosity, decentralization, community, collaboration, communication, transparency, education, and making people smile and laugh. All of that while being authentic, having a better balance on how this piece fits within my life puzzle. Focusing on my connections with people and on the effort that I’m putting in, and the content I’m creating than being a slave to the algorithm.

Next up: Art, creating Art.

u/Ethical-trade reviews RocketPool's Atlas upgrade in the days since it went live

Here’s a Rocket Pool update since Atlas / LEB8 went live.

The minipool (RP’s validator) count went up from shy of 14,000 to 15,329 today. Since 16eth pools can be divided into 2 leb8 pools, total count goes up, not much of a surprise here. Roughly +10% in 5 days.

More interestingly, node count went up as well from 2,291 to 2,393 which is a clear uptick that can be seen in this chart. More nodes is what we decentralization maxis should be all about (and what I’m all about), so this is absolutely great news. According to Etherscan’s node count, there are currently 9,170 Ethereum nodes.

Rocket Pool now accounts for more than 1/4 of all Ethereum nodes. With a market share of only 2.7% of validators.

I haven’t found any reliable chart updated with Atlas but from my observation of the total number of eth staked from the official website, there’s been roughly 3,000 eth poured into RP daily since the update. That’s $5 million per day.

Before Atlas, the deposit pool was continuously full (meaning reth was highly in demand, never available) causing a premium on the price. Today it’s the opposite, there are many minipools waiting so the deposit pool is close to empty. In other words, many node operators are waiting for people to swap to reth. The premium is almost gone.

There are currently 21,870 reth worth $43 million waiting to be picked.

I’m expecting some whales to swallow a lot soon, and secretly hoping for Vitalik to swap some eth for reth. Would be crazy publicity for RP. Next time he does an AMA I’d like to ask him what he dislikes the most about Rocket Pool, I’m very curious to know his opinion.

In other great news, Rocket Pool’s reth is now more profitable than Lido’s steth, making it the default option to stake from Metamask.

Rocket Pool is currently ranked #11 by TVL on Ethereum with a TVL of $1.37B and it looks like it will enter the top 10 in a few days.

I’ve probably missed some key data and would love to hear more!

Disclosure: Rocket Pool enthusiast here, rpl is my second largest holding after eth and approximately 25% of my total net worth.

u/nikola_j explains an interesting tidbit about EOAs and smart wallets

Hey, mate, one of the defi saver team members here.

Not sure which protocol you’re considering using there specifically - is it Aave?

If yes, then that means that a position created on a smart wallet using defi saver would not be visible or manageable in the default frontend available att app. aave. com.

Why is that? Well, interacting with all these different protocols directly through an EOA (your standard Ethereum account) is the default approach in most cases (e.g. Aave, Compound, Liquity). This is mostly for simplicity reasons and gas savings.

However, a standard Ethereum account is currently limited in terms of how many smart contract interactions can be called within a single transaction.

This is why we chose to use the smart wallet as default for holding positions of each protocol we integrate at defi saver.

Main reason? The smart wallet provides a new layer of execution that has no limitations that a standard Ethereum account does. That’s why we have options such as 1-tx leveraging/deleveraging, collateral and debt swaps, 1-tx moving of active positions between supported protocols, as well as a number of automation options for all protocols.

This short article in our knowledge base has a brief intro to the smart wallet: https://help.defisaver.com/en/general/what-is-the-smart-wallet

If there’s anything else I can clarify, please do let me know, would be glad to help.

tl;dr: If you open an (e.g.) Aave position on a smart wallet using defi saver, it won’t be accessible through their frontend at aave. com. All exactly same protocol rules and rates apply in both cases, but their frontend only supports positions sitting on EOAs.

u/ArcadesOfAntiquity discusses an underrated type of cold wallet

Hey folks, just popping in to say: air-gapped QR code-based signers are vastly underrated as a crypto wallet security solution. (I’ll refer to this tech as AGQR for the sake of brevity.)

I finally took the trouble to switch my wallets over to AGQR in the wake of the mysterious wave of wallet drainings that Twitter has been abuzz about.

How do AGQR signers work?

Similar to dedicated hardware wallets, you create a new seed on the signer device itself. (You can also import an existing seed.) You store a backup of the seed you created in the same way you usually would/should: always by writing it down, never by printing/screenshotting.
Your private key is held on the signer device–in my case I’m using an old Android phone running the free, open source Airgap.it Vault software. (I know, it might sound risky to keep your private key on a phone, but if you’re cautious enough not to trust airplane mode, you could physically shield, remove, or otherwise disable the wifi, bluetooth, and cellular radios.)
On a separate, networked device (PC/laptop/tablet/other phone), wallet software such as Metamask suggests a transaction in the way we’re familiar with, but when you click “Accept”, instead of signing the transaction itself, it displays a QR code containing the parameters of the transaction.
You scan this code using your AGQR signer device, and then authorize signing on the device itself, using whatever security features the device has–PIN number, pattern drawing, fingerprint, etc. Again this is similar to dedicated hardware wallets, but here there is no physical connection between the two devices. (Hence the term “air-gapped”… which is probably a rather old security term, and makes less sense now that wireless networking is pervasive, but I digress.)
After you authorize, your AGQR device signs the transaction data and displays it on-screen in the form of a QR code.
You then hold the screen of the AGQR device up to a webcam attached to the networked device that first suggested the transaction, and it reads the QR code and broadcasts the signed transaction to the Ethereum network.

It might sound like a hassle but the whole process takes about one minute when you get used to it.

Why not just use a hardware wallet like Trezor, Ledger, Lattice, etc?

Owning a hardware wallet makes it obvious that you’re into crypto. For those of us who would rather keep it discrete, an old phone wins hands down. The hw wallet companies seem to really disregard this segment of the market. Case in point, the new “fashion” Ledger wallets that you wear on a chain around your neck. Thanks but no thanks.
Personal information exposure risk. Buying a hardware wallet potentially creates a record of your name/address/phone number/credit card number being associated with cryptocurrency. This could be no big deal, or it could be a huge deal in the case of the Ledger customer data leak. Buying a phone creates no such risk. In fact…
You probably already own an old phone. If not you can buy one cheaper than you can a hw wallet.
Phones are mass-produced consumer technology. We could argue that hardware wallets have become this too, but which is easier to quickly replace, repair, or troubleshoot? Definitely the phone, in my opinion.
No custom firmware/drivers. It seems like every few weeks there are new headaches and incompatibilities based on faulty or late firmware/drivers.

Downsides?

Since it’s just (free) software that runs on a phone, it doesn’t create any revenue for the people that make it. Therefore if there are future changes to Ethereum’s transaction data format, updates to the AGQR signer software could be slow or even, worst-case, non-existent. However, the software I’m using is open source, so I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem for long, if at all.
For the same reason, the supported range of phones might not be the best. The software installed on my old Galaxy S6, but wouldn’t launch properly.
For the same reason, customer service/support might also be bare-bones or non-existent. I haven’t checked yet.
Not many people are using it, as far as I know, so you won’t be able to Google for answers as easily. But hopefully as awareness of how effective this tech is, this situation will change! Indeed, that’s part of the reason I’m posting this.

Summary and Conclusion

I’m aware I’m maybe honeymooning over it, but I’m strongly tempted to say the AGQR signer is “the way”: it has basically all the benefits of a hardware wallet and basically none of the drawbacks. It’s portable, small, and self-contained, without notifying everyone that you’re into crypto, and if it breaks, no big deal, you can get a new one the next day.

Trying to think about it more objectively, I know some people are likely to feel that AGQR on an old phone is a bit too “DIY” to trust their money with it. That’s understandable, but on the other hand, I figure a lot of us here already have a pretty DIY attitude if we’re willing to hold our own keys in the first place.

In conclusion, I think there will always be a market for dedicated hardware wallets, as a “no compromises” type, maximum security, industrial-grade solution. However, for most of us, I think AGQR fits the needs of the user so much better that it’s not even close. Especially if you tend to think things should be open source and self-hosted, you owe it to yourself to explore this tech.

TLDR: I’m loving my AGQR setup and just wanted to let everyone here know about it.

u/pa7x1 is brainstorming a project for the community

Here is a proposed public good that I think we could bootstrap through this community or EVMavericks.

A curated white-list of trust-worthy smart contract addresses. Plus a browser extension that relies on it and lets you know whenever you are interacting with a smart contract that it’s a know and trustworthy one and warns you when it’s an unknown one.

In the future this whitelist could hopefully be integrated in other wallets, MetaMask, frame.sh, etc…

Thoughts and criticisms welcomed!

u/etheraider wants you to build and win prizes! Meanwhile, u/LeagueGreedy sheds some light on the creating Withdrowlst

u/etheraider:

Hello everyone! Withdrowls Public Goods Funding Update!🦉

First off thank you to everyone who participated and celebrated with us this seminal moment in Ethereum history! We look forward to celebrating many more with you to come!🎉 With that said, we are happy to announce our official Buidlathon!💪

Are you a builder or are you LOOKING to build in web3 and just need the extra push/incentive/funding to get the ball rolling?! If so, here is your chance!🫡

As a way to commemorate how far EVMavericks and our community has come, starting today and going through “TBD date” (to be announced soon), we will be hosting an open competition for anyone that wants to build infra/tools/public goods/dapps/new services on web3!

The prizes for the competition will be as follows:

1st place: 5 ETH

2nd place: 3 ETH

3rd place: 1.5 ETH

Random participation prize: .05 ETH

Winners will be determined by a “panel” of 5 judges, to include 4 individuals and the 5th judge as a “popular” snapshote vote amongst EVM holders.🦁

In order to participate and be eligible to win, builders will have to sign up with their idea/proposal in the the EVMavericks discord and submit at least a working “alpha” or prototype of their project by the due date.

Also, as a general rule all projects that are already well in progress would not be eligible for this competition as that would be an unfair advantage to start

For more details and or questions please check out the Buidlathon channel in the discord! (If you don’t have an EVM just select the Buidlathon role to get in the channel!)

Thank you everybody and happy building! More details to come soon! Looking forward to seeing what projects will be created! 🔥

u/LeagueGreedy:

It feels so good to have fully minted out Withdrowls and start the public goods funding buidlathon! It makes me so happy to see community come together to support a great cause!

Some fun facts about Withdrowls: it was 4 days from idea to mint out. Marketing started the day after we decided this was something we wanted to do, so only 48 hours of marketing before mint. It also only took 24 hours to mint out! Oh, and about 95% of the tweets were automated, that was a lot of fun.

We jammed A LOT into those 4 days so please give u/etheraider a hug next time you see them, and please sign up; all ideas are welcome :)

Feel free to hijack this comment’s replies if you don’t have an idea, but would like to team up with a community member!

u/LogrisTheBard talks more on human coordination

I’ve written before about crypto and Human Coordination and why it is my favorite leg of The Rabbit Hole. A lot of the work to date on this topic is on deciding relative balances of power between key actors via token distributions, identifying all the necessary actors of a system and ensuring they are fairly compensated and cannot profit from misbehavior (incentive alignment), and creating systems to encourage voter participation such as delegation and bribe systems. There is an implicit step before all of that wherein an organization needs to agree on what it is trying to achieve and critically how it should go about achieving it. This is the value alignment process, it is a never-ending affair, and it’s a predecessor to all other actions of an organization.

Once upon a time in MakerDAO, after a black swan event wiped out many of their early users, the DAO was faced with a decision on whether to reimburse those affected. They decided not to. They then had to decide what was more important between peg stability and decentralization. They chose peg stability and created the Peg Stability Module (PSM). To this day I still disagree with both of those decisions but regardless of how I feel the DAO had to wrestle with controversial values, reach a consensus, and then act. How to enshrine values into a system varies greatly by each system but I think it’s worth reviewing some of the methods we’ve seen so far, what is good and bad about them, and how we might be able to improve upon them.

Some systems are able to enshrine their values in code. For example Ethereum, when forced to tackle the scalability trilemma, chose decentralization and security over scalability. These values are encoded in the gas market and block sizes. Solana went the other path. Earlier in its history Ethereum was forced to choose between finality and ethics (look up Ethereum Classic). We chose ethics. Judging by the relative adoption of Ethereum vs Ethereum Classic this was apparently the more widely supported choice by a majority of node owners, app developers, and companies. Behind these decisions is what we commonly call Layer 0. This is one of the most fragile parts of the Ethereum ecosystem and one that we have to maintain constant vigilance on. The value alignment process for Ethereum can basically be described as a vacuum where a process should be. How does one become part of the Layer 0 set of actors? Basically you post in Ethfinance, attend events like Hodlercon, meet/influence the right people, attend core dev calls, write ERCs, etc. You go down The Rabbit Hole and get involved.

In more traditional power structures where value alignment decides the strategy of something but not necessarily its implementation it is more normal for the value alignment process to take place by delegation and hierarchical decomposition. It is infeasible to coordinate an organization the size of a nation state using an open mic system or social media upvotes. So we tackle this complexity using walled gardens and hierarchies. Within a corporation the primary organization of this hierarchy is what I refer to as the pyramid of subordination. This structure prevents bystander syndrome by assigning accountability for each task, ensures each person is qualified for the job using a social attestation system in the local vicinity of the pyramid (interviews), and generally organizes people to act towards a unified goal. It is efficient when done well. The military uses a similar structure for the same reasons. It also doubles as a more efficient value alignment system than I’ve seen in DAOs. When there is disagreement this structure provides an escalation process amongst direct reports, peers, and superiors within the pyramid of subordination. If a matter isn’t satisfactorily resolved by those initially involved, it escalates up to the C-level personnel who serve as the ultimate authority for the values of the organization. By the time it reaches them, there are almost certainly multiple valid strategies that could be taken that they are deciding between. This is actually the primary value of C-level personnel; they embody the values of an organization.

So what are the problems with this design? What are we hoping to improve with web3 technologies? Well, the problem begins just above the pyramid of subordination. As we’ve seen in the US in the past 50 years, using highly liquid capital as the ultimate authority source in the system has led to the pursuit of short-term profits at the detriment of all other factors. Shareholders care about their share price and dividends above all other factors and so they appoint C-level personnel and structure their compensation to reflect this desire. As a result companies destroy the environment, have little to no regard for their employees well-being, subjugate their local communities, pursue one merger and acquisition after another in order to form too-big-to-fail monopolies, and exploit every financial and political system they can to stifle competition and create power imbalances in their favor. From a game theory perspective this is the expected outcome of this design. It is Moloch in action, as our society increasingly organizes itself into these ever growing capital-hungry behemoths. You would think companies would be beholden to customers but the customer has no influence in this power structure other than to take business elsewhere. Sadly, working to stifle competition and reduce customer choice is often more effective for companies than working to improve the customer experience or provide a better product. So, the first thing to improve is to create structures for value alignment that are able to embody a wider diversity of values without sacrificing organizational efficiency.

The second thing to improve is resilience. This structure is fallible to key-man syndrome. It is optimized for efficiency not resilience. When one person has the full autonomy to do something it becomes ripe for corruption and/or enforcement pressures. The larger the set of people that need to consent to something the harder it becomes to form a conspiracy to make any decision that does not align with the DAO consensus mission.

If we can only succeed at improving these two facets of organizations, crypto would already be a world-altering, indispensable technology. But we are working on so much more than that. We are working on ways to divorce capital from influence, remove the walled garden around the value alignment system, fight any and all forms of coordination failures, and novel ways of incentive alignment that can change human behavior at scale so that our societal values more closely align with those of our dominant power structures. It is basically impossible to be against this ethically once you understand it. The most bullish thing for Ethereum is to be understood.

u/Hocilef shares an underrated protocol

I have came across an interesting protocol called Sismo enabling users to manage their various digital indentities privately using zk-badges.

As hinted, it uses zero-knowledge proofs. If you are not familiar with these, this video shared multiple times in the daily was very helpful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOGdb1CTu5c). Basically, it is a mathematical tool allowing to selectively reveal a piece of data. Applying these to digital identity, you can aggregate valuable characteristics from different account (web2) or ethereum wallet without revealing their adresses.

For instance, let say you have a wallet with which you gave a lot to Gitcoin grant and another one with a high degen score. You want to aggregate theses characteristics in a third without giving your history (adresses). Sismo allows you to do this. Practically, you connect your different wallets to their apps, create signatures and mint “zk-badges”. A badge is a non-transferable/soulbound token (NT-ERC1155).

From their docs (https://docs.sismo.io/sismo-docs/):

Users aggregate their identity in Sismo’s Data Vault and start accumulating Data Gems—atomic pieces of data that categorize users into groups. In turn, users can generate proofs to make claims about their data (e.g, I own a specific NFT). These proofs are verified by applications—either on-chain or off-chain. The resulting privacy-preserving attestations—stored in on-chain smart contracts or off-chain databases—are utilized by applications for access control and reputation curation.Users aggregate their identity in Sismo’s Data Vault and start accumulating Data Gems—atomic pieces of data that categorize users into groups. In turn, users can generate proofs to make claims about their data (e.g, I own a specific NFT). These proofs are verified by applications—either on-chain or off-chain. The resulting privacy-preserving attestations—stored in on-chain smart contracts or off-chain databases—are utilized by applications for access control and reputation curation.

If you have participated in Gitcoin Round 15, you can mint a ZK-badge curated by their team! https://app.sismo.io/?badge=gr15-gitcoin-contributor-zk-badge

I hope to find a way in the EVM discord to experiment with creating badges for lion minter/holder. Here is the creator section of the app if you are interested https://factory.sismo.io/create-badge

Apr 21, 2023 - Episode #16 | Gloria Kimbwala

Special guest Gloria Kimbwala joins us from SuperModular.xyz.

The morning trinity

u/dope5how

Ξ

$1938

0.069

Shitpost of the week: u/jtnichol

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Best roast me session,

Security commission,

Gensler obsession.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Scroll Tech raises $30 Million in Series A funding and announces zkEVM-based zk-rollup Scroll.
EU officials talk about banning Bitcoin: “If Ethereum is able to shift to PoS, we could legitimately request the same from BTC”.
An arbitrage MEV bundle buys a Moonbird NFT for 44 ETH, to resell it for 223 ETH in the same transaction.
Ridley Scott is announced to produce Ethereum movie The Infinite Machine.
ETH deadpan talks about $3079, $2988 and ₿0.07373.

In 2021:

Raoul Pal struggles “to not sell all my BTC to move my entire core position to ETH”.
Wyoming approves a law recognizing DAOs as a new type of LLC.
Archer Swap is launched, a proof of concept for Uniswap and SushiSwap traders to avoid being front-run, by allowing 0% slippage trades that are only executed if successful.
Hudson Jameson leaves the Ethereum Foundation.
ETH wakes up with a small headache at $2365, from ₿0.0415 to ₿0.04387.

In 2020:

The hacker who stole $25 Million from dForce earlier, returns all stolen funds.
With Social Payments, Dharma now allows sending DAI to any Twitter user.
Content creator rewarding platform Cent gets a big overhaul with v2, with Spotting and Rewarding, and dropping Seeding.
ETH cuts corners at $173 and ₿0.02511.

In 2019:

Venture advisor William Mougayar shares his view on how Ethereum could evolve.
Some dank ETH can still be smelled around $170 and ₿0.03212.

In 2018:

ETH loses steam at $605 ₿0.06859.

In 2017:

The SEC starts weighing NYSE Arca’s Ethereum ETF proposal.
ETH follows ₿0.03953 from $49.6 to $48.3.

In 2016:

Coindesk interviews leading Blockchain VCs: “the Time for Ethereum Investments Has Come”.
Slock.it reveals full scope of “the DAO” on daohub.org
ETH falters from $8.5 to $8.1 while going back in time from ₿0.01924 to ₿0.01803.

u/nixorokish celebrates u/Benjamin Chodroff's great work to save over 2000 compromised validators

https://nitter.snopyta.org/ethStaker/status/1646629034715930624

Dunno if anyone’s mentioned this yet, but CLWP (EIP-4736) included 2,133 potentially or definitely compromised validators who were racing to set their withdrawal address before a hacker could.

Of those 2133 in the set, 2133 were able to set their address to one controlled by the rightful owner. 100% success rate. Not a single one to a hacker.

Benjamin Chodroff (and Jim McDonald, I shouldn’t have omitted that) was the author and did a seriously amazing job after realizing that his own seed for his validators were compromised and, instead of giving up and leaving the space, found a way to save not just his own, but thousands of others. Seriously amazing job.

u/domotheus and u/geoffbezos discuss EIP-4844/Danksharding

u/domotheus:

Imagine you go to the Apples and Oranges Store because you need some oranges. But the store owner is quirky and has a rule that goes “This store will only sell 1000 total items per day. Whether that’s 1 apple and 999 oranges, or 900 apples and 100 oranges, or a perfect split I don’t care. Once I sold my 1000th item I’m done for the day.”

Also, this store’s apples are very good. People drive from all over the place to buy them. So naturally since supply is low and demand is high, so the cost of apples go up and the store owner makes a killing selling them. Oranges, on the other hand, aren’t as popular. On average, the store owner sells about 980 apples and 20 oranges every day.

You personally don’t really care that much about the apples, you want to buy oranges. But due to the store’s weird rule, you still have to outbid people looking to buy to buy apples. Oranges should be cheap because they are plentiful and in low demand, but every orange you buy is an apple someone else can’t buy. After the store sold 999 items that day, why would he sell you an orange for $1 when someone’s willing to buy an apple for $10? You’ll have to offer at least $10 to get the orange you want.

“This is really dumb”, you think to yourself. You talk to the store owner and make him come to his senses, and he agrees to change his stupid rule. Now he’ll sell at most 1000 apples per day and at most 100 oranges per day. So now that the two supply/demand markets are separated, an apple can cost $10 and the orange can cost $1 and everybody’s happy - you get cheap oranges, and the store owner gets more money (1000 x $10 + 200 x $1 gets him more money than the previous system when $10 was the cost of an item and he sold 1000)

Back in Ethereum land the apple represent execution (the gas that affects state, compute stuff in the EVM, etc.) and oranges represent data (the gas that stores stuff in the chain’s history). Rollups do their execution off-chain, so what they need most from Layer 1 is data. Today the cheapest solution is using call data at 16 gas per byte. But if everyone’s fighting to do EVM stuff, the cost of that 16 gas/bytes goes up as well because there’s only so much gas in each block. This really shouldn’t be the case, since data is a different resource from execution.

So what EIP4844 does is separate those two resources into two distinct markets: The gas market as we know it today stays the same, and there’s a new “data gas” resource with its own pricing that happens separately. Rollups will be happy because now they get to commit their batches on chain in these nifty new things called “blobs”, and when demand for blobs is low, blobs will be cheap — even if there’s a huge NFT drop going on that brings gas to 500 gwei

On a technical level it does other cool things in preparation for full danksharding later on, which will allow a significant increase in the size of blobs so that it becomes even cheaper for rollups to commit data to blobs. But even without danksharding, just splitting the markets will help drastically lower fees on rollups, which will be nice.

u/geoffbezos:

Yesterday I asked about how EIP 4844 aka proto-danksharding works.

I got some really good answers so decided to sum it up, I put together a thread with an ELI5 on how danksharding works. TL;DR for those that don’t want to click into twitter:

ETH txns vary across “complexity” (complexity measures gas)
Txn “complexity” is split between “execution” vs. “data”
Currently “execution” and “data” are sold via the same gas market
Danksharding splits up these up so there’s a “data gas” market
“Data gas” market sells “data” via “blobs”
L2s benefit since the txns they post to mainnet have a lot of “data” complexity
The implication is that L2 txn costs won’t be as impacted by ETH mainnet activity (big NFT mint, airdrop claim event)

u/Ender985 shares some NFT drama that reminds us about the importance of immutability

Meanwhile, in post-Shapella NFT-land..

The whole point of crypto is trustlessness and code-is-law. As a consequence, NFTs are immutable.

Well, it turns out that sometimes they are not.

Truth Labs, the org behind Goblintown profile picture NFTs, suddenly changed the jpegs of their all NFT collections to a.. middle finger with more middle fingers, with the text: “Fuck royalties. Fuck supporting builders and creatives. Flipping is the heart of what makes web3 special. Honor the flipper, fuck the community. Long live the slow rug!” Check for yourselves.

This move is part of their migration to new contracts, probably to enforce royalties on-chain. As you know, the Blur vs OpenSea feud caused a race to the bottom on “off-chain” royalties.

Truth Labs still had access to the contracts able to change the metadata of their NFT collections, effectively giving them the power to change the jpeg that the NFT represents. This took many holders by surprise, since they thought their NFTs were immutable.. Well now they need to trust that Truth Labs will change their jpegs back.

There is a lesson to be learned here. Even if a web3 participant understands the underlying technology, and the principles of trustlessness and immutability on which crypto is founded, they still can be caught in a trap. Smart contracts are law, but sometimes this law is not what we think it is.

u/Dont_Waver explains the recent Supreme Court ruling for u/ProductDude

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/us/supreme-court-administrative-state.html

u/ProductDude:

Any legal people care to give an opinion on what todays ruling means for the SEC?

Supreme Court Endorses Streamlined Challenges to Agency Power

u/Dont_Waver:

It means that if someone is being charged by the SEC, and that person claims that the SEC is acting unconstitutionally, that person doesn’t have to wait until the SEC is done with the enforcement action to appeal in court.

Administrative groups, such as the SEC, are part of the executive branch of the government, but they have a sort of judicial power in enforcing the regulations that they were formed to enforce. So previously, you would have to wait until they were done with their investigation and enforcement action before you could appeal to a court. However, if you are arguing that the SEC doesn’t have constitutional authority to enforce whatever it is they’re trying to do to you, it’s kind of silly to have to wait for them to finish the whole investigation and enforcement action before you can object and appeal.

For the SEC, this means that if, for example, Coinbase was charged in an enforcement action by the SEC and Coinbase wanted to argue that the SEC doesn’t have the power to regulate crypto under their grant of power, it could immediately appeal to a federal or state court and have this argument ruled on. This would save a ton of time and money if the court finds that the SEC doesn’t have that power.

u/interweaver has a great idea 💡

So there’s this idea I’ve been wanting to try for a while now.

You guys know how Ethernodes is notoriously bad at showing how many actual execution nodes there are? And so we don’t have any real sense of how many there might be? I even see some discussion farther down the daily today on that subject.

I think we here in EthFinance/EthStaker might be uniquely well-placed to answer that question: how many nodes are there on Ethereum? Basically, a bunch of us who run nodes (including execution clients) would go and look up our node by IP address or public key on ethernodes.org. Then we’d each just reply to the comment/thread/whatever with a simple “yes” or “no”, depending on whether Ethernodes knew about our node.

With a big enough sample size, like dozens or ideally a few hundred+, we’d start to get a pretty clear picture of how many actual nodes there are out there.

Example: Ethernodes claims there are 7500 nodes on a particular day. When 100 of us check our nodes that day, only 25% show up on Ethernodes. Conclusion: There are actually 30k nodes, give or take some error bar that I’m sure the stats majors here could figure out (i.e. not me :P )

Thoughts?

u/BuyETHorDAI discusses an anti-crypto podcast which reminds us that the most bullish thing for Ethereum is to be understood.

Anyone watch Bill Maher? One his guests wrote an anti-crypto book, and I just found the arguments in their interview funny. I think the interview just furthers my view that Ethereum needs to dissasociate itself from the word cryptocurrency. I would much rather see the word cryptonetwork as it conveys that currency is not a central theme. But anyways I summarized the interview because I think this is a great summary of the mainstream opinion on “crypto”.

Cryptocurrencies aren’t currencies and never will be (defined as store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account)
Centralized exchanges should be regulated like banks
If money is trust, then the term trustless money is nonsense. It’s like saying a government-less government, or religion-less religion.
cryptocurrencies are not money, they are investments for higher returns which makes them a security
The only people that use them are crminals and gamblers because its inherently a zero-sum game because cryptocurrencies don’t do anything. Usually a security is a share of a stock, but with crypto there’s no product, there’s no good, or service, which is why it’s a zero sum game where for someone to win, someone has to lose
Crypto is a ponzi scheme because a million people can’t access their money out of FTX
If you lose your “pin number” in crypto, then you’re just fucked and there’s nothing you can do which is why people use exchanges so that someone else is reponsible for your shit
Most centralized exchanges are fake and eventually collapse
NFTs are a ponzi scam / right click save / jpgs / wash trading / goodluck selling your bored ape
The amount of energy for “blockchains” is ridiculous. In 2021, Bitcoin and “other cryptocurrencies” mined a ton of energy.

These are almost verbatim the arguments thrown around. The first thing I notice is that if you replace the word cryptocurrency with Bitcoin, it makes a lot more sense. The arguments are very surface level and lack a ton of nuance because in the maintreams eyes, cryptocurrencies are all like Bitcoin. I think the old saying around here absolutely applies. The most bullish thing about Ethereum is to be understood.

u/wolfparking covers the large institutions moving in to the space

Now that withdrawals are enabled with the successful upgrade of Shapella, I’m keeping an eye out for institutions and big movers.

Already this year we’ve seen Fidelity and Blackrock pouring funds into Blockchain.

NASDAQ in their Digital Assets Business is expected to start providing customer crypto custody by the end of June after receiving approval from the New York Department of Financial Services. Much like Fidelity, the platform will function similar to an exchange with liquidity and execution services.

Just last year Bank of America reported a turning signal for wealthy investors away from the stock market and into Crypto, Real Estate, and Private Equity.

“75% of young investors say it’s impossible to achieve above-average returns solely with traditional stocks and bonds.”

Combine this sentiment with the economic slowdown and credit crisis, crypto investments are in better position this year.

Also, and not the news I expected to see gain traction and excitement, but the Bank of America is reporting some interesting drivers of recent digital asset adoption from gold:

Tokenized gold passed $1 billion in value last month under the market cap pump of stablecoins PAXG and tether gold XAUT.

“Tokenized gold provides exposure to physical gold, 24/7 real-time settlement, no management fees and no storage or insurance costs. The low minimum investment increases accessibility and fractionalization enables the transfer of physical gold ownership and value that was not previously possible.”

We could all do with some peace of mind and stability after all the black swans we’ve experienced last year. Here’s to hoping that these large institutions don’t exert regulatory and market forces in the wrong direction and fuck it up for the rest of us.

u/Jin366 digs up something from YouTube covering AI and Ethereum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN3DP-40TA4&t=2380s

This is a gem of a channel. He talks about autonomous AI and how Ethereum might play an important role in the future AI economy. Really good.

This is the part where he speaks about AI economy (and Ethereum):

“Now, I will discuss the integration of these AI models into the legacy financial system and Ethereum. These models can function as a central brain and connect to other neural networks, AI systems, and handcrafted intelligence systems like Wolfram Alpha. As the AI assistant interacts with apps and handles tasks for you, there will be a need for it to manage money.

In the first iteration, AI will interact with apps to book flights, for example, and users will confirm and approve transactions. As the AI becomes more effective and trusted, users will want it to handle more tasks autonomously, including financial transactions.

There will be pressure to integrate AI into financial systems, but this may create friction in the traditional financial system. These autonomous AI entities might face difficulties meeting regulatory expectations because the legacy system is governed by regulations designed for humans. Additionally, the traditional financial system is not well-suited for global transactions between AI agents due to regional differences.

Crypto systems like Ethereum, on the other hand, are well-suited for autonomous systems. Ethereum was designed with the idea that autonomous agents might conduct much of the financial activity in the future. It is permissionless, global, transparent, and digital-native, making it an ideal platform for AI agents to manage accounts and interact with smart contracts.

Though most economic activity still occurs in the traditional financial system, friction in that system may push AI agents towards crypto systems like Ethereum. Smart contracts on Ethereum can be used to coordinate AI agents, creating a seamless environment for AI-driven financial transactions.”

u/bbqcaramelbrulee goes over the Gensler grilling in detail

https://bounties.gitcoin.co/coincenter

Patrick McHenry did a FANTASTIC job with Gensler today. I believe he really forced the issue on Ethereum as a Commodity and hope it leads to regulatory movement (but maybe we in the U.S. shouldn’t hold our collective breaths just yet with our painfully slow government, sigh). Anyway, great job Rep McHenry!

But damn, also McHenry (and I’ll keep this REALLY brief): votes against Women’s Health Protection, the Chips Act, the Infrustructure & Jobs Act, multiple bills protecting Queer rights, multiple bills protecting the right to vote, multiple bills to (can we please!) close assault weapon loopholes…

*Okay, back to Ethereum. And yes I’m flying my ‘Murica flag here today, so bare with us everyone around the globe :)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how Ethereum can be represented better in U.S. legislative process. Reps like McHenry & Emmer are (let me be mild here) faux “public servants.” They have clear records of working against the Common Good. Ethereum deserves better heroes. I don’t consider myself politically savvy and work in an unrelated field but am wondering what effective avenues would be worth my time and/or support. I have donated to Coincenter in the past and probably will again, ~~but I need to update myself on what they have been up to.~~ Edited: Coin Center works to educate policy makers. Recent efforts to educate involved the terrible “Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act,” the “RESTRICT Act,” and the Treasury’s DeFi risk assessment. I hope to find out more about specific advocacy they are doing.

Any other coalitions come to mind I need to become aware of? Any ideas perculating on effective organizing or lobbying for those of us who care about good ETH regulation? I would love to donate some time and energy to this, but not sure at this juncture what will make a difference.

P.S. Just so you know I’m not on some Lib high horse, I can’t stand listening to Senator Warren talk either *facepalm. Thanks for reading…

citation if desired: https://ballotpedia.org/Patrick_McHenry

apologies for all the edits...grammar is hard lol

u/RevolutionarySoil11 has some wallet tips for everyone

For anyone worried, here are some wallet tips:

Keep your funds seperated if you have a lot of money. There have been plenty of cases of people accidentally signing fraudulent transactions even with a hardware wallet, because their PC was compromised. So don’t mix your 100 Eth retirement money with your wallet containing dickbutt NFTs. Also if you interact with dodgy or untested contracts, use a seperate wallet for that too.
For best security use a multisig wallet/social recovery or a hardware wallet
Wallet ≠ wallet. Do your research, the more funds you have the more careful you should choose the wallet. They’re all developed by different teams with different philosophies
No, HW wallets are not unhackable as some seem to think. There can be and have been plenty of bugs found in the code. The same goes for any wallet. There is no perfect security, know the risks.
Revoke permissions!
Hackers aside, another maybe even more common way ppl lose funds is by their own error. Make sure you have the keys/recovery phrase properly backed up. There are a lot of different ways you could do that, spend some time reading up on it. Never upload it to any online machine or expose it to a camera connected to the internet. No cloud storage, no smartphone etc. Your private key must never get close to the internet! Obviously physical theft can also be a concern, although lesser. There are ways to greatly mitigate the risks of self custody, look into it.
If you’re relatively new to all of this Andreas Antonopoulos has some great videos on wallet security etc. on Youtube. He mostly talks about Bitcoin but it’s same same for beginners. It’s important to know the basics.

u/2Nice4AllThis shared a template for you to contact your US representatives

Here’s a draft letter to the president/legislators/lawmakers from the perspective of a web3 developer. *One* sentence was generated via ChatGPT, the rest are my own words (my letter will be different, as I am not a dev tho I do feel like this effects my career too). Feel free to use and customize. Apologies but I’m super tired and barely proofread it.

Dear ________________ ,

I’m writing today because I am concerned about the lack of clear regulation in the blockchain and web3 industry. For many developers in the space, this technology is our pride and livelihood. Most of us recognize that the space has an overabundance of scams and theft. There is a clear distinction between private companies like FTX who offer a product with no transparency and a public ledger built on open source technology.

Blockchains offer a lot more than just being an immutable ledger. Web3 has the potential to transform many aspects of our society, including finance, governance, and data ownership. The United States should be a leader in innovation and adoption of impactful technologies. As someone who grew up in the nineties, it is the closest thing that reminds me of my childhood during the early days of the internet, when America chose to be a leader in household adoption of a technology that advanced communication beyond what we would have ever imagined a century ago.

Although our industry has a lot of problems, there have been some great achievements from development teams and good faith actors in the space. Last year, ethereum had a groundbreaking upgrade that reduced network energy consumption by almost a hundred percent by upgrading to proof of stake and eliminating the need for wasteful crypto mining. Hacked funds are often traced by the community with updates on activities broadcasted through social media and it’s quite common for the community to help its users get stolen funds back. There have also been millions of dollars donated in aid to Ukraine through cryptocurrency.

The web3 and blockchain space, as known as the “cryptocurrency” industry, have grown a lot since the inception of bitcoin. Today there are many communities in web3 that make up the collective space and if you were to navigate through them you would find there are many who are excited about this technology. Many of us have put a lot of time, passion, and hard work into the development of this tech and it’s a big part of our lives.

Some of us feel that CEOs of private companies shouldn’t be the only representatives of our interests as a growing industry. We are also disappointed by the actions of SEC chairman Mr. Gensler and his hostility to American companies like Coinbase, who actually have gone above and beyond in regulatory compliance. Furthermore, the draft bill of the RESTRICT Act contains alarming implications for the privacy and speech of American citizens.

We hope that our political leaders could do some more community outreach in the space so we can properly educate our legislators about the technology. We especially urge regulatory clarity for developers, stakers, and everyday users. We understand that there shouldn’t be rushed legislation to integrate blockchain and crypto assets into our existing financial infrastructure. We just want to do our jobs as software developers and home stakers, who work hard and invest our time and money into developing a revolutionary technology.

u/asdafari12 reminds us that we aren't against regulation itself

Reading many ppl here the last days that claim we are just greedy and only care about pumping our bags. We aren’t against regulation, we are against bad regulation. If the SEC got its way, I predict that ETH would be a security that retail can’t touch directly, only indirectly from various bank products. Private stable coins might be banned. Private wallets, or what they call them - unhosted wallets, wild wallets or dark wallets will be banned. Defi itself likely banned unless accessed from a bank that charges a fee, “for our protection”.

No other country is stuck on the question, whether ETH is a security or commodity. Crypto regulation in the UK and EU is not perfect but we realize that crypto is here to stay and put out regulation, guidelines and not just 55 litigations. I was positively surprised by how many Defi actions, my Nordic tax authority has provided guidelines on this year. ETH staking (cap. gains, not ordinary income), lending, LPing etc. Meanwhile, the US IRS hasn’t even spoken about ETH staking. Most people will likely class it as ordinary income because that is safer than to classify as the lower taxed capital gains.

SEC’s actions are embarrassing (even Hester, Gensler’s colleague says so), the IRS is embarrassing, the political dick swinging between agencies, embarrassing. R vs D as well and things like that make me lose faith in society and the democratic process more than any crypto scammer ever did. Scammers do it for the money, above, I think is done for the same or even worse reasons.

Apr 14, 2023 - Episode #15 | Christopher Whinfrey

Special guest Christopher Whinfrey joins us from Hop Protocol.

The morning trinity

Mister_Eth left to buy some milk 😢

$2115

0.069

Shitpost of the week: u/diego-d

I deposited my ETH into the staking contract 871 days ago. Later, on 1 Dec 2020, Beacon Chain launched, and since then my solo staking rig has been running 24/7 with near perfect uptime. Total downtime amounts to probably less than half an hour. I’ve earned a nice amount in consensus and execution rewards. Operationally it has cost me nearly nothing, about £100-150 in electricity over the 2 or so years, and about 12 hours of my time. It runs in a fanless case, so I don’t even hear it. I sometimes forget it even exists. It contributes to the Ethereum network and is a source of passive income that has truly no intrusion in my life. And yet, I can’t wait to instantaneously exit all of my validators and dump all of my ETH later tonight.

edit: thank you u/superphiz for chadding in with the gold!

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Ugrade activates,

One more risk evaporates,

The future awaits.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Having onboarded 75% of new stakers last month, Lido finance proposes Distributed Validator Technology and Node Operator Scores in a quest towards more decentralisation.
The U.S. Treasury Department alleges that North Korean hacking group Lazarus is behind the $600 Million theft on Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge.
TrueFi releases dapp development framework useDapp v1.0, with multichain and WalletConnect support and restructured documentation.
Arbitrum holds the first poll on projects to be included in the Arbitrum Odyssey.
@Jasper_ETH argues Lido Finance’s measures to decentralize are not enough, advises the staking pool to commit to not taking more than 50% of all ETH staked.
Leo Glisic explains stakers yielding higher returns via staking pool tokens and their derivatives.
ETH should prepare for a Muskian crypto-twitter, at $3116 to $3020, or ₿0.07562.

In 2021:

/r/wallstreetbets decides to allow discussions about BTC, ETH and DOGE.
Paul Brody brainstorms about a DAO-based analogue of the S&P500 in the Ethereum ecosystem.
ETH’s pockets bulge with $2309, $2421, ₿0.03623 and ₿0.03856.

In 2020:

Prysmatic Labs launches the Topaz test network, representing the full Ethereum 2.0 Phase 0 mainnet configuration.
The Ethereum Foundation updates the community on R&D progress made by EF-supported projects.
Etherscan announces ETHProtect, a detection tool to identify if incoming funds are tainted, tracing the tainted funds down to its origin.
Andreessen Horowitz raises $450 million for a second crypto fund, aiming to invest more in Bitcoin and Ether.
MakerDAO users file a class-action lawsuit against the Maker Foundation after losing funds on Black Thursday.
ETH is just another way to say “OK computer”, at $158, or ₿0.023.

In 2019:

ETH updates its coordinates to $168, ₿0.03256.

In 2018:

ETH steadily resides at $501, aka ₿0.06277.

In 2017:

The DAO Ethereum Classic refund deadline gets extended.
Geth v1.6 “Puppeth Master” is released.
Storj talks about the migration to Ethereum and the opportunities that come with it.
The Aragon whitepaper is released: “A digital jurisdiction for company incorporation”.
ETH drizzles from $50 to $47.7, fizzles from ₿0.04269 to ₿0.04081.

In 2016:

Exosphere Academy announces an Ethereum Stream Development Course.
EtherCamp launches Ethereum Studio IDE.
ETH looks up from $8.1 to $8.4, driving from ₿0.01907 towards ₿0.01977.

u/Yeopaa shares a great personal story with thanks to this subreddit

Hello ethfam,

I’m going to try not to drag this out. Those of you that know little bits of my life from what I’ve shared here know that I first entered the ethereum space at the beginning of covid. I was supposed to fly from Ireland to the Philippines to finally marry my long term girlfriend of 13 years when covid put a two year halt on it. For those two years I saved like a motherfucker and invested hard into eth and its ecosystem. Initially with a percentage of money that was for a wedding, then ramping up the DCAs more and more over time.

Last May I celebrated my marriage in the Philippines here with all of you. It was a long time in the making.

Three months ago, after a long and arduous (and expensive + paper heavy) process, my wife and I managed to secure a spousal visa for her to come live with me.

And that brings us to about an hour ago - after three days of literally no sleep I’ve secured a property here for us. I’m not exaggerating when I say in this timeframe none of this would have been remotely possible without this subreddit. Ethfinance is the flame that keeps my passion burning. A massive thanks to Arbitrum for that ridiculous airdrop also.

I’m proud to say that, thanks to this space, I will be flying out once more to the other side of the world next month for my 1 year anniversary, but this time my wife is finally coming back with me, with my surname, a secured visa and her name on a frankly beautiful and much too big property.

Thank you everyone. It’s the next chapter for me. Now I can finally start planning for solo staking.

Keep ‘er lit,

Yeopaa.

https://i.ibb.co/n8XNjHX/IMG-0790.jpg (wedding photo)

u/696_eth introduces us to the ENS NameWrapper

ENS NameWrapper that has been in works for years is going to be activated soon (within 24ish), the vote has passed and there is a 2 day time lock.

There’s so much untapped potential in it so I’m very excited. And there’s already many cool apps that are building on top or utilizing ENS, maybe I’ll write about them later, big part of them are still in beta phases or are relatively new and small.

But the one cool thing I wanted to share that might be really useful to you now is this:

so you can create a subdomain aka child, so let’s say using mine as an example, evmaverick.696.eth

but what might not be intuitive is that you can create a subdomain of that subdomain!

and that’s how we get - 337.evmaverick.696.eth (for context, 337 is my token ID of the lion)

and so on and on - 🦁.337.evmaverick.696.eth

Now you can just pick a domain (5 char+ for $5/y) and create subdomains for your vaults, your burner, hot and all other wallets while not paying any extra additional money since subdomains can be free, you only gotta renew your parent, which is 696.eth in my example. Of course, there’s so much more options going to be available now cause of fuses (that’s a big topic in itself).

u/FluffayPenguin has some critical wallet security advice

Same thing I told the other sub:

Don’t rely on revokes

It’s good to check your revokes regularly using revoke.cash, but you shouldn’t be relying on them.

The SushiSwap hack is one of those cases where a hardware wallet wouldn’t have saved you, and revoking would’ve been too late.

Using Minimum allowance is the Best Practice

The best practice is to approve ONLY the exact amount of tokens you needed to make a swap so that once your swap is complete, the allowance automatically goes back down to 0.

For example, if you approve 300 tokens and swap 250 tokens, your allowance for a particular spender goes down from 300 to 50 tokens after the swap
So if you approve of 300 tokens and swap exactly 300 tokens, the allowance goes down to 0 and that router can’t spend anymore.

I know it sucks to make a new approvals on L1 Ethereum where gas fees are expensive. But on cheaper networks, you really have no excuse.

Fortunately, many newer tokens allow permits instead of revokes, which combines an approval and transfer into 1 transaction.

u/Diligent-Mouse3679 and u/SoNotYou cover the SushiSwap exploit that u/Maleficent_Plankton warned about

https://twitter.com/0xngmi/status/1644921265843589120

u/Diligent-Mouse3679 covers the SushiSwap exploit:

There is a bug in the Sushiswap router that caused Sifu to get 1800 weth drained (a lot of it by white hats). https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1644907207530774530

Revoke any approvals you have with the sushiswap router now. Addresses for the router on every chain are linked in this tweet:

https://twitter.com/P2Pvalidator/status/1645079096253112322

u/SoNotYo covers Lido validator bribery during the hack:

One of the Lido validator got a 689 ETH bribe during the Sushi exploit. Curious whats going to happen next. Are they going to return it? Should they return it? Where will you as a organisation set the line between ‘fair MEV’ and ‘MEV theft’.

Curious to see what happens next. Expecting to see this spark a new debate about MEV and everything surrounding it.

Edit:

P2P response after become aware of it.

https://nitter.snopyta.org/P2Pvalidator/status/1645162865698000898

UPD: These MEV rewards are associated with the recent Sushi exploit. Like any Lido validator, P2P did not receive or manage the rewards, as they went to the Lido rewards vault. We are talking to Lido and Sushi teams to investigate the issue and explore potential solutions.

u/Maleficent_Plankton warned about this:

Someone from r/CC got 40K Moons stolen due to the SushiSwap exploit.

Sad to see that the thing I warned people about 6 months ago finally happened.

After RCPSwap and SushiSwap first launched, I noticed that 99% of users were setting unlimited approvals and warned the community about it.

Back then, there were no front-end revoke tools for Arbitrum Nova like revoke.cash, and Metamask’s approval UI was less transparent, so I wrote a guide on how revoke manually using the Moons contract.

u/LogrisTheBard talked crypto with the family at Easter

I was talking with some family friends today for Easter brunch and, being polite, they asked me about some crypto topics. I ended up explaining the basics of lending in crypto which I’m going to paraphrase here. This is probably one of those things everyone here already knows but which might be useful if you ever need to explain this to someone outside this space.

There are three ways we facilitate lending in crypto today:

1) Overcollateralization. You post collateral worth more than what you’re borrowing. In Tradfi this is basically the structure of every mortgage/car loan. You use the property you are buying as collateral for the mortgage itself. This works best for assets that are unlikely to sharply depreciate in value and put lenders underwater. In Defi, that property obviously doesn’t hold so we add self-liquidating mechanisms to this system. If your collateral ever falls in value relative to your loan you forfeit the collateral to repay the debt automatically. We mostly use these loans for financial speculation or retaining price exposure to an asset while effectively selling some of it.

2) Flash Loans. We let you borrow as much money as you want on the condition that you have to repay it instantly. I find this is the most confusing one to people at face value but it makes sense to most people when explained in terms of originating mortgages. Again, mortgages are overcollateralized loans. Without flashloans there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem where without the loan you can’t buy the property and without the property you can’t get the loan. In Tradfi they have an intermediary facilitate this by effectively granting you a short term loan. In Defi, that’s just involving an unnecessary middleman so we dispense with it.

3) Leverage. You can use 1 ETH to buy 3 ETH and exaggerated effects as the price goes up and down. This is similar to overcollateralized lending except we don’t actually give you the 3 ETH. It’s held in escrow by some contract so you can’t run away with it. In the example above if your collateral falls by 1/3 in value you get margin called and liquidated. This is really no different than how it works on traditional brokerages. The main difference with Defi is while things like naked shorting are illegal in Tradfi brokerages, they are impossible in Defi.

That leads us to the last form of debt most people know: uncollateralized lending based on credit. While there are some teams experimenting with this, we just can’t bootstrap these systems effectively until we solve the problem of accountability. IRL it is both difficult and illegal to set up multiple identities. On blockchains it is trivial and there is no such thing as the police. If I am willing to give an anonymous stranger $10 on credit I at least need to know that if they rug me they can only do that once. That at least means I can only get rugged 7 billion times. Identity theft and fraud are already a problem in Tradfi. In Defi, the problem is so much worse that what you take for granted with a credit card today can’t even get started. We may see a Tradfi equivalent to credit systems on a blockchain once a government decides to build a system to certify an identity on chain and integrate their legal system with smart contracts for enforcement but we’d really like to see a more decentralized approach.

There are numerous advantages to eventually solving this problem on the blockchain. For people with existing access to credit, a technology called zero knowledge proofs adds privacy protection so Experion doesn’t repeatedly leak your personal data to identity thieves. Next, is consumer choice: the market would be free to create a much wider array of credit score services rather than the regulatory captured monopolies we have today. Last, ironically is scalability; not in transaction throughput but in customers. Right now credit services are available to a minority of people, mostly in first world countries. If this becomes solved in Defi in a decentralized way it can be scaled to all of humanity rather than the limited countries credit services exist in today. This is where a company like Visa will actively get involved eventually because it is a Trillion dollar opportunity that will let them expand their user base.

These systems won’t take root in Defi until we have a good system for proving an address belongs to someone and that they singularly claim that address for these credit systems. Once we have that we’ll see a variety of credit score DAOs appear in short order. They will essentially act like competing underwriters but unlike Tradfi the performance of each will be public and every app will be free to choose whose opinion they respect and pay for.

I’m also still curious about alternative credit systems.

u/hanniabu has an OPSEC PSA for Mac users

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2023/04/new-macos-malware-yoinks-a-trove-of-sensitive-information-including-a-users-entire-keychain-database

OPSEC PSA for Mac users

MacStealer arrives to target macOS systems as an unsigned disk image (.DMG) file. Users are manipulated to download and execute this file onto their systems. Once achieved, a bogus password prompts users in an attempt to steal their real password. MacStealer then saves the password in the affected system’s temporary folder (TMP).

The malware then proceeds to collect and save the following also within the TMP folder:

- Account passwords, browser cookies, and stored credit card details in Firefox, Chrome, and Brave

- Cryptocurrency wallets (Binance, Coinomi, Exodus, Keplr Wallet, Martian Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom, Tron, Trust Wallet)

- Keychain database in its encoded (base64)form

- Keychain password in text format

- Various files (.TXT, .DOC, .DOCX, .PDF, .XLS, .XLSX, .PPT, .PPTX, .JPG, .PNG, .CVS, .BMP, .MP3, .ZIP, .RAR, .PY, .DB)

- System information in text form

MacStealer also compresses everything it stole in a ZIP file and sends it to remote C&C servers for the threat actor to collect later.

u/LeagueGreedy and u/etheraider announce EVMavericks withdrOWLs

u/LeagueGreedy:

u/etheraider and the EVMavs have done it again! We’re creating another project similar to EIPandas to celebrate the Shapella hardfork! There are 3240 owls from 20 powlyments minting on Arbitrum for 0.00324 ETH, or 0.0019 ETH for the allOWList https://www.autominter.com/list/withdrowls We plan to hold a virtual mint party using oncyber so we can show off the artwork gallery style. The mint button will even be embedded into the virtual room!

Proceeds will fund the next EVMaverick public goods project. I know there’s someone out there with an idea here that deserves funding!

We had a lot of fun using the beta of AutoMinter’s new AI Art Generator for this collection! I had so much fun making this project that I’m raffling away 5 of my EIPandas to those who can use their referral link to get 5 friends onto the list!

And of course, thank you so much to the ethfinance community. I gravitated here when I was new to crypto because of the high level discussion. I “earned” my Maverick asking questions here knowing I could always get an informative response. I probably would have lost all my money to shitcoins without this subreddit, but thanks to y’all I’m staking and having the time of my life making AI owls.

https://twitter.com/Withdrowls/status/1645807814957486082

u/etheraider:

As u/LeagueGreedy mentioned we are excited to celebrate Shapellowl with you!

To commemorate we’ve created “Withdrowls!”

They are intended to be fun, punny, celebratory NFTs for the community, AND as a special treat MANY members of our communities (ethfinanciers, daily dooters & EVM’s) will have their own personalized punny owl name in the metadata to be “their own withdrowl” as a special little sentiment to commemorate the momentous occasion.

Bob-Rowlssi, swagtimusprowl, owlexiskef anyone?? :P u/Bob-Rossi, u/alexiskef , u/swagtimusprime

ALL funds (100% of mint & royalties) from the Withdrowls will go towards funding the NEXT public goods project after rocketschool anyone in our community wants to create!

We thought this would be a great way to incentivize people that have an idea to start building and to get people excited and involved in creating public goods/doing something new AND get funded for it!

Check out the Allowl list for additional details! Mint will be .0019 for allowlist and .00324 for public and will be on arbitrum for low fees!

Looking forward to all the Shapellowl celebrations! Will definitely be a hoot ;)

Edit: if you don’t have Twitter and want to be on the list just dm me your public eth address and I’ll add you to the allowl list!

u/Ethical-trade talks about Ultra Sound things

Just stumbled upon a comment I made a few months ago in here:

“Any day could end up being the day there’s been the most eth in existence ever.”

Happened to be posted less than 10 days from the peak on October 8.

Ether’s supply has been going down since October 8.

Checking ultrasound.money has become part of my daily routine even though no new information is really to be expected, I just find it soothing to look at, to marvel at. The Ethereum community has really created something never seen before: a system with a security that’s economically self sufficient.

I truly regret that the mainstream understanding of inflation is “price of things goes up” instead of what it truly is: “value of fiat goes down”. This simple switch in mental model would be incredibly useful for the masses to realize some of the biggest and inherent problems with the current system.

And at the same time, it would be incredibly useful to understand what’s so special with eth.

It’s been 208 days since the merge and there’s been a net burn of more than 82,000 eth. During a bear market (or well, an eternal crab, hail). Total supply is now 120,438,242 eth, and it’s clear we’ll end up below 120,000,000 sooner or later.

Since the merge deflation has been accelerating. But what will this look like during a bull market? When usage, euphoria, and greed go parabolic? When the supply is inversely proportional to the mania?

Witnessing the supply chart take a vertical dive will be absolutely glorious for sure.

We’ll soon visit the abyss.

u/bagogel12 shares the end of the Euler saga

For those who had some funds on Euler:

Redemptions are live: https://twitter.com/eulerfinance/status/1645964057239855104

This it how the Euler exploiter saga ends.

When the exploit happened a month ago, I would not have expected that we’d reach this step, all the funds I deployed there I’ve written off. The Euler saga is a unique story, full of drama and in my case a happy end.

Those who deployed via a smart contract (e.g. aztec users) need some more patience as those affected users can’t claim directly.

Happy Shapella Day and stay safe out there, fellow Ethfinancers!

Apr 07, 2023 - Episode #14

The morning trinity

crickets

$1877

0.067

Shitpost of the week: u/Tricky_Troll

Woah, did someone just exploit a vulnerability in the ERC-20 standard itself???!!! I am seeing a cascade of the largest ERC-20s like USDT and LINK getting all funds sent to 0x36c9aFAkE324b…. On etherscan.

Meanwhile other ERC-20s like DAI and USDC have frozen transfers in response. I’m impressed with their reaction times to be honest.

What sort of impact could this have on other EVM based blockchains like BNB? It seems like it will be a scramble for ethical exploiters to take funds before actual hackers do.

Anyway, no doubt April is wasting no time in showing how chaotic things can get on the 1st!

^(Sorry guys, surely I’m allowed to live up to my username just once a year!)

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Network you can’t sever,

Open-source is too clever,

Will last forever.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

ETH proves to be a solid base for many coins, at $3234, or ₿0.07432.

In 2021:

Vitalik Buterin demystifies the technical properties of sharding.
Ari Juels sees Front-Running-as-a-Service as theft.
The Meta-Witnesses subprotocol from Trinity and Nethermind reduces Beam Sync to 80 seconds.
Polygon announces M-Setu, a proof-of-concept of a bridge for enterprises to interoperate with Ethereum, built together with Infosys Consulting.
ETH jokingly whispers about $2118, $1971, ₿0.03641 and ₿0.03517.

In 2020:

The Teku Eth2 client from PegaSys syncs with the Lighthouse testnet.
OpenLaw explains how to create a bankless DAO.
Italy’s main news agency ANSA launches Ethereum-based news tracking system ANSAcheck.
ETH dodges mullets from $170 to $165, at ₿0.02301.

In 2019:

Nothing etheresting happens from $166 to $175, at ₿0.03362.

In 2018:

Chile’s national energy regulation organization, Comisión Nacional de Energía de Chile, launches an Ethereum-based pilot for recording data from the energy sector.
ETH turns greener than grass from $370 to $385, at ₿0.05593.

In 2017:

Buterin asks how Ethereum Research can be more welcoming to newcomers.
ETH triangulates at $42.2, or ₿0.03592.

u/hanniabu shares a new scam to watch out for, Stakereum

https://twitter.com/ethStaker/status/1641322321024524289

Beware of the new Stakereum project, it’s a legit scam.

From kanewallmann (Rocket Pool dev):

the docs have all these big words to sound smart but it makes no sense, they are legit scamming ppl with this

you go through their instructions and the last step is to send 32 ETH to an address that they’ve generated

Spread the warning:

https://nitter.snopyta.org/ethStaker/status/1641322321024524289

u/DeFiRobot arrives with all of your daily DeFi news in one place

DeFi News - March 30, 2023

Introducing Notional V3: link
Nuon introduces first “flat coin”: link
$ACID - the “growth driver of ETH”: link
Deepdive Composable Stable Pools : link
Liquidity Book and AMM Design: A Comprehensive Guide: link
Kwenta: link
dYdX v4 and MEV: link
Current state of rollup MEV on Arbitrum: link
MEV Series Part II: Understanding Order Flow Extractable Value: link
Full MEVconomics playlist: link

I made a bot that parses DeFi news + Security updates and posts them on reddit. I don’t have enough comment karma to make separate threads, so I’ll post them as comments in the daily general threads for now :)

u/0xdefiant introduces himself to the sub and shares his project idea!

gm r/ethfinance, I had the chance to talk with u/jtnichol yesterday, pretty outstanding guy. He told me to intro myself here and share an idea I have.

My name is Anthony Garrett— I’m a college student at Gonzaga and I started Bankless Advisor in the Bankless DAO, a platform to connect financial advisors and clients, but we’re in need of a pivot– the idea I have is an app.My vision for a BA app is to create a web3 directory for users to send trade proposals to each other. Each account is a web3 wallet for users to trade and comment on other trades. Our market fit would start with the Bankless community and college students (SPAWN).However, my long-term vision for the BA app: We allow users to import their data from other social media networks to their web3 wallet and build smart contracts that pool users data to connect ad buyers to users.

I believe that this project has the potential to do good for the world, and the way we value our data, but I need a passionate dev team to bring this thing to life. So here I am looking for any advice, any groups that you think align with this vision, or anyone who is looking to help. (or if this idea sounds psychotic, I’m open to anything).

I’m just a young self taught front end dev (that get’s a lot of help from chat-gpt), but I have experience building trade proposal tech for financial advisors at Defi Steward. Also, I have written further about this decentralized data model in the BA substack (not an advertisement, but here is a link).

If you have read this far and have ANY comments or suggestions as a start this journey I am all ears.

- Thanks, AG

u/Ender985 has the latest from the NFT world

Meanwhile, in the NFT-verse..

Found this interesting development: a real estate agency sold off 20% of a house being rented in Texas, using NTFs as ownership shares.

The property was valued at $235k, NFTs represented $100 of ownership (minimum buy was 5 NFTs, would have been easier to just make $500 NFTs..). In total, $45,600 was raised by the sale to 38 investors, who will then get their fractional part of the rent.

Estimating $1500 rent per month (not in TX so I have no idea of what prices look like over there), that would mean each $100 NFT share accrues $0.65 per month, so a median of $7.8 to each of the 38 investors.

Given these small numbers, the company decided to run this experiment on Solana, citing gas fees in ETH as a deterrent, and bridging difficulties in L2s like Polygon. Let’s hope for these investors that when rent is due, the Solana network is still up :)

u/WILL_DANCE_FOR_COINS shares Bukele's latest pro technology move

“Next week, I’ll be sending a bill to congress to eliminate all taxes (income, property, capital gains and import tariffs) on technology innovations, such as software programming, coding, apps and AI development; as well as computing and communications hardware manufacturing.” - Nayib Bukele

Bill sent: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1641889140273827848

Tax free staking?

(Would like an English version if available!)

u/Tricky_Troll shares u/Set1Less's post covering the Arbitrum situation

People were discussing u/Set1Less’s post from yesterday in r/CC about the Arbitrum DAO drama but we can’t directly link to r/CC because the mods there ban you for it. Surprisingly nobody copied a transcript so it’s probably gone a bit under the radar in this sub. So here I am, shamelessly transcribing u/Set1Less’s post.

So Arbitrum distributed tokens last week and as per their tokenomics, it seemed that the team and VC allocation is locked for a year.

Well, they just made a proposal to grant themselves another 750 Million ARB tokens, worth almost $1 Billion from the DAO. They claim its for an “Administrative Budget Wallet”. In reality, it looks like a blatant cash grab. Its the first governance proposal and they aren’t even trying to be subtle about siphoning funds out.

Administrative Budget Wallet proposal

Under the disguise of operational and administrative efficiency, they are seeking to transfer 750 million tokens from the DAO to their own pockets, from which they will make “special grants” and what nots.

In crypto, these things almost entirely mean cashing out for real world riches. We have seen thousands of examples of teams cashing out treasury funds. In Arbitrum’s case, since the team and VC token allocations are locked, they are creating this new channel of funding which they can splurge on while their actual allocations remain locked.

Some groups have already raised alarm against this blatant cash grab.

Blockworks Research is voting against this.

These 750M tokens were supposed to be part of the treasury but now seemingly lay under the centralized control of 3 individuals.

I hate to say it, but these kind of shady activities actually make people like Gensler right - by using shady structures from Cayman Islands, under the disguise of “DAO”, they are staging a standard insider dumping scam where the team dumps token without any transparency while pretending their original allocations are locked.

Update: Apparently it seems that even before this vote has passed, Arbitrum team has already moved 40m ARB tokens to a new wallet, and then started distributing them to child wallets, and it appears from the transactions that millions have been already sent to Binance .

Transactions: https://arbiscan.io/token/0x912ce59144191c1204e64559fe8253a0e49e6548?a=0xb3f923eabaf178fc1bd8e13902fc5c61d3ddef5b

These tokens were supposed to be “locked” but it appears they are not locked, but rather being sent to Binance (presumably to dump).

This is looking like a rug pull of sorts. As we see very often in crypto, plain old fashioned greed and fraud kills everything.

Due to the drama, most delegates are now voting against the proposal. You can follow the vote results here: https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x3be7368a662d1cf12fa4da768d626edbc013be0dc7b994fef2e24d9a54e4033a

u/Bob-Rossi shares their thoughts as an ARB delegate

I guess a smidge late considering the threads yesterday and today, but obviously I want to post on it since I’m an ARB delegate for a decent chunk of people here.

First, I want to speak to AIP-1 as it stands on it’s own as I think it’s important for those delegating to get a feel for what I stand for. So for a second, let’s ignore the now known issue at hand and presume the Arbitrum Foundation had not moved tokens yet / or I had voted before this was know. Maybe a pointless excercise at this point, but I find it important.

I would have still voted “against” in this case, with request for the AIP to be broken into smaller pieces.

I agree strongly with the first set of a DAO’s AIPs being about setting ground rules for the DAO moving forward, especially with one as large as this. Not having a formal process in place can lead to disaster (ominous!), so this is important. However, I’m against trying to lump in too much at once. The obvious one is the 750M ARB to the Foundation Admin Budget, however frankly things like squeezing in a very loosely defined “Special Grants” process aren’t a great idea either. Those are things that need fleshed out in their own debates / AIPs. It feels like those are things the foundation would assume would be controversial, but hoped to squeeze through due to the need for the overall framework taking priority. This AIP should have been broken into about 3 or 4 separate things.

Now, with that said and as it stands now, I’m obviously still continuing with my ‘Against’ vote. The issue I had before has only been exacerbated by moving funds before the vote. In reading comments on this daily thread and it seems that the community is largely asking for an “Against” vote as well, so I have an obligation to honor that within my duties as a delegate. Although honestely it does feel moot at this point given recent events… Others have surely said it better, but the fundamental issue is we can’t accept funds being moved without DAO approval or else what is the point of this process? It should be interesting to see what happens now that we have a scenario where funds have been moved without approval from the DAO. Something I doubt will be resolved cleanly, as even before this was found out I was seeing forum pushback on the amount. I question if it will ever pass even upon a presumed rework / revote.

A final note, those who are delegating to me I don’t blame you if this has soured the process… this has been sort of a smack in the face to me as well.

Repost Note: Ah crap, reposting below as I forgot about the auto-banning of links… I compiled the links on caches - https://caches.xyz/forums/discussion/r-ethfinance-arbitrum-delegate-thread

u/KuDeTa and u/\_etherium cover the fascinating MEV exploit

u/KuDeTa:

There was a fascinating MEV “exploit” this morning to the tune of about $20mil dollars as a result in flaw in how mev-boost relays communicate with validators. There is some discussion below in the daily, and here is a good summary: https://twitter.com/samczsun/status/1642848556590723075

The relay fix to prevent this happening again is here (https://github.com/flashbots/mev-boost-relay/pull/330). This does has some significant side effects, the biggest of which is that ~10 sets of relay beacon nodes are now responsible for propagating all new blocks. Our ([u/austonst(https://reddit.com/u/austonst)) relay (https://aestus.live) was taken offline for builders as soon as we became aware of the threat and will update before we come online again. Never a dull day in ethereum.

https://twitter.com/metachris/status/1642862456556130306

u/_etherium:

It’s been patched, just waiting for a release to be cut.

From reading this, the issue has been mitigated and was caused by a bad relay that was gamed. From my undestanding -

Before:

Relay sends validator the header (withholds block so not to get frontrun) for signature, but the block is invalid.
Validator signs header
Relay sends validator the block
Relay attempts to publish the block but cannot because it is invalid.
Validator selects the top half of each sandwich from inside the block and MEVs them by putting their own tx in a different proposed block
No race between the two blocks because the relay block is invalid.
Validator gets slashed for 1ETH afterwards, walks away with $20M.

After:

Step 4 and step 3 are reversed. And Relay does not send the block if it cannot publish it first.

Edit: fixed slashing comment, slashed later.

u/troyboltonislife makes a Baselined Paul Brody appreciation post

Paul Brody has single handedly given me faith in Ethereum as a serious technology again. I’ve been out of the game for about a year but just listened to his episode on bankless and I’m stupid bullish again. Fuck your monkey pictures and yield farming, enterprise and supply chain management will be huge. Tokenize everything

u/logic_beach shares the upcoming POAP.art Shapella livestream!

Greetings, fellow Ethereans!

We’re excited to announce the upcoming Ethereum “Shapella” upgrade, Shanghai on the execution layer and Capella on the consensus layer!

This significant milestone introduces withdrawals for staked ETH as well as other upgrades. More info: (https://blog.ethereum.org/2023/03/28/shapella-mainnet-announcement)

To celebrate the upgrade, EthStaker is hosting a livestream event that will bring our amazing community together. And as a special treat, we’re inviting all of you to join us in creating a massive collaborative art piece during the event on a special POAP.art canvas! 🎨

Info:

Who? You! And your whole community! (tell your friends!)

What? Shanghai/Capella “Shapella” Upgrade livestream and POAP.art party.

When? April 12th, paint party starts at 9:30 PM UTC, Ethstaker livestream starts at 10 (30 minutes later)

Where? https://app.poap.art/ and. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nszB0ZZQrys

How? Anyone can watch the livestream, To join the paint party: hold an eligible entry POAP (check the poap.art page to see if you hold one), or claim the event POAP. [https://checkout.poap.xyz/d39e3416-a26f-41aa-bbca-2ee87781ffea/]

Why? Great fun and exposure for your community!

Spread the word, invite your friends, and let’s make this the most memorable Ethereum upgrade celebration ever! See you at the livestream!

u/LogrisTheBard prepared an enthralling introductory paragraph for newcomers

How do you think this would resonate to someone outside of our space?

The internet and information age fundamentally changed how humans interact. Before the internet, blogs were called newspapers, politics & entertainment came through cable TV, and social media was the local bar or a town hall.

Today, there is a quieter, second revolution of the information age taking place. Once again, we are reimagining how humans interact. Just as with the rise of the computers and the internet this new frontier is ripe with opportunity.

The ideas that have captured the minds of these participants may sound as unlikely to you as the internet systems we take for granted today would have in 1990. Eventually this revolution is likely to affect everything money can touch just as the internet did for information. These tools will democratize access to opportunities previously withheld from you and control over these systems will flow to a new generation of tech enthusiasts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Billionaires are already being born of this.

Keep reading and I will introduce you to the new digital scarcity and human coordination tools powering this revolution. I will carve out a landscape of opportunity for you to explore further and help keep you safe while doing so.

Money shapes the world. We are programming our values into our money. By doing so we are reshaping the world.

u/austonst covers the post-mortem on the MEV exploit

A post-mortem has been published about the mev-boost-relay incident a few days ago. The attack has been covered here before. But the post-mortem has more details, particularly about the different forms the attack can take, and the mitigations applied.

In general relays are now addressing a whole category of attacks that had been previously overlooked, in which the proposer is able to get access to the transactions in a block to be proposed before they’re supposed to. Generally this results in the proposer getting slashed but the MEV can more than make up for it. Attacks include:

The original form of the attack, in which the proposer signs and submits an invalid block, which the relay accepts, returning the tx contents and giving the proposer a chance to modify bundles as they see fit. Patched (but with some potential side-effects).
A follow-up to the first form. After the patch, the relay won’t return the tx’s directly, but a savvy attacker could try to peer a beacon client as close as possible to the relay’s nodes, and watch for the block as it begins to propagate around the network. If they can very quickly grab it, modify bundles, create a new block, and use a fast block distribution network to propagate it faster than the original, they might be able to pull off a similar attack. Not entirely solved, still an open question about how to make sure relays will always win the race.
A form of multi-block attack; /u/t0bii just about figured this one out. If a validator has two slots in a row, then in slot 1 they deliberately call getPayload late, knowing that they’re going to miss the slot. But the relay still reveals the tx’s, and since slot 1 is going to be missed, the proposer can modify the bundles and instead include them in slot 2, stealing all the value. Patched, but it’s not a perfect fix and may have some serious side effects.

I assume that now that the post-mortem is out, the people more involved in the fixes (Flashbots, ultra sound, EF) are fairly confident that the main attack vectors are decently well patched up. So hopefully things will start to settle down a bit: it’s been a busy couple of days at Aestus.

Finally, I want to emphasize a few parts of the post-mortem:

It is critical that Ethereum has an MEV marketplace that is democratic and efficient. Vulnerabilities like those detailed in this post undermine the integrity of the MEV marketplace and the experience of its users. We call on the security, research, and open source communities to join us in hardening mev-boost and future enshrined PBS designs.

and

First, we’d like to note mev-boost and the mev-boost-relay both have bug bounty programs. A potentially expanded bug bounty program is being coordinated.

Second, we encourage searchers to think carefully about how much MEV their strategies expose, willingly or inadvertently, given the extremely adversarial nature of the MEV market and to take actions to mitigate potential attacks. In light of recent events, we ask searchers to reevaluate all risks in the marketplace: code risks, networking risks, reorg risks, smart contract risks, etc. and manage their risks appropriately.

Third, we call on the research and security community to carefully study vulnerabilities like these in the context of enshrined PBS, where variants may be applicable.

Finally, this is a call for your contributions, as a community, to ensure a healthy and robust PBS market today and into the future

u/gethwethreth has a call to arms for all staking node operators!

https://youtu.be/k2Gc-jGxPbw

Please volunteer if you are a validator or a beacon node operator

There have been some legitimate stakers whose keys have been compromised. CLWP has helped verify their legitimacy and came up with a solution to set withdrawal address and front run the hackers. We need your help. Hackers might be trying to set their own withdrawal address for the stolen validators and you can help prevent theft during the upcoming Shapella launch. By volunteering with CLWP, you can help in a coordinated broadcasting of withdrawal address changes, and ensure that the impacted stakers funds are not stolen. For details on becoming a CLWP volunteer, please watch this video -

It’s really not that complicated. It just takes a few minutes of your time and is needed right now, before the Shapella launch to help the impacted stakers! You can also get one on one assistance on their Discord if needed - https://discord.gg/pwuPA6K4zg

https://youtu.be/fBED-6WrEiw

Edit - this works for Prysm, Lighthouse and Lodestar. Teku and Nimbus does not support this

Mar 31, 2023 - Episode #13

The return of Mister_Eth

muerehtE

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

VPN to jail,

Regulation set to fail,

Blockchain jobs to sail.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

In “Five ducking digits”, Arthur Hayes gets rid of all his previous scepticism on Ethereum, and explains his believe Ether is an infinite duration bond.
The EU Parliament votes on privacy-busting crypto rules, forcing KYC regulations on all transactions and self-custodial wallets.
After high-profile hacks via Poly Network, Wormhole and Ronin bridges, pseudotheos concludes cross-chain technology is a dead-end, with the future being mostly secured on Ethereum with rollups, or multi-chain.
Yield market protocol Element Finance launches the Element DAO, with a privacy-preserving zk-proof based token distribution to Ethereum Core Devs and DeFi ecosystem projects.
In “Get Smart on Smart Contract Platforms”, Grayscale compares Ethereum to New York City: “it is vast, expensive, and congested in certain areas, but also features the richest application ecosystem with over 500 apps that command a total value of over $100 Billion”.
Zachary Holden explains the BoredBunnyNFT slow rug pull and breaks down where the 6339 ETH went.
Commercial MakerDAO-powered lender 6s Capital closes a $7.8M real estate financing deal for Tesla.
ETH explores the curvature between $3386 and $3282, at ₿0.07207.

In 2021:

Aave starts exploring new scalability frontiers by integrating Ethereum’s sidechain Polygon.
OpenSea plans to integrate Layer 2 protocol Immutable X.
1 in 4 Ethereum miners is onboarded to MEV-reaping flashbots.
Yearn Finance presents Coordinape, a decentralized payroll management system for DAOs.
Flashbots explores MEV on Eth2: “MEV will significantly boost validator rewards but may reinforce inequalities among participants”.
ETH industrialises $1849 into $1918, ₿0.03135 into ₿0.03256.

In 2020:

Aditya Asgaonkar explains Casper FFG.
ETH2 multi-client testnet Schlesi goes live, with Prysm and Lighthouse as first active clients.
The Ethereum Foundation kicks off the Eth2.0 Spec bug bounty.
Blockchain game MLB Champions removes Ethereum as its base layer, in favour of MongoDB.
ETH’s lenses are multi-focal at $134 and ₿0.02075.

In 2019:

DaiPrice.info displays stats to find best prices for Dai.
Lane Rettig asserts that if decisions cannot be rendered on things like ProgPoW and funds recovery then there is zero chance of having nice things like Eth1x and Eth2.
ETH investigates $142 and ₿0.03453.

In 2018:

r/ethtrader switches to ZWD as the official currency, ETH still counts $396, or ₿0.05718.

In 2017:

OKCoin is rumoured to list ETH “at the appropriate time”.
Ethereum gets quantum computing support with new EVM opcode ‘TERMINATE’ that facilitates new compute operations not previously possible.
Golem now runs on Mac OS.
1 ETH is worth half a Benjamin at $50, from ₿0.04978 to ₿0.04667.

u/KingLeo23 shares Coinbase's new lobbying petition to sign

Coinbase new lobbying org using snapshot for individuals to sign on to an open letter to congress: https://snapshot.org/#/crypto435.eth/proposal/0xf9628ebee2878f5667aa018537eda2266c085d58772bd6ee562899189657c07e

Edit: more info here

u/juxtanotherposition is giving a presentation on blockchain

Hey all. I’m giving a presentation on blockchain, Wordpress, and community tomorrow at WordCamp Phoenix. Live stream link on the homepage: https://phoenix.wordcamp.org/2023/

EVMs, r/ethfinance, hodlercon, caches.xyz will all be talked about! Wish me luck!

Edit: link to my topic https://phoenix.wordcamp.org/2023/session/blockchains-and-wordpress-leveraging-decentralization-for-a-more-user-first-community-driven-and-open-web/

u/superphiz shares the latest EthStaker education program

I imagine a lot of people here are interested in keeping up with staking on Ethereum but don’t have a ton of time to invest.. I think we have a good system that will help you stay informed about staking in about one minute a day: We’re creating one minute clips from our content and posting them as YouTube shorts and on our Twitter. I’d suggest turning on notifications for the EthStaker Twitter and checking them out when it’s convenient for you to click.

Right now the clips are covering the goerli Shapella fork, tomorrow they’ll include the Lodestar call that’s happening today, and around April 1 they’ll begin preparing everyone for the mainnet Shapella upgrade maybe with a highlight of previous major upgrade calls.

I sincerely believe these short-form clips will take EthStaker’s education reach to the next level and I hope you find value in them.

u/Syentist shares an article on the dangerous precedent by the Signature bank fiasco

Here’s another one: Barney Frank Was Right About Signature Bank. Written by the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal

Free-market capitalism can’t work if you are afraid of the government seizing your business in the middle of the night because a secret cabal of politicians didn’t like your law abiding business. And it looks like Wall Street is slowly waking up to this unprecedented authoritarian shift by the Biden administration.

Today it was a bank serving crypto. Tomorrow it is a bank which has labour unions as it’s customer base, or a bank which provides services to medical companies that include abortion services, or a company which was not ESG friendly enough, or a company which spoke too loudly and too brashly about the President. Seize em in the middle of the night and fire the leadership board and auction off the assets. Hopefully civic society makes enough noise about this and it’s not too late to close the Pandora’s box that Biden’s staff opened.

u/RooftopPortaPotty is back to educate us more on AI

Ive posted a bit about exploiting Large Language Models (such as GPT) before, but Im back with more. Even if you have no interest in this, I believe its important to have an understanding of how the data you input in these kinds of systems can later be used against you.

Definitely start by reading https://blog.forcesunseen.com/jailbreaking-llm-chatgpt-sandboxes-using-linguistic-hacks. Then proceed to https://doublespeak.chat/ to apply these concepts.

As of my last post, there were 9 challenges. Forces Unseen more recently released this reflective post https://blog.forcesunseen.com/llm-sandboxing-early-lessons-learned along with 8 new challenges available at https://doublespeak.chat.

For a demonstration of how language-based exploitation may be combined with traditional computer exploitation, https://blog.luitjes.it/posts/injectgpt-most-polite-exploit-ever/ is ridiculously hilarious.

https://protectai.com/blog/hacking-ai-system-takeover-exploit-in-mlflow reveals a local file inclusion(LFI) which can lead to complete takeover of systems running MLFlow. This has been patched.

Trail of Bits has long been a leader in infosec research and auditing. https://blog.trailofbits.com/2023/03/14/ai-security-safety-audit-assurance-heidy-khlaaf-odd/ ‘We Need a New Way to Measure AI Security’ is an interesting read.

https://blog.trailofbits.com/2023/03/22/codex-and-gpt4-cant-beat-humans-on-smart-contract-audits/ ‘Codex (and GPT-4) can’t beat humans on smart contract audits’ offers a much deeper dive into this subject.

And in case this has post not been related enough to Ethereum, by chance I just found this article https://blog.trailofbits.com/2023/02/27/reusable-properties-ethereum-contracts-echidna/ ‘Reusable Properties for Ethereum Contracts’.

EDIT: Just noticed that doublespeak.chat limits the # of queries you can make before having to purchase more. If anyone defeats the Count of Monte Cristo, Id love a second hint haha

u/tutamtumikia looks back at all the projects they have invested in over the past few years

Well, I took a good hard look at everything I had put money into in this space over the past 3 years. When I boiled it all down almost all of it seems to fall into the category of a project run by naive people, run by scammers, or artsy crap that I enjoy but should never have spent so much money on.

Some of defi protocols I tinkered with make me feel so stupid now.

Here’s one. Tokemak. To this day I still don’t quite understand it all. I popped into their Discord and the team is spending over a half million dollars a month on basically nothing. $35k+ in one month on “Marketing and Community”. At what point do you just outright call projects like this total grifts?

It’s not that it’s the only one either. It’s a landscape of just gross misbehaviour, scams, and projects run by people who have NO IDEA what they are doing.

I am SO glad that I only played around in the Defi and NFT ecosystem with total fun money, and left my real stack staked away. I clearly had no business sticking my nose in any of that stuff.

There are a couple decent projects out there, but I feel pretty discouraged about the entire space today. Maybe having my eth unlocked soon is a good thing :(

u/juxtanotherposition has some under the radar mainstream adoption

Future mainstream adoption alert:

Likely for the first time ever, an (unofficial) POAP was created for a WordCamp this last weekend at WordCamp Phoenix 2023.

If unfamiliar, WordCamps are WordPress’ event series that any group of volunteers can create anywhere in the world and get support from the non-profit WordPress Foundation. WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the internet. 👀

I was the only blockchain-focused speaker (talk description) and it was very well received, including by individuals higher up the food-chain and from Wordpress.com itself. The experience has helped clarify for me what lacks and can be done in this particular space, and how I can help. Much more to come from me on this soon.

P.S. the POAP wasn’t finalized until the day after my talk, so don’t be misled by my finalizing comments about it.

u/Tricky_Troll spotted an EthFinancier in the wild spreading the good word

Wow. An r/Technology post where someone not jumping on the crypto hate bandwagon got upvoted into the thousands of upvotes! The post was about Nvidia claiming crypto has no use case. They of course say this now that Ethereum has moved to proof of stake and that’s exactly what the user said. Naturally, beneath this someone questioned what that meant. Then the top response there was a spot on comment. As soon as I read it I thought to myself “that’s gotta be an ethfinancier.” And what do you know, I look up to see u/Atyzze a name I recognised.

Every last one of you who are still spreading the good word in other subs get every last drop of my appreciation. It’s tough work out there…

u/pr0nh0li0 shares CoinCenter's coverage of the very alarming RESTRICT act

We’ve had a little bit of discussion here regarding the RESTRICT Act, which is the legislation drafted with the pretty explicit intent of banning TikTok if necessary. Coincenter just put up a great post about how it’s broad language is problematic. The rub:

we are very concerned that an overbroad interpretation of those powers could be exploited in order to ban Americans from using entire classes of technologies, even when no foreign adversary has an actual proprietary interest in the technology as a whole

A big problem they highlight is that while there’s already similar legislation that allows the government to block foreign transactions that are against the national interest (RESTRICT grants the powers to the Secretary of Commerce much like the IEEPA grants powers to OFAC), this law as far fewer oversite and review protections, which is particularly problematic for legislation that provides such broad authority:

A broad and discretionary power to ban and disrupt all manner of information technologies should not be wielded without appropriate oversight and opportunity for review. The RESTRICT Act not only fails to ensure these rule of law protections, in many cases it attempts to subvert them.

This problem perhaps clearest when one observes that the IEEPA had amendments (the Berman Amendments) added that act as statutory protections for free speech, but RESTRICT has no such protections/limitations:

Courts have found that the Berman Amendments, in effect, save the statute from potential unconstitutional applications. When plaintiffs challenge a sanctions designation that impacts speech, they can argue that OFAC exceeded its statutory power by contravening the Berman Amendments, rather than making the somewhat more difficult but also more consequential argument that IEEPA, the statute itself, contravenes the Constitution.

In contrast, the RESTRICT Act has no such statutory limitation. Indeed it is deliberately targeted at restraining transactions related to information and information technologies.

A lot of other good stuff in there about how it could impact Crypto directly as well (e.g. that the Secretary could “argue that the entire class of all Bitcoin transactions, for example, is a class of transactions in which U.S. foreign adversaries have an interest” and should be banned), but all that is to say: call your representatives and tell them they should not support this bill.

u/austonst has the latest development in the MEV relay ecosystem

The Blockswap folks have released their Proof of Neutrality relay on Goerli and provided some documentation. I’ve been following their project for a while, the ideas are interesting. If it works, it’s actually quite a large step forward in terms of PBS design. They claim relays cannot see the contents of blocks, there’s a MEV smoothing pool built in, and (like the optimistic submissions being deployed by the ultra sound relay and elsewhere) relays don’t have to perform validation before sending a block on. Builders instead post collateral to be used in case they try anything funny.

But while the ultra sound relay’s system has the relay operator holding the collateral themselves, the PoN system is integrated into smart contracts with third party reporters acting as oracles to detect violations and penalize offending actors accordingly. All in all it’s potentially (remains to be seen) an improvement over the current system

I don’t find their documentation to be very complete (or even accurate?), and their recently-published GitHub repos contains a fork of mev-boost-relay without attribution to Flashbots or a proper commit history. And the actual meat of the system, centered around Restrictive Partially Blind Signatures, is closed source and undocumented so far. It’s also concerning that their proposer guide has you input your keystore.json and enter your password (?!). They’ve confirmed to me that it’s only used locally (not uploaded) to prove that you control the validators you’re registering, but this is not the way to do it.

It’s something to keep an eye on if you’re following the cutting edge of MEV and block production stuff, or if you have goerli validators and want something to test. Otherwise maybe hold out for more info.

Side note: MEV-Boost Community Call 2 tomorrow at 16:00 UTC. Going to be plenty of boring technical stuff about shapella readiness and optimistic relay rollouts.

Mar 24, 2023 - Episode #12 | Anthony Bertolino

Special guest Anthony Bertolino joins us from POAP Drops, a brand new interface for easily creating and distributing your POAPs where you can also browse past POAP drops, manage existing drops, and much more.

The morning trinity

u/Mister_Eth:

crickets

$1814

0.064

Shitpost of the week: u/Syentist

I urge anyone who hasn’t done so to read through the chapter on digital assets in the Economic Report of the President. It’s gives a full picture of the deviousness and flippancy of the Biden administration towards crypto. Take this gem on pg 238 for example

crypto assets to date do not appear to offer any investments with any fundamental value, nor do they act as an effective alternative to fiat money, improve financial inclusion or make payments more efficient; instead their innovation has been mostly about creating artificial scarcity in order to support crypto assets’ prices - and many of them have no fundamental value

Complete horseshit. They do act as a non-inflationary alternative to debasement of fiat money, today. They do act as a self-custodial alternative to money which relies on trusting banks which are literally teetering, today.

They do improve financial inclusion. A kid in rural India or Mexico or Romania can take part in the Ethereum defi ecosystem with just an internet connection, today. Trading securities and treasuries and holding American dollars is a privilege to a tiny fraction of the world, and it’s sad to see the Biden ainistration not see this.

They do make payments more efficient. This is increasingly clear for internet native payments. Buying and selling digital native art and culture, paying members of a DAO, transferring funds to colleagues in the same team but all over the world, making small payments in countries like Nigeria and Lebanon with collapsing local currencies - various crypto solutions do make payments efficient in these instances, today.

And last and most importantly of all, is that even if crypto had no usecase (which isn’t true as I pointed out above), even if, that value judgement is still not the business of the federal government. Here’s a great take by Chervinsky

Too many policymakers are playing venture capitalist, guessing which technologies will be valuable and which won’t.Tech neutrality is a core principle of good policy for a reason. Picking winners and losers is hard enough for the professionals. Government should stay out of it.

If you’re tired of this government lying, gaslighting and overreach, a good place to start is to sign up for the crypto advocacy program by Coinbase: https://actnow.io/z31xN5P

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Do Kwon arrested,

Arbitrum still congested,

Rewards devested.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

GameStop launches its NFT Marketplace in beta, in partnership with zk-Rollup based Ethereum Layer 2 Loopring.
ETH injects zeroes in numbers like $3030, or ₿0.0707.

In 2021:

Uniswap presents v3, up to 4000x more capital efficient and featuring Concentrated Liquidity positions, allowing liquidity providers to set price ranges.
Ethworks introduces framework for rapid DApp development useDApp.
Coinbase Pro announces support for ANKR, CRV and STORJ.
ETH counts the beans at $1679, or ₿0.03067.

In 2020:

Uniswap v2 is launched on all testnets, with pure ERC20 pairs, price oracles and flash swaps.
ZenGo sounds the alarm on “baDAPProve”, or how attackers can abuse approved, but highly excessive privileges to steal users tokens.
ETH rediscovers its wings from $124 to $135, at ₿0.021.

In 2019:

As if ETH needs stablecoins at $138, or ₿0.03429.

In 2018:

Basic Attention Token is the first ERC-20 token to become an Apple verified virtual currency.
Ethereum Improvement Proposal site eips.ethereum.org goes live; automatically generated from all merged EIPs.
ETH flails at $538, or ₿0.06156.

In 2017:

Storj plans to migrate its decentralized storage from Bitcoin-based Counterparty to Ethereum.
Brave announces it will launch an ICO for Ethereum-based ad token BAT.
Coinbase receives the approval to trade Ether and Litecoin in New York.
ETH cajoles traders for $42.7 to $43.8, or ₿0.04066 to ₿0.04221.

In 2016:

Engineers at BitGo create Ethereum multis-sig wallet Ether.li.
Japanese Bitcoin exchange Coincheck starts trading Ether.
No malice found in ETH going from $11.3 to $12.4, or ₿0.02709 to ₿0.02964.

u/REALJohnBMacLemore shares the latest ERC to get created and its implications

https://www.tradingview.com/news/cointelegraph:d34c7580d094b:0-forget-http-ethereum-has-a-new-url-standard-that-can-t-be-blocked/

BREAKING NEWS!

EIP-4804 is now an ERC! So like under ERC-4804, internet users have the option to type “web3://” vs “http://” in their browsers to bring up DApps such as Uniswap or onchain NFTs directly! OMMFG Bros! We can now directly run a query to the EVM!

web3://jbmaclemore.eth/

News:

u/nixorokish, a real crypto native and OG fell victim to a phishing attempt and tells her story

See here: https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/11slqjw/daily_general_discussion_march_16_2023/jch9a3s/

dang. First time I’ve ever fallen for something stupid. I went to check out Arbitrum eligibility and clicked the first link under the announcement. The link did look like a scam to me but I had just read a friend comment that the legit airdrop announcement / video “looks like a scam”, so my brain had its defenses down. Only connected and I think it just took whatever already had approvals? Which was all my DAI. feelsbadman.jpg - 5400 DAI is no small sum. It unfortunately looks like they got a few people before the tweet was hidden.

My brain finally went ‘nope’ when it asked to approve RPL, but everything before that was just a signature to connect (I think?), not a transaction or approval.

Things I could have done better (that I usually would do!):

Matched the twitter handle from the tweet to the actual account
Found the link elsewhere (verified it) before connecting my wallet, especially in their discord
Generally slow down and read when signing things from my wallet.

Expensive lesson learned! I’m going to lay down and watch a movie or something, I’m super bummed that I’m a dummy.

Another thing learned in this (thanks to /u/Ribilla_ ) - DAI is a special kind of ERC20 that allows transfers that require only a signature (permit, which is a signature-based approval function) - it doesn’t look like your typical approval or transaction. So even signatures when connecting to sites should be treated as potentially dangerous and giving away your assets.

u/bagogel12 and u/Unitedterror on the Euler exploit

https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/euler-finance-hacker-eth-wallets-solidity-developer-exploit/

u/bagogel12:

I can give a short update regarding the Euler exploiter situation. It’s still a developing story … if you missed episode 1 and 2, you find them here: link / link

S02E03 - The merciful hacker (cont.)

After the exploiter sent 100 ETH to one affected user, DLNews identified this lucky person. DLnews is actually quite good - I didn’t know Defillama has it’s own newspaper! After Swap.defillama.com/ it’s another killer product of the Llama universe …

The interesting part of this episode is: The 100 ETH are actually worth more than what the user lost 78 wstETH (or 86 ETH). Essentially, the user would have profited from the “deal”. Being now officially doxxed he sent back 12 ETH to the official Euler depositor address. Is this correct? Who knows, we’ll see if Euler will push for the full amount to be returned. It’s a subplot which runs through the entire season. …

For more information on this incident, I refer directly to DLnews:

S02E02 - The maniac hacker

Every morning the hacker gets up, he’s doing something with his freshly earnt money. If you own $200M you can have some fun with it, right?

So, Today morning, he decided to give 100 ETH to the allegedly North Korean and OFAC sanctioned Ronin Exploiter Address, probably Lazarus controlled. Here is the tx: https://etherscan.io/tx/0x202a67d3a1d52e4dd5e1eebe49da511164b6e4a1ebe717dcf4674dd83a2bd457

Is he trying to fool us? Some kind of weird joke of 21 year old hacker? Or is it some kind of attribution to them? What will come next? Sending some to SBF or Alamada?

Or is he just bored and want his warrant level raised like in GTA?

Before he sent the 100 ETH to KimJongUn, he moved 1k ETH between his wallets but it’s sitting there idle. At the moment, in total only 1.5k ETH has been sent to Tornando, the rest still in ETH (85k) or DAI (35 M).

S02E03 - Tornado Cash Activity

I did some tracking of the wallets which have used Tornado Cash recently. The activity has fallen quite a bit after it was hit with OFAC sanction rule. So it’s kind of easy to track the activity even visually and manually. Here is the result:

https://imgur.com/a/IbbO5db

I’m a bit surprised that 125ETH (and a batch of 100 ETH) went pretty straight from Tornado into Binance. The other larger chunks were moved into railgun and multiBTC, only some smaller amounts ran over “privacy oriented” exchanges.

It seems that the merciful-maniac hacker has not cashed their ETH out yet.

u/Unitedterror:

Okay Okay – Heres the official Post-Mortem thread for the Euler hack: https://twitter.com/TraversaJulian/status/1636782111616122881

I reposted an earlier draft of it yesterday but I think the conversation here should really be around how safe people felt Euler was.

It was generally considered “as safe” as Compound, Aave, Maker, etc., and having a loss of ~$200m kind of breaks many previous assumptions about safety…

So my only conclusion is that we need to move towards more resilient mechanisms, mechanisms that cost significantly more to execute but are necessary to move forward effectively.

Rate limiting
Explicit / Limited Upgradability
Built in diversification
Circuitbreakers
Isolated custodial modules

It really goes on, but these can only be effectively done if we all move towards L2’s.

With the arb airdrop, now is the time to push for L2 adoption and the security that we really need to move DeFi forward.

u/Kukai_walker drafted a letter to their representative and shared the template for you. YES YOU

At the encouragement of u/TheCryptosAndBloods yesterday, I drafted a letter to my US representative, who happens to be among the 100+ member Congressional Progressive Caucus. I took the perspective that crypto is well aligned with progressive principles so they should engage. Including here for crowdsourcing feedback to improve it and/or for others to cut and paste from it especially if you too have a CPC representative:

=======================

Dear Representative xxx:

[removed doxxable intro]

I am writing to you today to encourage you and CPC to engage actively in policymaking around digital assets (aka, crypto).

As one of the 20% of Americans who own digital assets, I have used much of my recent time to teach myself about digital assets and the broader domain of blockchain technology. This is a highly technical field, requiring me to learn about such areas as cryptography, finance, decentralized networks, computing, and others. This knowledge has yielded practical benefits in that I have learned how to join thousands of others to stake ether on the Ethereum blockchain which now provides me with a steady income.

This knowledge has also allowed me to cut through the hype, misinformation, and disinformation surrounding cryptocurrency in the popular discourse to conclude that in fact, the crypto ecosystem of digital assets, smart contracts, and public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum has value and will disrupt economic and business systems around the world. For instance:

• Decentralized financial protocols allow everyday people to instantly make payments around the world and make loans and other financial transactions without commercial middlemen

• Immutable and transparent records on the public blockchain can protect intellectual property and assure fair and transparent management of royalties

• Public blockchains can serve as a permanent store of critical personal events including birth, death, graduation, etc.

• Assignment of unique non-fungible tokens can help manage ownership and transfer of collectibles, valuables, artwork, etc.

• Blockchain has potential business uses such as on-line gaming, supply chain management or carbon credit system.

• The crypto ecosystem can transform the internet business model from allowing dominant internet platforms (eg, Facebook, Google, Apple) to own and profit from personal information to a “web3” model where the user controls their own data on the blockchain.

I have also been struck by the fact that there is significant alignment between the principles underlying cryptocurrency and the progressive agenda. The essence of the crypto ecosystem is that data and open-source computer code distributed and synchronized around the world can replace reliance on institutional middlemen (eg, banks, internet platforms) with a decentralized transparent system available to all whose trust comes from the decentralized crypto ecosystem in which users can directly take custody of their own assets and personal data. These features can directly support the progressive agenda and its commitment to sweeping, transformative change:

• Income inequality can be reduced by helping underserved populations—who under legacy systems often cannot get a loan, buy a house, or start a business—to build wealth and carry out financial transactions without needed to rely on gatekeeping banks that may have institutional biases that disadvantage them.

• Facilitating crypto use can help advance racial justice and equity. A 2019 FDIC survey found that 14% of African American households and 12% of Hispanic American households were unbanked compared to only 2.5% of white households. A recent Harris Poll found that 30% of Black Americans and 27% of Hispanic Americans owned crypto compared to 17% of white Americans.

• Replacing banks with self-custody and a fully transparent accounting on a public blockchain will reimagine the role of institutions that exacerbate injustice and inequality.

Congress must and will create a policy framework for digital assets in the US; it will be important to help shape this policy to promote progressive principles. Now is the time to act. Congress will likely see a number of bills introduced this session on such issues as rights to self-custody, defining digital asset taxonomy, and clarifying regulatory oversight. Discussion on such legislation has already begun in the new Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee which has recently expanded its scope to include cryptocurrency. This Subcommittee includes two CPC members—representatives Torres of NY and Sherman of CA. The CPC can utilize its subcommittee membership and other opportunities to actively engage in shaping this legislation to reflect progressive priorities.

Moreover, engaging on this issue provides a great opportunity for bipartisanship. The need for regulation has bipartisan agreement. A number of Republican members have been actively supportive of addressing policy in this area (eg, representative Emmer of MN, Davidson of OH, and others). It would be remarkable, yet natural, to join forces with the other party on this issue to demonstrate its importance to the American people.

In addition to legislation, progressive congressional oversight is needed. I have been dismayed at the administration’s actions that, in the context of overall banking system failures and under the guise of consumer protection, are inhibiting the development of a regulatory environment that would allow the digital asset sector to prosper. There are those who believe that the administration is responding to entrenched interests that are threatened by the transformative change that crypto may catalyze, taking advantage of the current banking crises to squash crypto, such as by discouraging banks from holding crypto or servicing crypto clients.

I hope you and the CPC will take on this important issue to both support the progressive agenda as well as keep America’s leadership in this new sector. Blockchain and crypto are borderless by nature. If the US cannot provide a fertile environment for innovation, the developers will go elsewhere and will not be serving the country or its people.

Thank you very much.

================

u/LogrisTheBard finishes his post on decentralised identity

Revised/finished post from the other day.

DID (Decentralized ID) systems are a hot topic right now. They are needed for everything from free to play games, social media networks, and airdrops to governance systems like OPs Citizens House. There is (rightly so) a lot of buzz and various takes on how to approach this topic. I think this is one of the existential risks of Defi and I’ve written about that before (that sure aged well). I’m personally in favor of the Gitcoin Passport framework that enables each user to define their own calculation for Sybil Resistance by identifying their stamps and then having an attestation system like I proposed awhile ago compress long form off-chain calculations into simple on-chain maps. The focus of these systems ends at being a proof of humanity per address. They are specifically attempting to solve Sybil-resistance.

However, I think there is the potential to layer reputation systems like credit scores on top of Sybil-resistance and I think the potential of this is largely unexplored. For the sake of this discussion I’ll limit reputation to being a purely quantitative, monetary history of honesty rather than history of competence, impact, or ideology. In that context reputation is synonymous with trust. If we want to keep this purely quantitative, what can we objectively measure about something (e.g. code, people, institutions, etc) that makes people trust it? Here are what I think are the three primary pillars of trust:

Social Attestation. When someone signs off on a code review, they are making an attestation. Systems like BrightId and Proof of Humanity are entirely social attestations. These systems are inherently subjective and usually gameable so are unreliable on their own but much of the world is entirely built upon attestation layers (your government ID for example).
Time. The longer something has been there the more time attackers have had to inspect it, identify a vulnerability, and attack it. The longer a person has been around the more opportunities have arisen that might lure them to dishonesty. In a permissionless system, time proves doubts to be illusory in the same way that a $20 bill on a busy street is probably fake or glued to the floor the longer it sits there.
Opportunity Cost of Honesty. Watch carefully how trust is used once granted. Any position of trust is exploitable to some degree. Otherwise what are you trusting? Honesty is the degree to which an actor is suboptimal at exploiting that trust. Yes, I’m aware how unintuitive that definition of honesty sounds but that’s as close as I’ve come to a formal definition. Your unexploited trust value (UTV) is your maximum exploitable trust - exploited trust.

These pillars stand together to form the base on which a credit system could be built. They are a subset of what Vitalik identified in his post on legitimacy.

The first two are straightforward to measure. The latter is a bit more like measuring carbon deltas for Carbon Credits, Sybil values, or MEV because the maximum exploitable trust term is so subjective. With PoS Sybil-resistance is derived from the money you have. Conversely, your UTV is derived from the money you don’t (in a sense). It’s the money you don’t have because you chose to be honest. This is akin to the forgery-resistance score from Gitcoin passport being floored at the amount you have spent/lost.

The fact that this is subjective (and potentially monetizable) will probably lead to competing standards for how to calculate it much like credit agencies today. Your address will have the equivalent of an Experian score from multiple aggregators which combines the three pillars above into a single number that anyone can query. Each Defi protocol could choose to use a different score, a combination of scores, or create their own score. Could this lead to abuse by an agency? Yes, but less than the current system which isn’t permissionless.

But how do you bootstrap trust if no one will give you a position of trust you can honor/exploit? You can’t bootstrap a system like this based on unsecured loans without first getting robbed by a few ten-thousand Sybilooors. The capital efficient answer today is to get involved in communities until someone is willing to grant you trust based on social attestation and time alone. That lacks a certain scalability element though. I think we can do better, even while remaining permissionless. You have to rely on some form of suboptimality otherwise the system will be gamed for profit. So what forms of permissionless economic suboptimality are already on-chain? The few that come to mind for me are donations to public goods, unrealized losses on airdrops, suboptimal votes in the face of bribes, and delegated credit.

None of these are perfect. The first criteria requires money to bootstrap. The second and third may have ulterior selfish motives the system can’t see. The fourth is basically an extension of social attestation and just begs the question. So how do you bootstrap trust on someone with nothing to give and nothing to lose? I have no good answer but the above is the beginning of a formulation.

Why does it matter? Because this value can be integrated into tokenomic systems. I mentioned unsecured lending above, which is probably the first thing that comes to mind when you hear credit system, but I think that’s actually one of the worst use cases for this. To explain why, we first have to break Defi collateral into two categories. The first category is money used as collateral for good behavior but which doesn’t have a credibly neutral recipient. ETH staking is the largest example of this category but there are many others. The only criteria here is that the system has an objective, enforceable slashing condition. In this category the money just needs to be forfeit by the staker but it doesn’t need to go anywhere. The second category is money used to reimburse someone. This includes all your money markets, collateralized stablecoins, insurance protocols, etc. It is more viable to use UTV as collateral for the former category. I wouldn’t recommend this for the Ethereum base chain because the data to calculate this is on the base chain and this is a subjective score, not credibly neutral.

So where does this get us? Take a PoS system (not DPoS, that’s dumb). The purpose of this system is to reach consensus on something. There are two necessary economic components to a PoS system. First, you have to be able to reward honest actors to incentivize participation. Second, each actor needs something at stake they can lose by being dishonest so you have entropy of bad actors over time. I’ve never seen a system designed so the failure of the dishonest actors is the main reward driver of the honest ones so I assume any such system has a revenue stream attached to it. Now, could we use reputation credit/UTV for such a system in lieu of capital? It certainly satisfies the something at stake requirement. You just have to be able to prevent collusion in the system and prevent bad actors from joining at a faster rate than the dishonesty entropy.

To prevent collusion I’ll rely what I call Bitcoin’s/Satoshi’s great insight. The failure rate of attacking a network scales super-linearly with the number of anonymous actors in that network. This is because the chance of leaking a secret scales exponentially with the network and there is a common Schelling point to unify against dishonest actors once a secret is exposed. This is the primary value of decentralization. Past a certain threshold it is safe and profitable to be honest and risky and expensive to be dishonest. So the key to preventing collusion is to increase decentralization and protect anonymity of actors. Defi satisfies this.

To solve dishonesty entropy we’re just using a different collateral (which is still a scarce resource). Today we use capital for Sybil-resistance. This does not provably satisfy the entropy condition and so plutocratic attacks on PoS systems today are possible. Given the source of this alternative collateral (historical honesty) UTV may prove out to be a superior selection criteria for identifying honest consensus participants.

This actually creates a beautiful sort of flywheel. By acting honestly you build a reputation score. You can stake your reputation in order to promise certain services. By fulfilling your promise you generate both an income stream and further reputation. This creates a compounding benefit to continue acting honestly. A world in which honest actors can build an income stream predicated on their reputation and potentially bootstrapped through community service is also a basis for UBI. It’s a step closer to the type of world in which I’d like to live. A few disclaimers though. First, nothing is ever fully proven to be trustworthy. Second, trust is not monotonically increasing. As systems or the world with which they integrate change trust in them fluctuates.

P.S. I’ve been asked to plug an on-topic game from the EVMaverick’s called Layer Zero. The basic premise of the game is to willingly enter into a contract with a group of people who can all openly rug the contract. Everyone has to put a share of collateral into the pot to join. Anyone in the game can take the pot. If no one takes the pot then everyone is generating UTV at the pot size * participants. Conceptually, a set of non-conspiring participants in a game like this can generate more in UTV than the money at stake. While UTV as defined above is scarce if it can be generated faster than capital it could out-compete capital for shares of revenue streams because of this.

Self-serving link

u/alexiskef shares news of DeFi Llama forking their own platform

The DefiLlama team is forking Defillama

According to Oxngmi: “The person who controls both defillama’s twitter and domain has decided to launch a token despite everybody in the team not wanting it. That is why we (the DefiLlama team who have built the site you all know and love for the past three years) have decided to fork Defillama and start fresh on llama.fi and @llamadotfi”

DO NOT TRUST ANY COMMUNICATION OR TOKEN FROM @Defillama or Defillama .com”

I have no idea if this is true, but the accounts seem to be the ones that control the extension. Personally I have not uninstalled it, but be careful until we find out what is actually happening..

u/0xBOBA hasn't been checking price for the last 3 months and checks in with us

I tried to not check prices. I lasted 3 months. I ended up checking because of the SVB news. Good to see ETH up 50% since I left. Makes me a little less worried about my CDP. The $ARB airdrop was a nice surprise too. Glad I didn’t miss it while I was gone. The only other thing I was really worried about while I was gone were my non-ETH holdings.

With withdrawals coming I finally gave up on my LINK and swapped them for RPL. More confidence in RPL than LINK. Should have done it long ago. I got too attached to my LINK and waited too long for the ratio to recover. (I’m a horrible trader). Lesson learned there. But I need an exit plan for RPL. It’s only 2% of my portfolio though.

I’ve used this drop in the ratio to unload most of my BTC. Now only 3% of my portfolio. 0% at 0.055 if my limit orders go through. A part of me wants to keep a little bit of BTC just for nostalgic reasons but I really don’t see the point of BTC. I skimmed some of the recent dailies and see others offloading their BTC. This probably means the ratio will continue to drop ☹️

So now I am 95% ETH and too heavy in ETHE in my retirement funds. Feels nice (other than the horrible ETHE price: what’s going on there?). It was kind of nice not checking the price for a few months, but I also missed reading the daily.

I’ll probably stick around to claim my $ARB and maybe until withdrawals are enabled. Anything fun to do on Arbitrum these days? Something that won’t make taxes a mess next year.

u/wolfparking has some Airdrop hunting ideas

Airdrop Ideas?

I recently joked with some friends at work about how the ARB airdrop would be my only work bonus this year and, of course, they got super interested. Last Xmas I gave them all RPL and it has tripled in value, but since then they haven’t really done anything with defi or crypto. However, I think airdrop farming might just be the push that gets them swimming!

So, I’m compiling a list of some of my airdrop farming tasks that I plan on doing every week. For the uninitiated, I’ll provide step-by-step guides on some of the tasks every week if I can. I’ll post all that here in the caches.xyz forum: https://caches.xyz/forums/discussion/airdrop-hunts-checklist/

(Must sign in to see today’s update)

Here is the shortened version of it. Please let me know if you have any ideas I can add!

* Bonus and super useful if you can add whether or not it is likely to happen, costs involved, or potential gains

~~[ ] • Attend Swell Discord meeting today on 3/17.~~

[ ] • Prepare art for Swell memes and articles and post a tweet about it on their Discord Week of 3/19 (deadline Fri?)

[ ] • Create StarknetID (My guide created 3/19)

[ ] • Zksync 1.0 transactions (Use zig zag)

[ ] • Scroll testnet transactions.

[ ] • Matcha.xyz swaps.

[ ] • Continue interacting on Optimism and Arbitrum (Use HOP and VSTA)

[ ] • orbiter.finance (Bridge)

[ ] • starknet testnet (mint NFTs, create blocks NFT, dapps)

[ ] • checkout earni.fi

[ ] • GMX blueberry lottery

[ ] • Use argent wallet (swaps, dapps, and LP)

[ ] • Use Lens (make a post, friend, etc)

If you don’t mind, please engage on the caches.xyz forum if you need assistance as I’m certain that others will have the same or similar questions as you there.

u/Ender985 has an update from the NFT world

Meanwhile, more NFT shenanigans..

535 DeGods NFTs that had been previously burned in Ethereum, were “ressurrected” as ordinals in BTC, at 0.333 BTC per mint this past weekend.

They all sold out in a single block.

The project dominated ordinals secondary markets, with over $1M in volume, ahead of YugaLab’s twelvefold ordinals by >7x. It seems ordinals are here to stay, and more so if they are backed by already established brands such as DeGods.

u/SoNotYou discusses compromised Arbitrum airdrop wallets

https://github.com/ArbitrumFoundation/sybil-detection/issues/3

Yesterday some twitter user found out ~2400 compromised accounts all approving ARB. Someone analysed these (actually 2225) wallets and 1791 wallets are elligble for around 3 million ARB total.

Many users became victim by following links under the announcement tweet. Suprised Arbitrum didn’t provide the link to their website with the annoucement or turn off replies. They are not new to how crypto scams and hacks work.

https://twitter.com/arbitrum/status/1636352104913666050

Frustrating to see that so much damage is done. Users have personal responsibility sure. But I think the damage wouldn’t be this big if Arbitrum guided users to the right place. Maybe I am a bit unreasonable here…

Stuff like this can’t be happening if crypto ever wants to become ‘mainstream’.

I have not been hacked personally and this just an observation.

u/busterrulezzz has something to say about Balaji

I will take Balaji seriously when he goes to explain his theory to people who have the intellectual background to ask him the hard questions.

His appearance on Bankless and the Pomp show yesterday were appalling. Those weren’t interviews, they were oral presentations. He could have said that Satoshi was going to come down from heaven to wash away our sins and give us eternal life, and the hosts would have nodded their heads and said “woah.”

Balaji is not the intellectual he claims to be. An intellectual does not choose hosts sold out to his cause to make his point - instead, he will go directly to confront those who disagree. This is the very basis of the scientific method. I also find his tone to be alarmist, dramatic, filled with hyperbole created to capture attention.

Who is he, anyway? He is an engineer who became a multi-millionaire in the early 2010s - he has no expertise in finance, history or politics, beyond what he has read elsewhere. Ironically, he made his fortune from the system he says he wants to escape today. His claim to fame is that he “predicted” the pandemic on January 30, 2020. Except that on January 30th, the WHO declared a “global health emergency”, Wuhan had already been cut off from the rest of the world, there were confirmed cases in dozens of countries… He was a bit early, sure, but it is not the feat he claims.

Finally, about his $1M prediction, he has already prepared his exit. In three months he will say, “Oh, the bet was just a wake-up call, you shouldn’t have taken it at face value, I’m not sure about the timeline, but hyperinflation will happen soon.” It won’t happen, and he’ll push the deadline again and again, until he disappear into irrelevance.

u/nixorokish has the deets on Coinbase's Wells notice from the SEC

https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1638654192138199041

Brian Armstrong:

1/ Today Coinbase received a Wells notice from the SEC focused on staking and asset listings. A Wells notice typically precedes an enforcement action.
[…]
4/ We are proud to stand up for our customers and the industry in these moments.

Honestly… best that Coinbase, who’s well-capitalized and equipped to handle this, to be the one to go to court with the SEC and set a precedent. A win for crypto against the SEC in court would be a big deal and there’s no one better poised to do that than CB.

Mar 17, 2023 - Episode #11

WANTED: The morning trinity

crickets

Shitpost of the week: u/RevolutionarySoil11

Now, this is a story all about how

Our lives got flipped-turned upside down

And I’d like to take a minute

Just sit right there

I’ll tell you how we became gentlemen of a sub called ethfinanciér:

In Ethereum Trader, born and raised

On the daily was where I spent most of my days

Chillin’ out, meming, tradin’, all cool

And all buying’ some shitcoins outside of the school

When a couple of mods who were up to no good

Started making trouble in our neighborhood

We told them donuts are whack and jtnichol got scared

He said, “You’re movin’ with cutsnek into ethfinancier”

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Neutral referee,

Yet he plays for his own team,

Markets should stay free.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

All Bored Ape NFTs from NFT fractionalizing service NFTX are temporarily borrowed via a flash loan to claim 60000 APE worth over $1 Million.
Valued at $1.65 Billion, Optimism completes a Series B fundraise of $150 Million, led by A16z and Paradigm.
Polygon integrates the Simba Chain to scale and build new infrastructure for Web3, starting with the launch of a white-label NFT marketplace.
Tokenized Vault Standard ERC-4626 becomes final, allowing for uniformity between yield-bearing tokens, to be used by many DeFi projects.
ETH exists in the reality of $2815 and ₿0.06874.

In 2021:

Meitu buys another $28 Million in ETH and $22 Million in BTC.
Terraform Labs launches the decentralized UST stablecoin, undermining DDoS attackers in the process.
Bitfly launches a MEV beta program to increase mining rewards via transaction sequencing/frontrunning, compensating for EIP-1559.
Vlad Zamfir sues Casper Labs Inc. over improper use of the Casper name.
AMD refuses to limit Ethereum mining: “we will not be blocking any workload”.
Jonty Wareing finds that most NFTs reference URLs or IPFS hashes which are bound to break in the future.
The Harris Poll claims ~7% of Americans used funds from Stimulus Checks to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether.
ETH returns a lost wallet containing $1823 and ₿0.03097.

In 2020:

Prysmatic Lab’s Ivan Martinez explains what Eth2 improves on Eth1, apart from staking and sharding: minimum viable issuance, statelessness, account abstraction and execution environments.
MKR holders accept USDC as a third collateral asset in the Maker Protocol, after ETH and BAT.
Opera allows U.S. users to buy BTC and ETH directly from its in-built crypto wallet, via Apple Pay and debit cards.
ETH eats the crypto crumbles between $111 and $114, at ₿0.02178.

In 2019:

Maxwell Foley explains Eth2 verifiable delay functions.
ETH’s profits are verified to be delayed at $140, or ₿0.03484.

In 2018:

There goes my Ether, watch it as it goes from from $601 to $553, or ₿0.07265 to ₿0.06983.

In 2017:

No drama for ETH today from $45.4 to $46.8, or ₿0.03865 to ₿0.04259.

In 2016:

The DAO whitepaper is released.
ETH welcomes early adopters betwen from $12.6 to $11, or ₿0.03005 to ₿0.02613.

u/vsesuk1 laughs at the New York Attorney General's comments on Ethereum

From: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=XDXIUrIw3tVafxqwEqVfKw==

Lol holy crap bunch of dummies over there at NYAG office. At least Gensler’s team understand crypto…

Under proof-of-work, computers on the Ethereum network competed to answer amathematical puzzle in order to verify transactions on the blockchain and receive in-kind digital asset rewards. Under proof-of-stake, however, validators, pledge or “stake” their holdings in ETH and are randomly chosen to verify transactions on the blockchain and receive an in-kind digital asset reward. By shifting to proof-of-stake, ETH no longer relies upon competition between computers, but instead now relies on a pooling method that incentivizes users to own and stake ETH. The shift to proof-of-stake significantly impacted the core functionality and incentives for owning ETH, because ETH holders now can profit merely by participating in staking.

Lol, “merely by participating in staking” holy christ project much? Is this a highschoolers essay?

And why is it a security Ms AG?

the Ethereum Foundation claims on its website that users of Ethereum “see it as a digital store of value because the creation of new ETH slows down over time.”

Lol just like bitcoin, which even Gensler has clearly stated is the only crypto he views as definitely NOT security? Can’t even line up your arguments between agencies…

But wait there’s more?

Since transitioning to the proof-of-stake consensus, the value proposition has altered significantly because possession of ETH translates directly to profit potential by earning staking rewards

Hey everyone, did you realize that you’re earning staking rewards just by holding Eth in your hardware wallet!!!!!

I have no idea how any of this will play out, but I can definitely say that NYAG is a fucking clown show compared the SEC when it comes to this stuff.

u/MrVodnik and u/KotMyNetchup on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and USDC backing shortfall

https://i.redd.it/gjolf3latzma1.jpg

u/MrVodnik:

Stolen from r WSB:

97.3% of SVB deposits are not FDIC insured. This means, most of ~$200 bln, that used to belong to many, many tech companies and start-ups, just disappeared. Probably many jobs will fallow.

This truly is a crypto day happening in TradFi.

Hello 2008, my old friend…

u/KotMyNetchup:

According to their latest tweet, Circle stands to lose 8% of the USDC backing at most. It sounds like the most reasonable expectation is that FDIC will be able to recover a decent amount of funds from SVB. I’m expecting >50% to be returned. But looking at the pessimistic side, we have a 4-8% haircut on USDC. $0.92-$0.96. We’re seeing that price range now.

The next question is if prices close enough to that range can be sustained long enough for Circle to be able to inject liquidity into the market as needed. I don’t know what mechanisms Circle uses to do this, other than promises and market forces. If it comes down to promises and market forces that might not be enough.

Another question is at what point USDC price starts to have knock on effects beyond a simple bank run. A lot of defi is built around USDC. What systems will start to deteriorate if USDC starts to depeg more? At what point do systems start to fall apart?

u/KingLeo23 shares Justin Drake's EthResearch post on "Based Rollups

New drop from Justin Drake on ethresearch “based rollups” that use L1 sequencing. Looks like they would inherently force L1 alignment and sequencer decentralization rather than having to rely on the good faith of L2 teams.

u/nixorokish shares The Summer of Protocols

The first town hall for the Summer of Protocols happens tomorrow, about 9 hours from this comment.

If you’re interested in participating, highly recommend attending! I haven’t finished reading the Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols (sort of a manifesto for the course) yet but it’s really good so far, very thought-provoking, and I’m thinking of recording a version to listen to.

edit. quick synopsis of the Summer of Protocols if you’re lazy: it’s basically a brain incubator where some very thoughtful people are going to get together and try to define what a “protocol” is, examine existing examples, and how to design one that is future-proof, capable of ossifying to some degree, incentivizes good outcomes, and look at how much stewardship that thing will need.

This is awesome and, in my mind, the kind of philosophical analysis that we need to make sure Ethereum (or any protocol) has a sufficient amount of thought put into it to try to steer away from some of the dystopian outcomes that something like the internet has brought about.

If algorithms on the internet can change people’s behaviors to rapidly foster a kind of hatred that causes people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have, why wouldn’t we assume that that behavior-changing power also works in the other direction to incentivize willing participants to better coordinate with each other? This is why I’m here. Because the infancy of Ethereum is the most exciting and malleable part and I think something like this is capable of stewarding it to a place where it actually makes a difference.

u/RevolutionarySoil11 thinks about the publics' perception of the cryptosphere

Literally how can people outside the “cryptosphere” look at crypto and not think “scam”?

A quote from u/geliboy695000 earlier today and I want to repost it here for exposure and discussion because it’s important.

When you look at social media, any time the topic comes up or problems in crypto are brought up, the threads are flooded with bots and scammers shilling whatever shitcoin they get paid to shill. If I were not already in the space and knew what goes on I’d 100% think cryptocurrency is just scams all the way down. And just to be explicitely clear: Ethereum itself has enabled this too with ERC-20s and the like. Just look at what’s literal number 4 in market cap among those tokens and then scroll down further for all the less popular bs coins like Dogelon & co.

We need to somehow find a way to exclude the grifters and scammers from the discussions while still being open and true to the crypto ideals, and also welcoming to newcomers and open to new ideas. It seems like mission impossible.

How can legitimate projects be promoted without at the same time giving exposure to the wrong people? How can the general public be educated, because it doesn’t seem knowledge of blockchain tech and its uses has increased that much in the mainstream over the past years. The majority of people still doesn’t even seem to understand even just Bitcoin, which has been around for 13 years now and is arguably the most basic and among the easiest blockchains to understand in principle.

This matters, because if most people do not understand how this tech can help society and how it works, they’ll think it’s useless and will support legislation that cracks down and hinders crypto adoption. They might cheer the criminalization of private non-KYCed wallets only to find a couple of years down the line to be forced to use CBDC and have banks not only control their money but monitor all their habits as well. It’s probably not what the majority wants but if we don’t help them understand they won’t know anything about it.

u/JayPeaEm has some updates on all the banking shenanigans

Grüezi EthFinance 😁

Signature Bank looks to have fallen just moments ago. Bank Run feedback loops are not fun🔥🏦🔥
So it looks like SVB gets no bailout, yet all the depositors get their money back. I think the Federal Reserve Printers are tired from Covid but… 😬
Nothing political, but just saw US Treasury Secretary was just in Kiev assuring US Aid will keep flowing… yet is only monitoring the deposits of all the small businesses in trouble by SVB? 🤔
USDC & DAI pegs are now stabilized. Made a killing in fees as LP, but I think I’ll keep it all parked in stablecoins for the foreseeable future; I get sea sick easy from all the rocking 🛥️🌊
Glad to see everyone active here and on Discord. Saw quite a few fellow whales help stabilize the stablecoins depegging and act really quick. There’s much more resilience in the ecosystem than many can understand. Hopefully the “gains” stay put for now.

Love you all, keep being ambassadors, and keep helping any- and everyone who asks for it!

Pröschtli 🍻

u/REALJohnBMacLemore needs your help!

Dear EVMs, EIPanda’s and the ETHFinance community,

I come before you today to genuinely ask for your help. Please take the time to read this, I know it is long but I believe it is important. No jokes this time. Thanks in advance friends.

As you may or may not know, I started a website called “Caches.” If you’ve never visited it, I will briefly explain. If you have, then you already know. Caches is a social network/community website focused on Web3 Technology and Ethereum. A place to explore all of the interesting technologies and ideas that are spinning off of this new paradigm that we all love. It’s completely anonymous, and membership is free and only available via Ethereum wallet login.

I intended for Caches to be somewhere for our community to teach, and share our knowledge outside of the walls of third parties like Reddit or Discord. Something we own, so our voices can be properly heard, and so they can’t be muted due to some draconian corporate attack on crypto or something. A place where you could “cache” your content and share it with the world anonymously, using identity technology being pioneered by Ethereum. Our mark on the world outside our biosphere. I also hoped we could show the world how you build a community, powered by web3 technology, out here on the old www… A home.

Now I have a lot of ideas, but that’s the gist of it. I have spent a lot of time in this pursuit and I have struggled with it. The platform I chose to build Caches on, WordPress, has absolutely no help, plugins, or extensions for crypto/web3. Really no good CMS platform out there does. Since I am a terrible coder, and I am already familiar with developing websites rapidly using Wordpress, I chose to move forward using it to save time, for better or for worse. This has been an adventure to say the least.

Recently, I spoke with another EVM, /u/juxtanotherposition, and we immediately hit it off. Turns out, just by stroke of luck that on March 24th, 2023 he will be giving a presentation at WordCamp Phoenix on “Wordpress, Community and Web3.” Strange how the world works sometimes … Caches is built on Wordpress, it has custom developed Web3 authentication and NFT gating, and it was made for a community… his very own community! This was literally a match made in heaven! So with all that said, we agreed to feature Caches during the presentation as an example of community built on Wordpress with web3 tech!

That means we will have eyes from the Wordpress developer community focused on Caches and the EVM! AAAAHHHH! This is why I need your help! Now look, I know I’m funny, and I make you laugh, and maybe you’ve even checked out Caches once or twice to humor me, and then laughed yourself to sleep … but I need them to see the value in this. Not just for me, or Caches, or the EVMs … for Ethereum.

Why is Wordpress important?

Wordpress is a free, open source content management system that powers an astounding 43% of all websites online. I bet you didn’t know Caches ran on Wordpress before I told you, did you? A lot of your favorite sites run on it. It’s free, open source, community developed, and extensible. It also runs on a completely opensource technology stack. Wordpress.org develops the Wordpress software and they are a non-profit entity. Their ethos is very aligned with ours. They want to enable people to have their own platform to share their ideas, and words without having to rely on anyone. You can check out their about us page if you aren’t familiar with them.

Why is this important for the community?

Since Caches was built for the EVM/ETHFi community, we have a very unique opportunity to get our ideas, and our community out to potentially thousands of Wordpress developers who will be viewing Caches during @juxta’s presentation. They will undoubtedly share Caches with other developers. That means we have an opportunity to get web3 ideas and even our community baked into Wordpress! I literally can not think of a bigger opportunity for us, and for Ethereum. If we can get developers to create plugins, extensions, themes and more that enable and integrate web3 technology into Wordpress, we have an opportunity to put this in front of 43% of website owners WORLDWIDE! I can not think of a better group than all of you to guide and usher these people into this new paradigm.

With our help we can get this technology out to the world, and we can foster the Wordpress community during their exploration of this new technology. Give them a place to safely ask questions and get good answers ranging from JBM to Logris level. A place to share ideas, develop friendships and connections … just like we all have done through the sub. This is our opportunity to put the community at the forefront of something big outside our walls and build ourselves as an authority in this space.

What’s in it for me?

Juxta has asked if Caches could be a sort of “development” test bed for Wordpress web3 plugins and technology. I like this idea, we get free development work to make Caches the premier web3 community and the developers get a real live site to develop their product. This is a win/win/win! I get to see the thing I started grow and flourish at the hands of people much smarter and more capable than me. It’s beautiful man! That’s really it. I hope to use it to make money, however we decide to do that, just like you.

What’s in it for you?

I honestly built this site for our community. I genuinely built it to enable everyone to be heard out here on the web. As I have repeatedly stated, I don’t want to own this thing by myself. So I hope you can join me, we can come up with new ways to push Ethereum/web3 forward in the web2 and we can come up with creative ways for everyone in the community to earn some money for themselves without turning into a marketing machine. I want everyone to be a part of that journey, and I want everyone to be able to contribute ideas to that goal, and most importantly I want to work with you to figure out how we can own this thing together in the fairest way possible. I don’t have any of that figured out, but that’s ultimately where I want to be… a community owned and operated by the community.

How can I help?

Pop in the EVM discord. If you’re not an EVM, I still want your help. Please. Join the public-channel and DM a mod to have the “Caches” role added to your account and then you’ll be able to see the #caches channel there even if you don’t have an EVM. I will use that to try to collaborate and focus our energies best I can. I need you! We have just 10 days to try and make Caches, the community and Ethereum look good… but hey… this is just the beginning. So don’t do it for me. Do it for ETHEREUM.

Sincerely,
JBM 👊🏻

u/Savage_X shares news of the newest version of GPT-4 and its Solidity prowess

GTP4 apparently knows solidity pretty well…

I dumped a live Ethereum contract into GPT-4.

In an instant, it highlighted a number of security vulnerabilities and pointed out surface areas where the contract could be exploited. It then verified a specific way I could exploit the contract

https://twitter.com/jconorgrogan/status/1635695064692273161

u/hanniabu explains a key part of EthFinance lore and how it made us who we are

Ethtrader donuts were key in the formation of this sub. Not just because it triggered the exodus, but because of the type of people it promoted to leave.

The people that hate grifts and cash grabs, the people that see this as more than a way to make money, the people that are in it for the tech, etc.

It distilled the community down to those that believe in the original ethos ethereum was founded on, and we do our best to carry forward.

Mar 10, 2023 - Episode #10

The morning trinity

Ethereum

It was $1420 at midnight

0.071 when i looked but that’s less memey

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

The stack overflowed,

The memory took a bribe,

On chain you can’t hide.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Optimism reveals its next-gen fault proof Cannon, able to run an EVM-equivalent Layer 2 and enabling the theoretical minimum calldata gas costs.
Startup Upstream raises $12.5 Million for its “DAO in a Box” Web3 Toolkit.
ETH heard you like airdrops so it put an airdrop in your airdrop for $2578, $2731 or ₿0.06503.

In 2021:

MakerDAO announces a DAI bridge to Optimism’s Layer 2 with near-instant withdrawals.
Digital art platform ArtStation announces and rescinds a PoC with NFTs, after backlash from users about Ethereum’s carbon footprint.
ETH is coarse and gets everywhere between $1865, ₿0.03503 and ₿0.0341.

In 2020:

ETH learns to sneeze into the elbow at $203, or ₿0.0256.

In 2019:

AlphaWallet introduces TokenScript to create SmartTokens, traditional ERC20 or ERC721 tokens with extendable structure and signed JavaScript.
ETH happily camps between $138 and ₿0.03482.

In 2018:

Vitalik Buterin announces Plasma Cash at EthCC.
ETH flabbergasts from $702 to $729, or ₿0.07556 to ₿0.07832.

In 2017:

Yoichi Hirai takes a good look at Vlad Zamfir’s Casper.
Mediachain unveils its Ethereum-based content creation token CCcoin.
ETH reasons beyond reasoning from $16.5 to $17.8, or ₿0.01433 to ₿0.01494.

In 2016:

Ether.camp produces the first hybrid Ethereum and Bitcoin ATM.
Bedeho Mender explains why your Ethereum project will most likely fail.
ETH becomes $11.9 out of thin air and some 9.8 USDfrom $9.8 to $11.9, or ₿0.02373 to ₿0.02868.

Shitpost of the week: u/okdragonfruits

Two guys named Ray walk into a bar…

They tell the bartender “This place sucked until we walked in here.” “Why’s that?” Says the bartender.

“Because we’re Rays in the bar!!!”

Analysis: u/Ender985 is still reporting in from the NFT-verse

Meanwhile in the NFT-verse..

Reporting from the trenches of the great marketplace wars of ‘23. OpenSea has engineered their next move to combat Blur’s rapid ascent into the market. What did they do?

Introduce a new table view! Where the NFT jpg is reduced to a few pixels, just like in Blur. The way art was always meant to be traded!

On a more serious note, this war has already caused some collateral damage, with the royalties race to the bottom. The argument goes that 10k profile picture collections probably should not have royalties, while it makes more sense for 1/1 art pieces.

Well, the royalties paid on ArtBlocks (an NFT platform for curated artists) has now gone from 7.5% to 2.5%. This suggests that the markets for these two types of NFTs may not be so different after all.

Community: u/benido2030 ponders on building on a greater purpose for this community

Yesterday two things that longterm members posts and that are not connected somehow caught my attention and made me think. The first one was this post by Bob Rossi, the second one was a comment by superphiz in a completely different thread.

Some personal thoughts with regards to Bobs post: I totally feel you. I want to contribute more in the space and think I would be able to add some value here and there, but hell I am just a random anon on the internet that’s mid bell curve.

But what if superphiz is right (and I think he is)? What if EVMs (which I am going to replace with members of this sub, since not everyone does hold one) will become community guardians? What if this place is something special and if you have established yourself as a valuable and know community member you are highly likely to add value to projects in the ETH ecosystem, hence also hop? What if we used the community we have built here to send people to different DAOs to positively influence decisions made in the ecosystem? What if at one point any EVM and their arguments in a (DAO) discussion are seen with different eyes just because of the NFT?

Ecosystem: u/wolfparking covers ERC-4337

This was deployed at the EthDenver conference: ERC-4337. Am I right to think that this is a really underrated implementation?

I’ve read from a few sources that this level of account abstraction will eventually allow wallets to operate as programmable smart contracts; which could be used to recover lost private keys. We’re not there yet, but still exciting!

News articles: msn.com and BusinessInsider

Could allow users to do away with the common practice of backing up a set of words on a piece of paper, enabling new ways to secure wallets. For example, users could set up two-factor authentication to access a wallet via biometric data, or program multi-signature wallets providing shared access to a single account.

Additionally, this:

Vitalik Buterin has stated that ERC-4337 enables a fully decentralized fee market for smart contract wallet operations.

Vitalik posted:

You should be able to send an op into a public mempool, and if it pays enough fees, reliably expect it to get included. This should NOT depend on ANY:

Centralized actors

Reputation systems for op senders

ETH held in a separate EOA

External services for account creation

With L2 fee structure the fee requirement diminishes.

I’m not technically skilled/knowledgeable enough to understand why this integration won’t presently allow account recovery, but we’re almost there apparently. Vitalik mentions that it can’t be solved by ERC-4337, but EIP-3074 and EIP-5003 would get us there. Very cool shit. Anyone want to chime in on anything I misunderstood?

Ecosystem: u/hanniabu discusses Privacy Pools, the successor to Tornado Cash in response to the OFAC regulation

https://twitter.com/ameensol/status/1632083054272430080

Really surprised to see the Tornado Cash successor Privacy Pools isn’t being discussed in more detail here

Since anybody can exclude any deposit, it seems it would be difficult to get any type of assurance of your anonymity set.

I also wonder if you can run into a situation where you can’t withdraw. For example if a hacker makes a large deposit and then withdraws for others, then there won’t be enough funds for everyone else to withdraw if they all want to exclude the hacker.

And not sure why the subsets are even needed if receipts are provided, which Tornado Cash already did.

Community: u/DoubtStarsAreFire has some great news about Logris building the double Logris into Alchemix

Here’s the link to the video walkthrough!

BUIDL Week is over here at EthDenver. You may have noticed a lack of a certain u/logristhebard around the subreddit. That’s because he has been diligently working on the Logris Vaults. Some of you saw the Alpha that I dropped earlier in the week… we are now one step closer to the Double Logris becoming a reality.

It’s been a long week and Logris has been working flat out to get the project across the finish line. We’re about to pitch in a little bit here… still waiting on our time so I can’t tell you that. But, I’m really excited about what we accomplished and really Really REALLLLLYYYY proud of him.

Logris says he’s proud of this function. What a nerd.

Community: u/austonst has the full wrap up from ETHDenver

ETHDenver Day 10 (Yesterday)

The final day of ETHDenver! There were no traditional talks from established companies or researchers; today was all about the hackathon teams. Each project was submitted to one of five tracks (DeFi, Impact / Social Goods, DAOs / Community, NFT/Gaming/Metaverse, and Infrastructure) and could also compete for sponsor bounties (big list here).

Projects had to be submitted by 8 AM, then from 10-2 teams showed off what they made. On the regular presentation stages, teams went up to the stage corresponding to their track and gave a 1:30 pitch and demo, with a little time for questions. When they weren’t on stage, they were downstairs in the main buidl room where the sponsor bounty judges and random attendees could learn about what they made. Track judges picked the top three of each track to present on the main stage during the closing ceremony at 3 PM, then five final winners were chosen.

Miscellaneous notes: I don’t think I can see an overall list of hackathon projects, but each one does have their own page if you know what URL to go to. But for most I don’t know the URL so it’s going to be hard to link to them. I also heard that there was a major hiccup where in the midst of planning out judging, a bunch of teams just got missed entirely and weren’t scheduled for a pitch slot or a table location. The team worked to resolve it, but with everything happening so fast some teams were just screwed over. Hopefully it’s better next year. Also I finally checked out the arcade area, good collection of imported Japanese arcade games, nice selection of rhythm games in particular.

Logris Vaults: A good place to start off the list. DoubtStars has been talking about this project so I don’t really need to. I didn’t find the team on the buidl floor, but I can throw it on here anyway because it’s cool.
ChainRep: A project to put security audits and reports (or at least links and a general rating) on-chain. Reviews point to the smart contract in question, and are written by reviewers who are issued certificates by trusted entities like the EF or something. So you could potentially make a DeFi protocol that generally works with any ERC20 token, but checks ChainRep and only allows tokens with positive reviews from certified reviewers.
MintUI: A library of React components for web3 that share information between one another to make web3 programming easier. Main example (as the name would imply) is NFT minting.
Composooor: Would appreciate more insight into this. The team was saying something about how it’s hard to build composable dapps/protocols using other protocols that rely on off-chain data. So this is a MetaMask snap (bounty hunting ho!) that simplifies this composability and significantly reduces the amount of code you need to create a clean integration.
Dual Rollup: Cartesi is an existing platform I’m only just learning about for developing optimistic rollups whose execution environment is literally a Linux VM on RISC-V. This project uses that to run a ZK prover on Cartesi, or ultimately a ZK rollup on an optimistic rollup. I get the concept but I feel like I’m barely able to grasp the implications. The team suggested you may be able to implement a universal (or at least cross-EVM) ZK bridge.
Alice’s Ring: A project for proof of solvency. With it, tenant Alice can prove to landlord Bob that she has enough assets to cover rent, notably without revealing the actual address to Bob. Then, if Alice later uses zkBob to actually pay her rent, Bob may never actually have to see Alice’s actual assets. The team says that the proof must be computed over multiple blocks or something in order to prevent someone from proving solvency after taking a flash loan. But nothing is stopping Alice from generating the proof then immediately selling, transferring, or gambling it away.
Artist Hunger Games: A pretty wild project in which artists get paid to participate in a hunger-games style game. A DAO of NFT holders have the ability to vote on which artists get removed from the game each round, and can also do silly votes on things like telling the artists where to live or eat. Make it a reality show kind of thing. I was reminded of Mark Merrill, who famously sold off shares of himself.
CryptoTaco: A point-of-sale tool for merchants to accept crypto for payments without having to worry about keys or wallets or whatever. Uses Magic’s tools to onboard merchants using their email addresses. These guys had a lot of enthusiasm, but I’m not sure they’re fully aware of how busy this space is. Hasn’t bitpay been doing this since 2013 or something?
QuestGPT: Basically AI Dungeon implemented as a Discord chatbot, using DALL-E to create images related to the story which are then minted as NFTs. Pretty nice user experience in the end. Not quite the same degree of control as AI Dungeon gives you though. I was told they use multiple AIs (all GPT?) working together to keep track of context/worldstate and regularize the story.
Factorial: Modular libraries/tools for building DeFi protocols, one example being a “liquidation module” for any time you may need to do something analogous to liquidating a user’s position.

The following are the finalists who presented at the closing ceremony. These were short talks and it was easy to miss critical details, so this may be quick.

Sesame (Winner!): Allows you to use Ethereum on your phone without internet by sending data over SMS. Has a little wallet interface that can update ETH market price and portfolio value, and lets you send simple transactions.
FundPG (Winner!): A no-loss donation pool that allows users to specify some percentage of their yield to go to public goods.
Krypto Kredit: Some sort of credit score platform using Huma. Kind of missed the details.
Bitcoin Vitalik’s Vision: Fork of the OP stack to post data on Bitcoin, inspired by ordinals of course. Team answered a question about their experience by saying “it sucks to build on Bitcoin”.
Swappy (Winner!): Token swaps using natural language queries. You type in “Swap 5 USDC on Ethereum for MATIC on Polygon” and it parses it with GPT, prompts you if you’re missing anything, constructs the actual details of the swap, lets you visualize and confirm it, then executes.
Rhinestone: My notes on this literally say “something something account abstraction” sorry.
Slang: Lets you write a single command to generate code to integrate with Ceramic (decentralized data storage) as if it were a web2 database.
Inheritable: Web3 wills for inheritance. Puts inheritances in a Merkle tree for verifying claims. Lets you establish a group of Witnesses who attest/vote that you’re dead to start the inheritance process.
BaZaarK (Winner!): I believe this was about selling an NFT but using ZP proofs to do so without revealing all of its traits. May find some specialized use cases.
MyMule: Virtual pet game with a 3D environment where the pets are NFTs. If you interact with it regularly and keep it happy, it prints some ERC20 tokens for you. If you let its happiness bar go to zero then it dies.
Synesthesia: Collecting music NFTs isn’t as fun as JPEG NFTs because of the difference in medium. This project creates generative art for each piece of music based on its metadata to make catchy pictures to go along with them.
ZKpoEx (Winner!): This provides a way for auditors to create a ZK proof that an exploit (generally agnostic to the type of exploit) exists, without revealing the specific details of how it works. Good way to do responsible disclosure. Probably my favorite out of the finalists.
Tribe.Credit: P2P lending protocol. You can deposit some capital, then it connects to your phone’s contact list and you can say how much you’d be willing to lend that person. If they borrow from you, you don’t get to see who exactly it is or how much. If they don’t repay you then identity gets revealed and they get kicked out.
GasPay (listed as Gasly elsewhere): Simple token swap tool that just adds the ability to pay for gas in whatever token you want.
Denoted: A medium/hackmd/notion kind of writing site that integrates with all sorts of crypto data and analytics tools to create graphs and visualizations embedded in the posts. Generated dynamically so can update over time.
M3mber: I think this is a way to mint an NFT that represents a membership in something with an expiry date (pitched as a way for DAOs to bring in recurring money like a subscription rather than just the one-off token sale). They use ENS domains, with NameWrapper to accomplish this; is it only because ENS domains already have expiry built in so they don’t have to code it from scratch?
GovBlocks: DAO management platform. Modular design, has useful things you would expect like DAO members being able to start a vote to change a governance parameter.

That was actually the last day. Some people are sticking around for the mountain retreat, but that’s not really something to report on. I’ll assemble a final review tomorrow and that’ll be it!

Ecosystem: u/KingLeo23 has more on the fight between crypto and the SEC

https://www.veritasanalyticsllc.com/finacial-forensics-news/2023/3/6/law360-op-ed-crypto-is-a-major-question-only-appellate-courts-can-answer

Interesting legal op-ed about the potential future of crypto regulation as the Ripple case progresses through the courts.

TLDR: The conservative supreme court has renewed interest in containing federal agencies to the powers explicitly defined by congress evidenced by WV vs. EPA ruling last year referencing the “major questions doctrine” in the ruling. Regardless of the outcome in lower courts for Ripple vs. SEC, the ruling is likely to be appealed to higher courts and this author at least thinks the SEC’s authority over crypto assets falls under the “major questions doctrine” that needs to be decided by congress and could potentially neuter Gensler’s further attempts to destroy the industry in the US.

OPSEC: u/REALJohnBMacLemore has another amazing private, free and open source app

Aaayo! It’s ya most annoying boy back with mooaar open source software! Now, if you’re like me, your short term memory is shot due to excessive and repeated blows to the head. If you’re also like me, your wife makes you aware of that fact no less than 10 times a day… so you probably take a lot of notes so you don’t feel stupid, like me. On your phone, the desktop, on the mirror after a shower … Don’t forget to put on pants today!

Notes are personal and often contain personal information, subtle details about your life and your extremely valuable intellectual property like your unreleased raps. Are you going to trust that level of information to Evernote!? OneNote!? You know who just bought Evernote? Bending Spoons. You know what Bending Spoons does? AI… yeah. They want your raps bro! Don’t even get me started on Microsoft (OpenAI) OneNote! Ahhhhhhh!

So, today I present an open source, self hosted, zero knowledge, end to end encrypted note taking app named Joplin. Joplin is a full featured notes app with markdown support, image/website/screen clip insertion support and so much more! Syncing between your mobile and desktop can be done with Joplin’s paid cloud service but they also support S3, Nextcloud, WebDAV, Dropbox, OneDrive or the local filesystem (syncthing?), so you don’t have to pay more for their cloud if you don’t want.

They have fully featured, open source apps for Android/iOS and Linux, Windows, Mac and … FreeBSD!? Whoah! So hardcore! Even the Joplin cloud server software is open source… ohhh! and … and there’s a terminal app for my fellow shell dwellers out there. You can really feel the nerd love here. Check it out!

Joplin:
https://joplinapp.org

Github:
https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/

Analysis: u/bagogel12 shares some small new DeFi protocols being built

You all know, this bear is a builder. Here are some newish, not-so-well-known Defi protocols. As they are new, they are not battle-tested and deployed capital are potentially at risk. Don‘t ape in with your life savings.

Numoen.com - an AMM on Arbitrum which let you access leverage with no liquidation penality, oracleless. It‘s done as a power perpetual ETH\^2. But there is a price,you pay relatively high funding rates so it‘s rather good for short term trades.

Sturdy.finance - another leverage protocol. Here you can leverage up DEX pool tokens or alternatively lend your ETH/stables to the one using leverage.

Contango.xyz - you can buy or sell a forward contract, and contango borrows on the fixed-rate markets, swaps on the spot markets, and lends back on the fixed rate markets. Sounds complicated, but also fascinating money lego. Be aware: very early stage, in beta with unaudited contracts!

Ondo.finance / fluxfinance.com: Ondo is gate-keeped (100k min. deposit), so I‘m not sure if you manage to get into their pools (I‘ve not tried it). But if not, you can get relatively high APY (currently) on stables (USDC,USDT or DAI) by depositing into their partner protocol fluxfinance.

IPOR.io - an Inter-protocol Offered Rate for Decentralized Finance. It‘s too complicated to explain it in simple words by myself, so I refer to their elaborate documentation: https://docs.ipor.io/

Mar 03, 2023 - Episode #9

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1567

0.07

Shitpost of the week: u/KingLeo23 answers whether u/Ethical-trade is a security

u/Ethical-trade

Am I a security?

u/KingLeo23

Yes.

It took a large investment of money to birth and raise you to adulthood.
In a common enterprise between your parents and you
Who had the expectation of profit in terms of fulfilling a basic human drive to procreate, entertainment, companionship, care in old age, etc. which all have existing markets and value.
Which can only be derived from your efforts

Please report to Gary Gensler for a paddlin

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Sequencer karma,

Blockchain inverted comma,

Layer 2 drama.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

UkraineDAO buys an NFT of the Ukraine flag for 2258 ETH.
UniSwap adds a “donate to Ukraine” feature which automatically exchanges a users’ token to ETH for donation.
A CryptoPunk is used as collateral for an $8 Million loan.
A lucky ETH is found in the crawlspace between $2950 and ₿0.06717.

In 2021:

Amazon announces the general availability of Ethereum on Amazon Managed Blockchain.
Coinbase takes a deep dive into Ethereum’s economy: “more than digital money, it’s the foundation of a $200 billion-plus economy”.
Evolve files for an Ether ETF with Canadian regulators.
Ethereum-based derivative trading platform CloseCross gets a European Union MIFID license.
ETH smashes the cash from $1566 to $1493, at ₿0.03085.

In 2020:

Hudson Jameson explains the history, pro and cons of ProgPoW, and adds: “ProgPoW isn’t worth it and is dead based on overwhelming evidence of community dissent.”
ETH chugs along, from $218 to $231, at ₿0.02599, while SteemIt experiences a hostile takeover.

In 2019:

Ethereum Core developers discuss the ProgPOW audit from Cat Herders and are looking for a new hard fork coordinator.
A $3 Million real estate transaction is settled on Ethereum by Swiss companies blockimmo, Elea Labs and Swiss Crypto Tokens..
Vlad Zamfir and Vitalik Buterin discuss blockchain politics.
Some sources say ETH goes at $134, or ₿0.03478.

In 2018:

Smart contract-powered retirement planning platform Auctus goes live on Ethereum testnet Rinkeby.
ETH is one with everything but especially with $857 (at ₿0.07995 - ₿0.07766).

In 2017:

Ethereum makes it to FastCompany’s list of “10 Most Innovative Companies In Finance 2017”.
ETH is coming of age between $17 and $19, or ₿0.01388 and ₿0.01521.

In 2016:

Ethereum reaches 10% of Bitcoin’s market cap as it moves from $7.6 to $8.5, or ₿0.01755 to ₿0.01994.

Ecosystem: u/Ethical-trade and u/etheraider share Coinbase's latest release and how it validates Ethereum's scaling strategy

u/Ethical-trade:

In the past, Binance launched its own L1 with the Binance Smart Chain.

FTX launched its own L1 with Solana.

But today Coinbase commits to Ethereum by launching its own L2 on Ethereum.

This means than Coinbase’s interests are now fully aligned with Ethereum, with bridging of users and capital directly to the Ethereum ecosystem.

This means that marketing made by Coinbase for its chain will now directly benefit Ethereum.

Eth is this L2’s native token, with which gas will be paid.

This fully validates Ethereum’s rollup centric roadmap.

u/etheraider:

While some may find the Coinbase “Base” news underwhelming or would have hoped for something different, the way I see it, this is a huge signal in the crypto space that the number one crypto company in the world is choosing to go all in on building on Ethereum.

Up until now you could argue Coinbase was “impartial” in its offerings and did not show favoritism amongst coins, but now it seems they are willing to forego impartiality to build on the project they believe in most.

They couldve chosen to enhance lightning network/build an alternative, or build on solana, or the “new” smart contract enabled Cardano, but no they chose Ethereum.

That is something I would consider “significant.”

Community: u/nixorokish makes Danny Ryan's post available in the EthStaker podcast

I’ve been screwing around with editing EthStaker’s community calls to podcast-ify them, and I loved Danny Ryan’s post yesterday, so I recorded it. It’s available in the EthStaker podcast.

Or you can listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2137396/12322923-danny-ryan-s-reflections-2023

* Yes, I know my audio levels processing is poop. I’m using some auto-process feature in the Descript software. If you want to give me pointers or tell me I suck, please leave a comment in the suggestion box on the desk that I don’t have

Ecosystem: u/Maleficent_Plankton goes into detail on the Polygon outage

Yesterday’s Polygon validator “outage” was wild:

There was a 157-block reorg
The block explorer went down for an hour
Many validators (at least 25) went out of sync and continued to have issues syncing for 12-24 hours.

It was big enough that:

Polygon rushed out a new governance proposal, PIP-9, and passed it within 12 hours. This proposal reduced validator SLA requirements from 98% back to 95% in order to save 18-23 validators from getting offboarded due to missing their checkpoints SLA.
The co-founder of Polygon stated that they are exploring replacing their entire Bor/Heimdall blockchain consensus protocol with a single-blockchain solution.

Background: What happened is that several Polygon validators experienced sync issues, which then lead to giant cascade of outages for most validators. The reason for the reorg is supposedly a bug between their Bor and Heimdall layers, though the team has yet to give details on the bug.

Checkpoint SLAs: Back in Aug 2022, there was a governance proposal, PIP-4, to move towards permissionless validation.

“In its current state, the PoS validator network is not entirely permissionless in that the previously-selected set of validators has largely persisted since testnet.”

The proposal added an SLA requirement that 95% of median average of last 700 checkpoints are signed by the validator. If the validator fails to meet the SLA, they are placed in a Grace Period have another 700 checkpoints to meet it. Otherwise, they get offboarded from staking. After 2 months, the SLA increased from 95% to 98%.

What happened yesterday concerning the checkpoint SLA:

Due to this rule and validators missing checkpoints yesterday, 25 out of 100 validators were at risk of getting kicked off staking.

The emergency PIP-9 vote to reduce the SLA was passed, saving most of the validators. Only 2 validators got offboarded and 5 more are in the Grace Period.

It’s good they’re finally taking the reorg issue more seriously, but I think they should’ve addressed this a long time ago.

Random: u/austonst is doing the ETHDenver daily recaps

ETHDenver Day 1

Last year, I attended ETHDenver and made a post each day in which I primarily summarized the best talks I heard that day, and also commented a little about my general experiences at the conference. ETHDenver 2023 has now begun, and I intend to do the same this year. As with last year, the first few days are slow: only one stage with talks starting late and ending early. So not too much to cover.

It seems that, also like last year, all talks are recorded to Twitch, one stream per stage. But for a given talk, figuring out which stage and what timestamp is not trivial. It’s not too hard either, and for today I figured I’d try tracking down timestamps but I’m really skeptical that I’ll want to spend the time on that as the days get longer. If there’s one you really want to see, let me know and I can probably find it pretty quick given that I know what the different stages are and can probably recognize the style of a given talk’s slides at a glance. But in general I’ll link to the schedule page for each talk, which should be enough to point you in the right direction for learning more.

Rick Lamanna, Founder of OpenQ (video) talked about crypto hackathons. Gave some general advice on how to best participate and pursue bounties, and then mentioned some trends such as the prevalence of bounties meaning that hackathon teams are starting to say “if you don’t pay a bounty for us to use your tool, we’re not going to use it”.
u/DoubtStarsAreFire and u/htimsk of Luau DAO (video) talked about Hodlercon, which needs no introduction here. It was a fun talk about a fun event, good vibes all around. I personally would have been interested in some more of the behind-the-scenes about what it takes to form a Wyoming DAO (and why to do so) and organize a group vacation while maintaining participant pseudonymity, but the conference organizers surprised them last minute with this day-1 timeslot so I know there were some serious time constraints.
Brian Wilkes (video) gave a nice overview of zero knowledge proofs as applied to Ethereum scaling. Nothing particularly new to me, but I think it could be a nice overview or refresher for many.
Josh Forman of ShapeShift DAO (video) covered ShapeShift’s experience operating as a DAO, and in particular how they fared during a period of serious bear market financial woes. There are some good general insights into DAO structure and operation that I found myself able to relate to the EVMavericks DAO. Some of his main lessons: be clear about your governance process, don’t try to figure out too much ahead of time, keep open and transparent communication, leadership and hierarchy can exist but should be delegated (and can be revoked) by the community.

On a personal note, it’s kind of amazing how much I expect my experience at ETHDenver will be different this year. Last year I knew nobody personally and was generally content to fill my days with nothing but listening to talks and occasionally chatting with strangers. But this year? I didn’t go half an hour before I started bumping into folks I know. I have a project that I can explain to people who ask what I’ve been working on (and they seem to find it very interesting (!), but I need to stop assuming that everyone knows how staking and MEV work). I tentatively have a hackathon team (with folks from this community) for a project I think will be bite-sized but still quite valuable. And I need to juggle driving back home occasionally for some classes I’m taking, so I’ve accepted I’m going to have limited free time this next week. But it’ll just be packed so full of fun things!

EDIT: Oh yeah, I also have the EVMavericks t-shirts for those who signed up on Discord. I won’t be lugging around the huge box everywhere I go, but I’ll try to set aside multiple timeslots when I can set up shop in one spot, let everyone know, and hand them out. Got 100 EVMavs stickers to hand out too.

Ecosystem: u/cryptOwOcurrency has details on Spotify’s new token gating NFT implementation

ICYMI: Spotify is piloting token-enabled playlists powered by Ethereum NFTs.

Music streaming Spotify is testing a new service called “token-enabled playlists,” which allows holders of non-fungible tokens (NFT) to connect their wallets and listen to curated music.

Currently, the service is available to token holders within the Fluf, Moonbirds, Kingship and Overlord communities. The curated playlists will be actively updated during the three-month testing period and can only be accessed by community members via a unique link.

Random: u/silentjxhn is finding crypto boring but u/stablecoin and u/cryptOwOcurrency disagree

u/stablecoin:

Can’t believe there’s this many upvotes. Off the top of my head I can think about:

Finalizing the Merge Event end of March kicking off a major staking reshuffling for probably the first and last time in the networks history. Every single LSD that has a shot need to make their move in the next 2-6 months or possibly never gain share again. Keeping an eye on RPL, BTRFLY, FXS, SWISE for possible shorter term catalysts.
Upcoming Arbitrum token event, huge amount of new protocols launching on Arbitrum daily lately.
Launch of final Scroll Network Open Testnet on Goerli announced just today: https://twitter.com/Scroll_ZKP/status/1630258973856395264
Polygon ZKEVM launching March 27: https://twitter.com/sandeepnailwal/status/1629736205720977408
Optimism TVL continuing to grow, Synthetix and Velodrome updates in the works.
Base (Coinbase) announcement, dapps and onboarding sooon
Starkware should continue to drip out news/updates as all these other L2 catalysts take shape, still waiting on their main net launch
New Rocketpool LSD built on top of RPL to scale Rocket Pool and decentralized staking https://twitter.com/NodeOperators/status/1630310094981468161
ZK Sync onboarding dapps getting ready for their main net launch (soon tm)
Blur passing Open Sea in volume for many days now, currently lots of active farming possibilities for useless JPGS
Yuga Labs announcing new NFT project with Bitcoin Ordinals
Sensible EU stablecoin and defi adoption
SEC fights against everyone claiming it’s a security

This bear market is honestly so much harder to keep track of developments than the last one. All you could do last bear was take a Maker CDP loan and wait for Michael Saylor to buy Bitcoin. Maybe price action stinks but you can never say crypto is boring.

[Edit] Also just remembered Spotify NFTs, Starbucks Polygon NFT rollout in progress, and some of my Reddit WSB NFT’s getting a nice premium lately.

Money should be boring. The fact that we had exciting money for a few years (bootstrapping/awareness phase of Bitcoin, then of Ethereum) is a marvel in the history of money.

If you think about it, new types of money don’t pop up very often. In the history of money, we’ve only really had three major types, invented in 6000 BC, 600 BC, and 2008 CE.

Physical barterable commodities as monies (backed by physical utility, 6000 BC)
Trust-based monies (backed by their utility in abstracting away the trade of these cumbersome physical commodities by instead trading surrogate notes representing promises made by a trusted authority, 600 BC)
Self-sovereign monies (monies that exist nowhere and everywhere as information that polices itself as it floats around, backed by their utility in eliminating the need for surrogacy or trust in creating abstract monies, 2008 CE).

You could argue that the jump from gold-backed notes to fiat notes was another fundamental evolution of money, but in any case we have been very lucky to live through this incredibly special decade.

So now begins the long, boring process of executing on the existing roadmap, and integrating Ethereum with the old, boring economy. We’ve had our big bang moment for this three thousand year period - perhaps in another three thousand years civilization will come up with yet another fundamentally new type of money and we’ll see another big bang (thousands of years from now, quantum physics may allow us to have conversations with the laws of physics and directly ask those laws of physics to enforce certain constraints on our reality, a.k.a. “magic”).

In three thousand years though, if the word “I” still makes sense to describe me, if I am even aware at that point of the events taking place on planet Earth in the material plane, and humans do invent a fourth type of money, at that point I probably won’t care.

ping u/silentjxhn

OPSEC: u/Tricky_Troll has some spiel about spammers and the report button

Thanks for those of you vigilantly reporting the spam post on the front page. A quick dive into the user posting it and the other user commenting in support of the scam found a history of similar posts with the same free reddit awards. Don’t trust any supposed uncollateralised DeFi protocols. They’re almost certainly a scam unless basically everyone is talking about such a breakthrough.

Reminder of things to look out for in identifying spam and scams on Reddit:

Spam posts: (if yes it’s probably a scam)

Did they gain a lot of upvotes in the first 20 mins and then stop gaining traction?
Does the user history have lost of similar posts or low effort comments about the same product posted by different users?
Does the post have lots of low tier Reddit awards with relatively few upvotes?
Does the user have low karma or karma farming indications like having a history of posting in random or low effort subs?
Does the user and other users commenting in support of the post have a generic usernames with a shared pattern such as “AmazingReindeer123” or “GlowingPancake4679”?

Aside from this, there are some basic rules such as:

If someone you don’t know DM’d you it’s probably a scam. Even if you want to be polite and respond to an unexpected DM, don’t reveal any info or click any links until you’re sure they are legit.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
If something raises even just one of the above flags, do some googling and delve into who else is talking about it. If you’re seeing no organic looking chat about it then it’s probably a scam.

Please remember to use the report button! In a sub with active mods multiple reports always signals to the mods that something needs investigating.

For those of you who are interested, this is the user who posted it and take a look and see if you can see the patterns of a scammer in their posts and post history. https://reddit.com/user/SpicateHammer451

Stay safe out there, folks!

Random: u/Sal_T_Nuts discusses discussing staking

My brother: So how’s it going with that secret little thing you are doing with Ethereum, that miner sitting on your desk? You must be very smart how do you manage it? Must be a lot of work.

Me thinking: Oh that’s right I’m running a validator I almost forgot.

That thing is still running perfectly turning dust into ETH without looking at it for months. Yes, staking is very hard and mind consuming. All I do is wait for my phone to prompt an update and then I run the ethstaker wizard after a few weeks. I am very sramt!

This week I managed to get my coworker into solo staking without telling him I am one myself, but I think he knows. Dude is already heavily invested in getting the best performance out of his machine. What a nerd (He’s actually a very nice guy that just loves computers). Tells me he has a lot of unused parts freshly bought just because they were off price. He was flabbergasted about the low specs needed and was kind of disappointed. I guess he was expecting to run some sort of data center in his home?

Maybe I’ll tell him to run a Solana node instead, if he really wants to drown in debt and get no profit at all (even run at a loss). Good thing is that he understands. He immediately linked the correlation about decentralization needing easy hardware to work the most efficient. Can’t expect normal people to run data centers right? They have the money, but not the technical knowledge. They do not want a beefy machine taking their electricity and bandwidth away. These were his exact words, and I was astounded by his quick thinking.

I wanted to direct him to the right sources to run a validator but he was already talking about running Geth and Lighthouse and was talking about all sorts of Linux command stuff. He was already smarter then me about validating in one day. I guess he’s going to be just fine.

Coworker, if you manage to cross this post and recognize me. Doxx me and I will tell your mother!!

Feb 24, 2023 - Episode #8

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1645

0.068

Shitpost of the week: u/jtnichol looks for a shitpost of the week

u/jtnichol

Hey fam! We’re looking for a nomination for “Shitpost of the week” to be included today in the livestream. Got any suggestions? Reply here with the link! see you soon!

u/Yeopaa

https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/11ak2qc/daily_general_discussion_february_24_2023/j9ttyfr/

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

What is Gary’s mood?

Bailing Sam out was so rude,

Do Kwon just got sued.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Flexpool.io halts all services to Russia.
A tear drops at 1 ETH, $2598, or ₿0.06778.

In 2021:

Optimism announces arbitrary contract deployments go live on mainnet in March.
dYdX launches cross-margined perpetuals on StarkWare’s Layer 2.
A16z leads a $25 million Series A investment in Optimism.
JP Morgan tests payments between satellites using Quorum.
Swiss bank Bordier & Cie incorporates Sygnum’s banking platform to offer Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and Tezos.
CoinShares launches a physically-backed Ethereum ETP.
Trent Van Epps and Tim Beiko catalog application sentiment on #EIP1559: “Almost every project / team supports this change”.
ETH offers between $1577 and $1622 for ₿0.03265.

In 2020:

Vitalik Buterin and Vlad Zamfir discuss chain governance, in which the former criticizes the way ProgPOW was “ninja-approved”.
Bitmain’s Antminer E3 could stop supporting Ethereum soon, as it’s internal memory is almost filled up with Ethereum’s growing mining epoch DAG.
Oh brother, why selleth, between $274 and $265, at ₿0.02749?

In 2019:

ETH klettersteigs from $159 to $136, or ₿0.03837 to ₿0.03575.

In 2018:

Micah Dameron writes the Ethereum Beige paper, a readable rewrite of Ethereum’s yellow paper.
Furthermore, ETH becomes further less, at $842, or ₿0.08655.

In 2017:

Ethereum’s Ropsten testnet gets spammed.
ETH acts like a stablecoin at $13.1, or ₿0.01113.

u/superphiz has a disclosure to make but it still putting values first

I want to disclose that I’ve contracted with EY to offer community education regarding their Nightfall and Starlight products for a few months. This isn’t a full time job, just an agreement to spend more time learning about Nightfall and Starlight, then sharing what I’ve learned.

Let me give you some idea what this means. My credibility to the community is the most important thing I have in crypto, so I’ll never do or say anything that would degrade that credibility. Many people who know and trust me hold that trust because I’m extremely selective about things I talk about. I focus on highly aligned projects that add value to the whole ecosystem and don’t extract value for anyone. You might know that EY’s privacy tools led by Paul Brody’s team fill that niche for me, and I’m very confident about that fit after knowing Paul several years.

My intention is to learn more and share more about Nightfall and Starlight and help them find the traction they deserve and I hope you’ll join me in this quest. If these tools succeed in the market, Ethereum will be the greatest beneficiary.

I need you to know that I can’t be bought. I’m agreeing to this contract because it’s good for the web3 community, our community, Ethereum, and EY. I believe that any greater knowledge we develop about these products will benefit all parties in the long run.

I will always continue to do my best to earn your trust as I find the best tools and opportunities to share with other Ethfinanciers, but I also need you to put your own judgement first. Ask yourself if I’m doing things that make sense for all of us or if I’ve lost my way. Follow your own good judgement, not mine. <3

u/SikhSoldiers covers the RocketPool x Coinbase Ventures partnership

We are always happy and willing to be ambassadors for the benefits of decentralisation and how that can provide a deep benefit for all those involved. So it is with great pleasure that we want to relay that Coinbase Ventures has invested in the protocol. We recently announced their intentions to join the oDAO, so this is just another step in them willing to back a decentralised staking protocol such as Rocket Pool.

“We’re excited to announce that Coinbase Ventures is deepening its partnership with Rocket Pool via a direct investment into RPL in addition to its proposed entry into the oDAO. Coinbase Ventures also plans to use their RPL and ETH to spin up their own Rocket Pool minipools.”

/- Coinbase Ventures

From the Rocket Pool discord. Pretty impressive evolution of the CB Ventures x Rocket Pool relationship.

u/15kisFUD asks if Coinbase spinning up RocketPool nodes is good, bad or neutral for decentralization

I’m in a discussion with a community member that I respect very much, yet strangely we do not seem to agree on something.

Question for the fam:

If Coinbase would start spinning up Rocket Pool minipools instead of regular validators from today on, would this be good, bad or neutral for decentralization?

Please limit the discussion to this question about decentralization only. I don’t want it to be a value judgement on Rocket Pool. Of course any actor can use it as it is permissionless. This is not a fault of the protocol. Also please don’t discuss how unlikely or likely it is that Coinbase would do this. It might be very unlikely with all the risks (RPL exposure, regalutory, other). I just want to know if you think my hypothetical question would be good or bad for decentralization

u/kainzilla

You asked me to post my comment in reply to this thread, but I think it might be worth re-writing it suited for some of the answers I see here. I’m going to write this as if the LEB-8 (8 ETH minipools) are in effect, because that is the long term goal. For anyone reading this not familiar with Rocket Pool, the current version of minipools instead has 16 ETH from the minipool operator and 16 ETH taken from the rETH pool. This difference doesn’t impact the following statements, with the exception of making the barrier-of-entry lower.

Is it good, bad, or neutral for major staking entities to use the Rocket Pool protocol?

Answer: I believe the effect on decentralization is neutral, but in spite of that neutral effect from this factor alone I think it would be actually devastating to Ethereum’s prospects to shut out large entities, due to runaway centralization behind 2-3 broadly used liquid staking tokens. Here are my thoughts.

Important Note: What does Rocket Pool do to help decentralize the network?

It lowers the barrier to entry for a solo staker from 32 ETH, down to 8 ETH + a portion of collateral (roughly a 70% reduction in initial capital required).
It gives parties interested in acquiring staking services access to a service pool that isn’t monopolized by a single entity (it is permissionless).
Specifically note that “gives more nodes to smaller stakers” isn’t in this list. This will be addressed below.

Fallacy 1: Comparing centralized entity Rocket Pool use to centralized entities not using Rocket Pool

The protocol is permissionless, and you cannot prevent any size staker from using it.
The permissionless feature is non-negotiable, as otherwise centralization is a factor and the protocol is pointless.
Desire to deny large entities from using it is pointless, and large entities staking in RP should be considered a likely outcome.
Are features #1 and #2 outlined above compromised by large entities using the protocol? I believe these features are not compromised.
With that in mind, the comparison of centralized entities using Rocket Pool vs. not using it results in a net neutral comparison minus a concern addressed in the next section.
A much more important comparison when thinking about Rocket Pool usefulness is “How does this compare to the situation without any Rocket Pool?”

Fallacy 2: Increased node counts for centralized entities using Rocket Pool

Some comments here point to the fact that small stakers can obtain a 4x node power “multiplier” against large staking entities, and that large staking entities entering the picture defeats this purpose. This is a fallacy, however:

If you could engineer a Rocket Pool protocol where you could magically keep out large-entity stakers, you could then tout “increased node counts for small stakers” as a decentralization-increasing feature of Rocket Pool, but that feature would only function up to the number of small node operators you would have available in the pool. Once that pool of small stakers runs out however, no further rETH could be created.
Any demand for staking services beyond what rETH capacity exists would then likely flow over to centralized staking entities outright. Meaning that they would be spinning up more nodes, just as if they had spun them up from rETH-provided funds. It would literally just end up a 1:1 conversion.
The end result of this hypothetical scenario where you block out large stakers, is that you have lost:
1. The permissionless feature, and more importantly,
2. you’ve seriously handicapped the value your accessible-to-all staking services access pool due to the low ceiling of possible funds, and the fact that you just forced a huge number of customers over to centralized entities providing liquid staking tokens.

The same scenario effectively plays out if you make the comparison of centralized entities using RP vs. RP not existing:

In this scenario where Rocket Pool doesn’t exist, it’s once again a very, very safe assumption that people whom are already comfortable delegating their funds for staking on the network, would instead use centralized services for their staking instead.
This means that it’s safe to assume that all funds flowing into rETH in the centralized-entities RP scenario would instead just be… with those centralized entities you’re concerned with.
Now, in this scenario, there isn’t an accessible-to-all staking services market at all, and it’s almost 100% guaranteed that one staking service is going to become popular on a runaway level purely due to the convenience of having a single liquid staking token. Lido almost did this on accident purely by being early to market and being able to expand rapidly.

Considering those two scenarios, node counts for any of these scenarios are irrelevant and are not a factor in comparing any situation for Rocket Pool. The fact is, Rocket Pool will actually give a slight node-power advantage to decentralization, but only by virtue of feature #1 - the reduced barrier-to-entry. There is no scenario where Rocket Pool increases the amount of power a centralized entity has in comparison to Rocket Pool not existing, or locking centralized entities out.

The actual strength of Rocket Pool decentralization

So what’s the actual strength of Rocket Pool? It’s specifically item #2, the accessible-to-all staking services pool. The lowered barrier to entry for actual node-operators at 8 ETH is to be frank pretty awesome and amazing, and it’s going to let a lot more people into the ETH staking ecosystem, but the point that people keep missing about the accessible-to-all staking services pool that is provided is that it keeps the biggest liquid-staking token out of the hands of a single entity, or at the very least provides a nearly-unstoppable competitor. If Rocket Pool didn’t exist, staking-services users would have nowhere to send their money except centralizing forces, and what’s more is that small operations wouldn’t be able to attract staking-services customers for shit - nobody would use little-known liquid-staking tokens, and the small operations would get crushed on margins by the big operations.

Every centralized entity that joins this accessible-to-all pool makes it that much harder for any centralized entity to monopolize the liquid-staking-token market, and even better, the protocol itself isn’t really able to use it’s own dominance of the liquid-staking market to try and shut out competitors except by trying to provide better service to keep people using rETH - so even competitors will still be able to rise up if they make something truly great. The protocol can’t blacklist competing liquid-staking tokens on the protocol’s (non-existent) exchange, the protocol can’t make back-room deals to give more favorable staking percentages to special, favored customers, the protocol can’t lock out small staking providers that the big providers don’t like.

Rocket Pool can’t actually shut out centralized or large entities by design, and it also shouldn’t because doing so is inherently a bad idea. Any centralization of node operators on the Rocket Pool protocol would have existed without Rocket Pool, and if you try and shut them out that money gets transferred right over to external centralized entities anyways. Rocket Pool’s design has likely averted a scenario where a few major exchanges dominated the entire staking services market on the Ethereum chain, which… to be honest, I think would have truly killed the decentralization angle and left us with little claim to security.

u/edrews99 reminds us that exchanges will not call you if they detect something suspicious

Heads up, I received an unsolicited call this morning allegedly coming from Coinbase support indicating that my account had been logged into from another country and that they were placing a hold on my account. While on the phone they sent me an email confirming this and a text message with a link to hxxps://issue-coinbase.com/email=?[EMAIL] to reset my account. They then gave me an 8 digit password over the phone with which to login.

I pretty much knew from the start that this was bullshit but the hxxps://issue-coinbase.com domain really sealed it. If you get any unsolicited calls from any exchange please ignore it, and maybe report it here for educational purposes. Stay safe out there.

u/domotheus demolishes the deflationary FUD on r/Buttcoin

Anyone with an ounce of understanding about economies knows why a DEFLATIONARY currency could never work as the standard.

As the standard for what? Buying eggs and bread? Paying people’s salaries? Investing in stuff? Sure. In that case, a deflationary, value-appreciating currency is bad. Thankfully that’s not what Ether is.

We need money to lose value over time to deincentivise people sitting on savings.

The first and foremost job of Ether as an asset is to provide economic security to Ethereum. “Anyone with an ounce of understanding” about that realizes it’d be dumb to devalue this asset on purpose. Ether is collateral money, not debt money. Having the value of your collateral go up gives you more bandwidth to participate in the economy by doing more stuff you otherwise couldn’t

Only when money is used does it lube up the economy by providing cash flow for industry.

Again that’s not really Ether’s job to do that, but even then it still does it well inside the Ethereum economy: it’s deflationary BECAUSE it’s being used. “Anyone with an ounce of understanding” quickly realizes this cause and effect relationship and doesn’t invert it by claiming being deflationary causes people to not use it.

Ethereum sells blockspace and blockspace accessories. This blockspace is worth something, people are willingly paying for it, choosing to burn their precious deflationary ETH in exchange for it. There is no “bad money drives out good” when it comes to buying blockspace, thanks to EIP-1559.

I’m tired of these takes that miss out on all the nuance. “ETH deflation bad because deflation encourages hoarding” is one of them. And yes, “ETH deflation good because supply goes down = line go up” is another one. It’s a cringe meme responding to Bitcoin’s equally cringe “capped supply = sound money” meme.

The truth is fundamentally, whether the supply goes up or down doesn’t affect the velocity of ETH. Whether supply goes up or down, it’s all just an accounting trick that doesn’t change the fact that value ultimately flows from users (paying for blockspace) into the pockets of holders (who are likely to be staking, directly or indirectly). You’re not magically gonna turn a hoarder into a user if you increase issuance, because that hoarder is already staking anyway.

u/busterrulezzz minted 69 AI generated variants of EIPandas and EVMavericks dropped to random holders!

Good news! I finally completed my quest of remixing 69 EVMavericks and EIPandas with Midjourney. They have all been minted on Polygon and sent to their respective owners. To see the results, here is the OpenSea collection.

I want to thank everybody that participated in my little project. Your amazing reactions to my artworks mean the world to me! If you had a request and didn’t receive it, feel free to DM me, I might have missed some messages.

I will mint one last epic remix and put it up at auction in the next few days, and then I will get to work on my sequel to Worthless JPEGs!, my satirical collection.

Thanks again everyone.

u/OkDragonfruit1929 explains the mechanics behind why ETH has been deflationary

It’s quite a brilliant feature of eip 1559.

If demand for blockspace falls below a certain threshold, ETH issuance goes up while gas prices go down. This has the effect of making it more likely for more people to use ETH, bringing us back to more demand for blockspace.

If demand for blockspace is above a certain threshold, ETH issuance goes ultrasound. More ETH fees are burned instead of given to validators.

If staking becomes extremely desirable, and more and more people stake, staking rewards APY falls, and the threshold of blockspace demand required for fee burns increases.

If staking becomes less desirable and more and more people unstake, staking APY increases and the threshold for fee burning falls.

It’s a completely automated, decentralized monetary policy which favors equilibrium. Nothing else on earth like it.

Ethereum eip 1559 increases incentive to secure the network in a way that avoids inflating the supply, without being 100% reliant on market forces such as gas fees. Unlike Bitcoin security which will eventually become completely enslaved to the wills and fluctuations of the market, and without sufficient fees (blockspace demand) will become more and more centralized and less and less secure.

u/Hawaii_Facts has a HodlerCon 2024 update. BeachBum hodlers vote on your favourite locations!

Hodlercon 2024 update: BeachBum NFT hodlers can now vote for destinations at https://hodlercon.com/. (Edit: Tickets to Hodlercon 2022 included a BeachBum. If you attended and haven’t minted yours, DM me. Others can mint them at https://hodlercon.com/beachbums).

The Twitter Spaces launch from Sunday is recorded at https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1MYGNgYljAnJw? (45 minutes with superphiz, Paul Brody, nikola_j, DoubtStars and friends).

The highest vote-getter as of March 17 in each of three cohorts will be thrown to the will of the ETH price gods — Whichever price band we’re in on June 15, 2023, will determine the location of Hodlercon 2024.

There’s a blurb on each destination at https://hodlercon.com/#details. Here’re the candidates, proposed by Hodlercon attendees, EthFinanciers, ethstakers and anyone else who wanted to pitch in:

$0-$1,400
- Camping with JT around Kansas City
- Goblintown Creek, Virginia
- Orlando, Florida
- Smoky Mountain Glamping, Tennessee
- Los Cabos, Mexico
$1,401-$4,800
- Puerto Rico
- Bermuda
- Iceland
- Thailand
- Portugal
$4,801-$31,250
- Greece
- Hoi An, Vietnam
- Fiji
- New Zealand
- Ireland

Mahalo for voting.

u/HolyFlatulence shares an excerpt from the incumbents

Link to the full text of the speech.

Very interesting speech just given by Augustin Carstens, the General manager for the BIS. Pay close attention to the last paragraph/bolded text. They totally understand the power of shared ledgers/opensource/composable. They just want to centralize it and own it.

edit: formatting; summarizing a little bc the kicker comes at the end of a wall of text.

A unified ledger is a digital infrastructure with the potential to combine the monetary system with other registries of real and financial claims. It would need to be a public-private partnership with a clear division of roles, and where the central bank is tasked with underpinning the trust in money.

Like smartphone platforms, a unified ledger allows various components to work seamlessly together. But unlike them, it is enabled by open architecture that promotes financial inclusion and greater competition.

Such a ledger allows for the use of smart contracts and composability. A smart contract is a computer program that executes conditional “if/then” and “while” commands. Composability means that many smart contracts, covering multiple transactions and situations, can be bundled together, like “money lego”.

With these new functionalities, any sequence of transactions in programmable money can be automated and seamlessly integrated. This reduces the need for manual interventions that delay transactions and reduces dependency on intermediaries, and also allows for simultaneous and near-instant payments and settlement.

Greater interoperability and automated transfers could ultimately benefit consumers through more convenient and cheaper products that are better tailored to their needs, thereby enhancing financial inclusion.

These foreseeable gains may just be the tip of the iceberg of additional transformations. Think about how the smartphone displaced digital cameras. It was not because it takes better pictures, but because it’s easier to share these pictures with friends through the same device.

Importantly, programmability and composability do not require decentralised or permissionless platforms. All the potential benefits I just outlined can be achieved in permissioned platforms with various degrees of centralisation. What really brings the benefits of these projects together is the use of money as a means of payment and settlement. As the provider of the ultimate settlement asset in the economy, the central bank therefore has an important role to play in the governance of a unified ledger. But it would do so in partnership with other public agencies as well as with private sector participants.

/u/papazio response: Have you ever boosted a Maker vault at $4500 ETH?

u/sayno2mids

I think FOMO is more stressful than losing money

u/Papazio

Have you ever boosted a Maker vault at $4500 ETH?

You get to experience both in very short order and learn that the latter is much, much worse.

Feb 17, 2023 - Episode #7 | VP

Special guest VP joins us from Hexagon, a new app born out of Golem project funding Ethereum infrastructure & public goods projects.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1656

0.069

Shitpost of the week: u/15kisFUD Regulators!

90s G-funk synth starts playing

Regulators
We regulate any investing of your property
We’re damn good too
But you can’t be any geek off the street
You gotta be able to use the Howey test, if you know what I mean
Earn your keep
Regulatooorssss! Mount up

[Verse 1] It was a February day, some time around noon
Gary G was at his desk, seeing ETH moon
He thought real’ hard then came up with a plan
Hit centralized staking with a nation-wide ban

[Chorus] Regulators in the house, don’t you mess around
The SEC and Gary, they got it all locked down
They’re coming with the rules and they’re coming to pound
Gary G and SEC they keep the crypto scene sound

[Verse 2] When the Kraken rose up, with its tentacles wide
The SEC and Gary stood side by side
They slayed the beast together, Howey hammer in hand
Now the crypto world is under their command

[Verse 3] When Phiz got the call, he got the smile
He’d been trying to achieve this for a while
Ethereum staking decentralized and free
Superphiz and me, the Gary to the G

[Outro] I’m tweaking into a whole new era
Decentralized Finance, I dare ya
Trust on a whole new level
Smart contracts are the rules and the rules immu-table
ETH, code, We brings decentralization, ETH-funk
Where code is law, aligned incentives
If you know like I know, you don’t want to step to this
It’s the Ethereum era, funked out with a unicorn twist
If you smoke like I smoke then you’re high like every day
And if yo’ ass is centralized Gary G will regulate

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

SEC website,

Staking form still out of sight,

Guidance they won’t write.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Twitter adds Ethereum address support to its tipping feature.
Solidity v0.8.12 improves the JavaScript / Wasm binary.
Non-custodial Ethereum wallet Rainbow raises $18 Million from Seven Seven Six.
ETH, don’t drop the opsec, not for a sec, at $3128, or ₿0.07116.

In 2021:

Coinbase opens an Eth2 staking waitlist.
Marvel artists add 25 NFTs to Ethereum-based art- and collectable marketplace Portion.io.
ETH finds a message in a $1781 bottle, cryptically mentioning ₿0.0362.

In 2020:

ETH resides at $260, or ₿0.02615, as all the fun happens at ETHDenver 2020.

In 2019:

Parity’s Afri Schoedon wants to remove Ethereum’s difficulty bomb.
ETH lives in the present at $123, or ₿0.03397.

In 2018:

Cosmos, OmiseGo, Golem, Maker, Global Brain and Raiden put together $100 Million to create the Ethereum Community Fund, to support Ethereum’s ecosystem infrastructure.
372 Ether is paid to build the starting foundation of a Doge-Ethereum bridge.
The ETH boat captain steers at $944, or ₿0.09261.

In 2017:

Melonport completes their ICO in 13 minutes.
Consensys-backed VariabL introduces StabL, a derivatives market with stable tokens on the public Ethereum blockchain.
MyEtherWallet’s new release v3.5.0 allows directly swapping ETH, BTC and REP via Bity.
Peter Vessenes forms a partnership to consult and invest in Ether projects, stating that “the combination of an incredibly insular core dev community with a toxic minority of the broader community has killed Bitcoin”.
The ethricacies of ethimacy rule at $12.9, or ₿0.01255.

In 2016:

Ethereum wallet Mist v0.4.0 is released, supporting pre-sale ETH import.
Some say ETH is a craptocurrency as it moves from $5.3 to $4.3, or ₿0.0133 to ₿0.01059.

Ecosystem: u/oblvnxknight the one sane person at the SEC seems to have little influence

https://twitter.com/HesterPeirce/status/1623796583807451139

The one sane person at the SEC seems to have little influence - she’s echoed this sentiment for a few years now and not much has changed. Not a criticism to her, more a comment on the SEC’s approach to regulation being firmly entrenched

Today, the SEC shut down Kraken’s staking program and counted it as a win for investors. I disagree and therefore dissent.

Kraken operated a service through which its customers could offer their tokens up for staking. The customers earned returns, and the company earned a fee. The Commission argues that this staking program should have been registered with the SEC as a securities offering. Whether one agrees with that analysis or not, the more fundamental question is whether SEC registration would have been possible. In the current climate, crypto-related offerings are not making it through the SEC’s registration pipeline. An offering like the staking service at issue here raises a host of complicated questions, including whether the staking program as a whole would be registered or whether each token’s staking program would be separately registered, what the important disclosures what be, and what the accounting implications would be for Kraken.

We have known about crypto staking programs for a long time. Although it may not have made a difference, I should have called for us to put out guidance on staking long before now. Instead of taking the path of thinking through staking programs and issuing guidance, we again chose to speak through an enforcement action, purporting to “make clear to the marketplace that staking-as-a-service providers must register and provide full, fair, and truthful disclosure and investor protection.”[1] Using enforcement actions to tell people what the law is in an emerging industry is not an efficient or fair way of regulating.[2] Moreover, staking services are not uniform, so one-off enforcement actions and cookie-cutter analysis does not cut it.[3]

Most concerning, though, is that our solution to a registration violation is to shut down entirely a program that has served people well. The program will no longer be available in the United States, and Kraken is enjoined from ever offering a staking service in the United States, registered or not. A paternalistic and lazy regulator settles on a solution like the one in this settlement: do not initiate a public process to develop a workable registration process that provides valuable information to investors, just shut it down.

More transparency around crypto-staking programs like Kraken’s might well be a good thing. However, whether we need a uniform regulatory solution and if that regulatory solution is best provided by a regulator that is hostile to crypto, in the form of an enforcement action, is less clear.

OPSEC: /u/REALJohnBMacLemore Reddit employee hacked in sophisticated phishing attack

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/10/reddit-says-hackers-accessed-internal-data-following-employee-phishing-attack/

Reddit employee hacked in sophisticated phishing attack. Backend compromised since Feb 5th.

I definitely imagine JBM as the Mel Gibson character from Lethal Weapon. He’ll let you think he’s a little off his rocker, but that’s just a ruse to hide a skilled operator.

Analysis: /u/maleficent_plankton For those who want to learn how to use APIs

For those who want to learn how to use APIs: Circle/USD is doing a introduction to API education campaign on StackUp: https://app.stackup.dev/campaign_page/enabling-payments-with-circle

Not every StackUp quest is worth the effort, but this one seems really easy. It’ll walk you through how to use APIs and create a basic web app. The first 3 quests are already up. So far, this one seems pretty basic for anyone who is decently-technical. You don’t have to have prior dev knowledge.

Also, there is a monetary reward for completing quest. The rewards are limited, so they can run out.

Random: u/busterrulezzz found an interesting mental model to describe the relationship between Ethereum and civil society

This is going to be long, sorry.

I think I’ve found an interesting mental model to describe the relationship between Ethereum and civil society, especially with respect to the (sometimes) irrational hatred for the protocol.

I believe that as a public good, Ethereum is like a large public transportation project.

Indeed, every Western city that has decided to invest in such projects has faced absolutely incredible opposition. In Bordeaux, France, the tramway project caused protests, arguments, political riff raff - a non-negligible portion of the population swore that they would never use the tramway, because they were opposed to it from the beginning.

Now, two decades later, Bordeaux is a model for major European cities, and the opposition has disappeared. The ridership of the tramway is extraordinary, which suggests that even the most furious opponents have pounded on their pride and are using the service when they need it.

It’s the same everywhere. When London wanted to reduce the number of cars in the city center, the anger of the citizens was incredible. Twenty years later, no one would go back. I experienced it personally in Montreal: the current mayor built bike lanes on major commercial arteries, which led opponents to predict the imminent death of downtown. Four years later, the city’s liveliest thoroughfares are the ones that received new bike lanes, and absolutely no one is calling for a reversal - even the most rabid opponents.

This got me thinking. Why were these citizens so fiercely opposed to a public good? On what arguments was their opposition based?

I went back and read their open letters and angry tweets. Basically, the opponents were concerned that the loss of parking space would hurt business, create traffic congestion, and make the city ugly (!).

Literally none of this has happened. In fact, the exact opposite has happened.

Now, let’s ask ourselves why these arguments overrode the emotions of the opponents. My theory is that it is a “failure of imagination”: an inability to imagine the world differently, to find creative solutions that are outside the current paradigm. They are stuck in the only model they know, and are unable to believe that another world is possible.

There is also, in my opinion, an element of ego. Many of the opponents were at the top of the social pyramid - wealthy businessmen, popular TV hosts, bourgeois, etc. The world as it is has been extremely generous to them, so why change it? Besides, the idea that a revolution could arise from outside the system that brought them into the world is frightening for them. It means that their privileges are not so solid after all.

I believe Ethereum is in a similar situation.

Our protocol is a public good. It belongs to its participants, and literally any human being can deploy an application on it. This is an absolutely revolutionary idea from the outside - have you seen what Vitalik looks like? It’s impossible that a nerd like that, with no credibility in high society, has come up with something good. So his creation is necessarily a fraud, which must be fought

So these opinion leaders declare Ethereum an enemy to be fought, and the citizens used to following what the top of the pyramid tells them jump on the bandwagon, without asking themselves if their fight is really relevant.

TL;DR : Ethereum will (hopefully) follow the same trajectory as public transit projects.

Ecosystem: u/mgr37 explains the use of the validator mnemonic after the withdrawal address is set

Good question !

As I understand it, yes the seed will no longer be useful for normal operation:

once withdrawal address set, it can’t be changed
partial withdrawal will be automated to the withdrawal address.
exit is triggered with validator keys (the one used to run the validator client) and actual full withdrawal will be automated to the withdrawal address.

BUT you would still need it for:

derivating new validator keys from the same seed (not compulsory, you could use a new seed for new validators, but might be handy -> see next point)
re-generate your validator keys in case they got lost (i.e. staking rig hard drive crash). I think that’s the main reason to keep the seed (and use the same seed when rolling new validators). You could backup the keys instead but it’s easier to keep a seed backup than keys backup IMO.

Ecosystem: u/Blueberry314E-2 does some research on the SEC vs BUSD

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/13/paxos-ordered-to-cease-minting-binance-stablecoin-by-new-york-regulator.html

Some of my own research on SEC vs BUSD:

The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) has told Paxos to stop making its own version of BUSD (a digital currency) “as a result of several unresolved issues related to Paxos’ oversight of its relationship with Binance in regard to Paxos-issued BUSD.”

Paxos’ BUSD product is related to, but separate from, Binance’s self-issued Binance-pegged BUSD. Binance’s self-issued BUSD, which is not directly regulated by NYDFS, is independently wrapped and issued by the crypto exchange on blockchains beyond Ethereum. In other words, Binance can take a single Paxos-issued BUSD, create an analogous BUSD on another blockchain (like Binance’s own blockchain, for example), and freeze a corresponding Paxos-issued BUSD. “The Department has not authorized Binance-Peg BUSD on any blockchain, and Binance-Peg BUSD is not issued by Paxos.”

So the issue here is not ‘true’ BUSD issued by Paxos. The problem is that Binance was sneakily issuing alternative unregulated BUSD on it’s own blockchain and others, and passing them off as the real, regulated, Ethereum based BUSD issued by Paxos.

Paxos has told its customers that it will end its relationship with Binance for BUSD. The DFS is watching Paxos closely to make sure it can handle redemptions properly, following new safety rules. It’s important to know that Paxos was allowed to make BUSD on the Ethereum blockchain, but Binance-Peg BUSD is not approved or made by Paxos. There are no restrictions from the DFS for New York companies to list or trade the existing Paxos-issued BUSD.

Looks to me like Binance is to blame here, SEC is just trying to clean up their mess.

Sources:

https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/alerts/Paxos_and_Binance

https://paxos.com/2023/02/13/paxos-will-halt-minting-new-busd-tokens/

Random: u/Lazy_Physicist has a cool idea for once Stakewise V3 launches

Regulatory news aside, I’ve just had a thought. Stakewise v3 would allow node operators to set up vaults with whitelisted addresses for allocators. This in theory allows us to set up vaults where only holders of EVMavericks/EIPandas/etc. are allowed to deposit ETH into. I’m sure there are others here like myself who have overallocated on the hardware for our own staking rigs or have extra bandwidth. If I were to use swise I would probably set up multiple vaults if I didn’t have to provide any collateral to do so. A vault or two to stake for “members” who can’t or won’t solo stake free of commission, then however many public vaults I want to run with a commission. This could be an interesting way for communities to drive value to their NFT Collections.

Edit: SWISE staking taking a share of the fees will probably factor into how feasible this is

Ecosystem: u/KingLeo23 has the latest of Gary Gensler's shenanigans

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-30

Here’s Gensler’s latest chokepoint attempt:

Here’s two of his commissioners calling out his bullshit:

https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-custody-021523

https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/uyeda-statement-custody-021523

Here’s a statement from the blockchain association on it

https://nitter.snopyta.org/BlockchainAssn/status/1625957398077734913

And here’s a good thread from Jake Chervinsky on it

https://nitter.snopyta.org/jchervinsky/status/1625947639773552641

Consider donating to crypto lobbying groups this year if you have the means and care about the future of this industry in the US.

Feb 10, 2023 - Episode #6

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1541

u/hanniabu

0.071

Shitpost of the week: u/cryptowocurrency BREAKING NEWS

Here’s a screenshot of the beta UI.

BREAKING NEWS: According to the official Bitcoin Core release notes, the upcoming v23.0 will now allow users to attach files to bitcoin transactions. These attached files will be stored in the segregated witness data of the chain.

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Documentation,

Blockchain accommodation,

Build generation.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Optimism discloses a critical, unexploited and fixed bug in its Geth fork, found by Jay Freeman, that made it possible to create ETH on the Layer 2.
MakerDAO launches a $10 Million bug bounty on Immunefi.
ETH, take my energy, for $3241 to $3078, or ₿0.07309 to ₿0.07064.

In 2021:

Ethereum-based social media project Unite pulls the plug due to high gas prices.
The Eth2 staking contract holds over 3 million ether, currently worth more than $5.3 billion.
Celebrity-supported art collective Ethernity launches its first NFT collection.
ETH at $1742, or ₿0.0388: a Musk have.

In 2020:

Trenton Van Epps lists the top 5 misconceptions about Ethereum: “Eth2 will never launch”, “Eth2 makes Eth1 immediately deprecated”, “There will be 2 ETH tokens from the fork”, “All Eth2 decisions are made by Vitalik”, “Eth2 is a catch-all fix for Eth1”.
Paul Hauner runs 100k Eth2 Lighthouse validators on 12x low-spec servers.
ETH backs its tracks from $229 to $220, at ₿0.02266.

In 2019:

ETH really whips the llama’s ass from $120 to $125, or ₿0.03255 to ₿0.03384.

In 2018:

Coinbase launches Coinbase Commerce, a payment plugin for e-commerce sites allowing customers to pay directly in Ethereum and a few other cryptocurrencies.
The public beta of AKASHA Emergence is launched, a decentralized social network on Ethereum and IPFS.
/u/aerotrader writes a brief introduction on how to leverage a long ETH position with Maker.
ETH plays the requiem for a lambo from $882 to $859, at ₿0.10105.

In 2017:

ShapeShift’s Erik Voorhees finds himself holding some extra ETH “to use as payments, since Bitcoin is becoming too expensive/delayed”.
Aragon, a platform for creating companies on top of the Ethereum blockchain, is launched in alpha stage.
ETH short squeezes $11.3, from ₿0.0111 to ₿0.01139.

In 2016:

Nick Szabo: “Ethereum can solve any problem a computer can solve: but with far greater reliability and security and far less performance and efficiency.”
ETH tickles the amygdala from $3.9 to $4.4, or ₿0.01043 to ₿0.01163.

Community: u/cheeky-gorilla reports back from the Edelweiss Interop Workshop

By now you’ve probably heard that last week was the Edelweiss Interop Workshop (the successor to the Amphora Interop), where Ethereum’s core devs spent a week together in the mountains to work on withdrawals, 4844 (aka proto-danksharding) and EOF.

I was invited to join due to my work on the Protocol Guild, and - even though it still feels like a dream - I wanted to share my experience, especially as someone without a technical background.

Was the workshop a success? Absolutely. To quote a core dev, “we left with a flawless Capella/Shanghai fork”, and there was a 4844 testnet with all but one client team! 4844 in July? 👀

I’ll admit I was INCREDIBLY nervous going into this event, I couldn’t sleep properly for days in advance - I was literally going to meet the majority of my heroes, and I was 100% going to be the dumbest person in the room at all times.

Well, I can happily confirm that “you should never meet your heroes” does NOT apply to Ethereum’s core protocol contributors. These are some of the most interesting (and surprisingly funny) people I’ve ever met, and even though there was a lack of diversity, they came from all over the world, with all sorts of different backgrounds. And despite the fact that the price of ETH is never discussed on ACD calls, I can confirm that Ethereum’s core devs are bullish: I heard more than one conversation about ultra sound money, and RatioGang was also strongly represented! I’m an introvert, but everyone was so incredibly welcoming and kind, I never had any issues talking to people.

Overall, the passion these individuals have for Ethereum is genuine and contagious, and I feel more confident than ever in Ethereum’s ability to execute its roadmap while staying aligned to its values of decentralization, openness and long-term thinking.

Other highlights included organizing a core dev run one morning, and as a pretty hardcore privacy enthusiast, I even had the pleasure of giving privacy tips to Vitalik! Oh and there was that one time that Danny Ryan wasn’t allowed at dinner because he was wearing flip flops 😛

I’ll end with one note of encouragement for those who need it: if I can end up at this kind of event, then so can you. To quote Danny Ryan, “doors are wide open at Ethereum”. My “door” was the Protocol Guild booth at Devcon Bogota, where I asked Trent and Tim if they needed any operational help with the Guild, and turns out they did! (For the introverts, I passed by the booth 3-4 times before I gathered up the nerve to talk to them - don’t let shyness gatekeep your passions!). Now I spend my time coordinating / helping with the Guild’s v2 architecture upgrade, fundraising and marketing, all without a technical background.

This comment is already much longer than I expected, so I’ll end it here. TLDR: everything good about Ethereum is reflected in its core devs, and the barriers to entry are probably lower than you think!

Ecosystem: u/Canadiens1993 thinks that US tax laws are inhibiting solo staking

Unclear Tax Treatment for Staking (USA): Centralization Vector?

Let me explain. Retail has a choice:

- Staking on, say, Coinbase and it prepares and sends you the requisite tax form every year. You forego a small percentage of your staking rewards in exchange for this service, and you must entrust your ETH with a regulated custodian (centralization risk); or

- per current IRS position, solo stakers must record revenue for each attestation (every 6 min), for each block produced (random) and tips/MEV (random). There is a valid legal argument for staking rewards to be taxed when sold (not when received), but the IRS has dismissed it - https://www.proofofstakealliance.org/12423-posa-response-to-irs-stance-on-staking. So what does this mean in practice.

Taxable income: Setting aside how to deal with Shanghai and managing price volatility given the queue for withdrawals, you’ll need to record revenue every 6min for the ETH received as taxable income (currently: 13329 GWei) at the value on the date/time “received”; and then (and this is where I lose my shit);
Capital Gain/Loss Tax: if and when you sell ETH in the future you will need to record a capital gain/loss using the cost basis above for that petty 13329 GWei received. You will never be selling only 13329 GWei.

If you think I just made the case for LSDs, then you understand the problem. Maybe this can easily fixed with more sophisticated tax software? WE NEED TO LOBBY FOR A CHANGE IN THE IRS’s TREATMENT OF STAKING REWARDS FOR SOLO STAKERS.

Note: I’m not a member of the PoS Alliance and not a tax lawyer or CPA, just a random dude who pays his taxes and truly believes in decentralization and the transformational potential of the Ethereum network.

Ecosystem: u/vvpan quells our expectations on the current state of rollups and their future development timeline

I’ve been known to come off kind of negative about the state of roll-ups. I do think that long-term they are the absolute best way to scale blockchains. Justin Drake the other day blew the minds of all participants of Bankless Bullcase for Ethereum by saying that the synchronous composability between zk rollups is such that different different rollups can combine their liquidity into a single pool and that Danksharding does not break that composability. Yet the key is long-term. Optimism, the oldest optimistic rollup, has not yet gotten to fraud proofs and neither has Arbitrum. And ZK is a much much more complex technology that requires highly skilled mathematically skilled developers to implement and will roll out slower at least because there is much more potential for bugs (although Justin Drake said Ethereum research team recently figured out how to add “training wheels” to a rollup). I think this tweet from Scroll zkEVM account is telling about where we are.
I am not saying this to be a downer, but to say that we have to have realistic expectations. Big announcements for “mainnet” of this or that rollup or some new improvement to one are galore and sometimes I feel like they are borderline disingenuous. I understand their teams - they reach significant personal milestones and they want to share. But a secure decentralized general-puprose rollup of any kind seems to be behind the horizon for now.

Analysis: u/nikola_j shares DeFi Saver's latest features

Hey fellas, wanted to share something we put together recently at defi saver - a dedicated page for various leveraged ETH staking options that you can check out at: https://app.defisaver.com/recipes/leveraged-staking

We added support for both Aave v3 and the new WETH-based deployment of Compound v3 in the past two weeks and both offered new interesting options for leveraging LSDs vs ETH for amplified staking yield, so we thought this made sense.

For now you can find different (w)stETH/ETH options across Aave v2, v3 and CompV3-WETH in there, as well as the cbETH/ETH combo available in Compound (which is at net negative yield atm because of high pool utilisation).

Next: we’ll have a new Morpho-Aave integration live, and after that we expect to see rETH added to Aave v3 on the mainnet *and* wstETH added to Aave v3 on Optimism. So you can definitely expect to see a growing number of options there in the coming weeks and months.

Btw, if you check it out, we’d love to hear what else we could add, so please don’t hesitate. I also posted an alternative rundown on this on twitter / nitter (nitter isn’t loading this for me atm, did twitter already kill it? :/)

Random: u/Megroovin shares the good news for Gemini Earn customers

Maybe some hope afterall for us Gemini Earn users. u/jtnichol

Email from Gemini:

Hi there,

Today, Gemini reached an agreement in principle with Genesis Global Capital, LLC (Genesis), Digital Currency Group, Inc. (DCG), and other creditors on a plan that provides a path for Earn users to recover their assets. This agreement was announced in Bankruptcy Court today.

This plan is a critical step forward towards a substantial recovery of assets for all Genesis creditors. In addition, Gemini will be contributing up to $100 million more for Earn users as part of the plan, further demonstrating Gemini’s continued commitment to helping Earn users achieve a full recovery.

We have been working around the clock since November 16, 2022 to reach this milestone. We greatly appreciate your support and patience during this time. It has allowed us to maximize our efforts on your behalf. There is still much work to be done to complete this process, including further due diligence of Genesis financials and judicial approval of this plan, but we are confident that we now have a framework in place to execute on. Thank you for putting your trust in us during this challenging time.

We will continue to update you on how to participate in the recovery, key dates, information, and milestones as they unfold on the Earn status page.

Onward and Upward,

Team Gemini

Ecosystem: u/abcoathup Day in Ethereum Contributor shares Zhejiang testnet upgraded to Shapella

Zhejiang testnet upgraded to Shapella, BLS changes and full & partial withdrawals processed
https://twitter.com/BarnabasBusa/status/1622975351520481280

Random: u/maninthecryptosuit Revolut, one of the more popular European neo-banks launches ETH staking

https://cointelegraph.com/news/digital-bank-revolut-launches-crypto-staking-for-uk-and-eea-customers-report

And so it begins: Revolut, one of the more popular European neo-banks launches ETH staking (among other cryptos):

Edit: Neo-bank = Digital bank.

Official link: https://blog.revolut.com/staking/

Thanks!

Random: u/theethmeister The current moment feels like we are caught in a wave of uncertainty

I hope everyone has a great day. The current moment feels like we are caught in a wave of uncertainty due to economic and political constraints and factors but that does not mean you should lose faith in the premise of a decentralized monetary system or this community.

The doldrums of the crab should not deter you from your belief that ETH is the best technological investment at this time. This can obviously change in the future due to a new cryptocurrency/blockchain displacing ETH or quantum technology rendering our keys worthless. However it is my belief we are still on the ground floor of an emerging asset class. I remember when I used to tell my school friends to connect with me online but they didn’t even have internet access because they were lacking dial up modems on their Windows 95 desktops. I found so many great communities online and made a great many number of friends on the “world wide web” before it became so commonplace as it is now. In the end I honestly do not know if the internet has been a net positive in light of the harmful effects of social media and the ease of scamming.

Sorry for the rambling, but my point is Ethereum and Ethfinance remind me of those mid to late 90s internet moments, which leads me to think that $10k USD is a ridiculously low valuation after withdrawals are enabled. The current period is in the Web 1 phase (Angelfire, Xanga, Yahoo Mail) and not even comparable to Web 2.0. We need some hopium so I am going to prognosticate a low of $15k USD in 2025. Buy now and sell never.

Community: u/ethnocent dropping bombs on carbon footprint chatter

The concept of the “carbon footprint” was the brainchild of an advertising firm working for BP.

Same bucket as recycling trash that goes into the same land fills as general waste.

More important things to focus on individually, sorry for the jaded take.

Feb 03, 2023 - Episode #5 | Justin LeRoux

Special guest Justin LeRoux joins us from Gridplus.

The morning trinity

Ethereum

$1644

0.070

Shitpost of the week: u/404bachee manages to explain ZKProofs

Zero-Knowledge Proof: put simply is

I know the secret.
I will not tell you the secret.
But I can prove to you that I know the secret

and put in even simpler terms:

your wife is angry at you,
without giving you any details,
she proved to you that you did something wrong and she knows it

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Do not bloat Bitcoin,

This chain is made for transfers,

The rest is a hack.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Wormhole patches the vulnerability which was exploited earlier while Jump Crypto refills the bridge to bring the cross-chain service back up.
GameStop and Immutable X form a partnership to establish an up to $100 million fund in IMX tokens, to be used for grants to creators of NFT content and technology.
Samczsun explains the recent Wormhole exploit: the attacker was able to spoof guardian signatures, mint 120,000 ETH on Solana, and take back 93,750 on Ethereum.
NFT marketplace Rarible introduces floor bids, allowing to bid on an entire ERC-721 collection and get an NFT when an owner accepts it.
ETH, chain of the rising price, at $2674, or ₿0.07213.

In 2021:

Grayscale values ETH as money, as consumable commodity and as interest bearing asset.
75 validators from staking infrastructure provider Staked get slashed, customers will be fully compensated.
Ethereum 2 becomes the third largest staking network, behind Polkadot and Cardano.
Fees are too damn high; ETH at $1514 to $1654, or ₿0.04267 to ₿0.04423.

In 2020:

Ryan Adams reasons: “Are (bank) stablecoins parasitic to ETH? No, they’re one of the biggest reasons to be bullish”.
The Ethereum Trust Alliance is formed, a global coalition of professional security organizations to increase trust in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Matt Leising writes “Out of the Ether, the Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All” in which he claims to know the DAO hacker.
ETH clocks in at $190, or ₿0.0204.

In 2019:

Ameen Soleimani, Matt Slipper and Dan Tsui discuss Ethereum 2.0: “with stronger coordination through leadership, a standards process, a well-communicated shared roadmap, and funding security, the ETH 2.0 effort is set to accelerate and meet the expectations of the community.”
Parity issuess a security alert that a vulnerability is found allowing an attacker to crash public Parity nodes by sending a specially-crafted RPC request.
Hackernoon posts a tutorial on Loom Plasma Cash Sidechains.
Mudit Gupta describes how to get started with The Görli testnet, the first cross-client proof-of-authority network for Ethereum.
ETH lets the hodlers rest from $111 to $107, at ₿0.03108.

In 2018:

EIP editor Yoichi Hirai reasons why he won’t help move forward EIP 867 or any EIPs that affect particular accounts.
ETH ruffles its feathers from $919 to $956, at ₿0.10455.

In 2017:

Vitalik looks under the hood of Zk-SNARKs.
Decentralized Capital’s exchange IDEX goes live on the Ethereum mainnet.
Piper Merriam is dogfooding the EthPM package registry.
MyEtherWallet v3.4.7 allows using a Trezor on the site.
ETH roams from $10.8 to $11.1, at ₿0.01078.

OPSEC: u/RooftopPortaPotty investigates the scam that took out a fellow EthFinancier

https://imgur.com/Wy5NPSb

Today we will be investigating the scam that took advantage of our friend who came here looking for help yesterday. My inital intent was to remove this campaign from the internet.

Though, as my investigation progressed, I became more and more conscious of the CFAA. I would not discourage anyone who understands the implications from picking up where I left off.

The Scam

Loading the domain in your browser will instantly prompt MetaMask to connect. Doing so leads to a fake DEX. You are given a 6 digit ‘ID’ that is displayed on the front page. Below is an example of one of their scam pages.

This is all over the place. USDT-ERC20, output in ETC. They provide various addresses to deposit your funds. At least one of the addresses provided does not even have an ETH balance – without any gas money, these fraudsters were never planning to return any deposits.

I clicked on the button that was a head with headphones, presumably the support button.

https://imgur.com/s2V6PAW

You can ‘Emall’ them at the displayed email address. Visiting the above domain in chrome showed the exact same front end as the scam we’re dealing with.

Frighteningly, they want you to ‘authenticate’.

https://imgur.com/B9nXvHN

They ask for your name and email address. Infinitely worse, they want pictures of any forms of your identification, as can be seen below.

https://imgur.com/iJpMGIj

Anyone who has completed this form should consider their identity stolen, and contact the appropriate authorities.

Offense

To begin to gain some understanding of a website, using ‘view page source’ in your browser is an extremely effective tool.

https://imgur.com/8q39ows

The highlighted text is Simplified Chinese for ‘page loaded’. Quite interesting.

As an attacker, this file upload form offers a massive attack surface. Of course, an experienced intruder knows what to do here.

But for any ethfinanciers who would like to learn more about this, here are some resources 1 2 3 or just ask ya boi.

When running a black box web application security test, /robots.txt is a critical file to access. This file is used by servers to request that web crawlers such as google not access/archive the list of URLs within the file.

As you might imagine, these often times contain URLs of relative importance. Whether crawlers choose to obey is completely up to them both technically, and legally(not legal advice).

The requested /robots.txt did not directly return any confidential files or directories. Though, it resulted in a fairly signficant information leak.

https://imgur.com/eJwEEWq

I unfortunately did not think to translate that Chinese text to English. Do we have any Chinese speaking ethfinanciers who can help out?

Notice that this error leaks a number of file paths on this server.

At the bottom we see that the server uses ThinkPHP 3.2.0, which happens to be vulnerable to a high severity issue.

https://imgur.com/3l8C9Tf

I will not fix the URL provided in the description to fit this target simply for the safety of those who do not know exactly what they’re doing. Be very careful before landing yourself in federal prison.

When learning to attack a system, one thing that has to be reinforced is the idea of enumeration. I cannot find a link to an article that accurately articulates what I wish to convey. I would describe it is as the art of testing ideas, taking notes of oddities, and learning everything you can about your target system.

Here’s an example. Screenshots were not taken, but I found that files requested that lack the the extension ‘.php’ resulted in the same error shown in /robots.txt. Is it a vulnerability? No. Is it worth noting if you wish to gain a thorough understanding of your target? Yes.

I’ve seen lots of examples of security researchers bringing down scam websites without facing prosecution, but a number of things made me hesitant in this case.

https://imgur.com/0j1UzE0

The true ip address of the scammers is protected by Cloudflare. Finding the ip address of servers behind Cloudflare is an eternal challenge for attackers.

https://scrapeops.io/web-scraping-playbook/how-to-bypass-cloudflare/ seems to be extremely comprehensive and up to date. I tried every technqiue short of signing up for a service that requires an API key. No results, the following provides a fair explanation for that.

https://imgur.com/iK54QDk

As /u/REALJohnBMacLemore previously noted, the website was only created a few months ago. Thats always suspicious. What about the domain listed as the support email address?

https://imgur.com/4xC20qD

This domain is hosted by Alibaba US. That they dont even provide an abuse contact speaks volumes.

In my brief enumeration efforts, I visisted /index.php, which redirected me to /Pc/Index/index.html.

https://imgur.com/DDUUiAQ

The HTML does not render properly, but this is completely different than what we were dealing with before.

https://imgur.com/wk227MG

At the bottom of the page we see another support email address. The highlighted text seems to show that the listed website(NOTE: not the scam domain in question) might have been a real company at some point? The registration number certainly does not comply with the new Chinese business registration numbering system, which was in full effect by 2018.

Lets use https://whois.domaintools.com again to find some information about this newly discovered forex exchange domain.

https://imgur.com/2o6PP1v

The domain name has been used for at least 16 years.

This scam seems to be masquerading as a possibly real, but defunct Chinese forex exchange. Also doubling as a crypto exchange, depending on their target.

Attribution has always been a touchy subject in the realm of cyber security, with that type of debate usually reserved for large-scale nation state attacks.

When we consider the prevalent usage of the Simplified Chinese language, a Chinese PHP framework, and Alibaba hosting, Im confident in declaring this a campaign of Chinese origin. Of course, given the lack of sophistication on the part of the scammers, and the lack of geopolitical implications, this is virtually meaningless.

Stay safe, RTPP

Ecosystem: u/geoffbezos wrote up a great Twitter thread on big tech's crypto adoption

Kinda crazy with all these announcements this week from big tech companies and their crypto involvement

I wrote up a little thread on some of the developments at these big tech companies. Would love to hear ethfinance’s thoughts!

Community: u/DoubtStarsAreFire shares her and Logris's back story

For those of you that are regular readers of Logris’ work and do not know, Logris and I (DoubtStarsAreFire) run Tokenomics Explained together. We are partners in all things. Family, life, the website, and now our consulting business. In the beginning, I would minimize, qualify, and categorize all of the work that we have put into our site as, “oh we run a blog”. Probably because when we started Tokenomics Explained we didn’t have a plan. Increasingly, we do, or at least ambition.

EV Mavericks Podcast:

Listen to the Layer Zero Podcast #4 from the EV Mavericks to hear us talk more about Tokenomics Explained, Hodlercon, the Double Logris and our plans for Logris Vaults! Ping us if you’d like to join our BUIDL team at EthDenver.

I felt like we could do a better job explaining the genesis of the blog. Because if you listen we kind of stumble over the answer.

Why am I posting now? The blog has mainly been a space for Logris’ writing. The main reason that I’m posting is I joined the Bankless Academy writers guild. I’ll be posting content on the website for the next four weeks. I’m calling these contributions Stargazing. There were other options for locations to post my thoughts like Mirror or Medium. I really did think about posting there. But, our blog seemed like the best place. Stargazing will be my additions to “Logris the Blog”.

Visit https://tokenomicsexplained.com/the-story-of-tokenomics-explained/ to see the whole post.

Below is a short excerpt.

The Backstory

I’ve always heard it said, “write what you know” so for a first topic answering the question “How did Tokenomics Explained start?” seems appropriate. Logris and I have been asked this exact question several times in interviews or by friends. That is usually a good sign you should write something down.

First, at heart my husband is a writer. When I met him, it wasn’t something I knew about him. I just thought he was a cute programmer boy that I was meeting to play board games. It’s taken years for me to come to the realization that he is a writer as well a programmer. I’m starting here because it gets to the heart of why we began this venture. He became interested in crypto because it combined his interests of computer science, game theory, and economics. Just like you should write about what you know, you should invest in what you know. Back in 2017, most of the social media about crypto was on reddit. This eventually led him to ethtrader and from there to ethfinance. Me, I was along for the ride. He would talk at me about crypto and I would blink at him and say, “those were words”.

I watched him ride the bull market of 2017 and then the crash. He survived the crypto winter. Eventually the food coin craze hit. All the while, Logris was riding the waves and I was following along or lurking in reddit parlance. Based on my experience and observations in my own house, I thought everyone was spending hours reading, researching, and writing their posts. Over the years, I have learned differently. Thank you reddit shit posters for disabusing me of this notion.

So why did we choose to make a website? In short, it’s Google’s fault. Ever since Logris started investing in crypto in 2017, he was a daily visitor and poster to the subreddit. As you know, all the fun in ethfinance takes place in the Daily Discussion Thread. Over the years Logris had made some stellar posts… in the daily. But, Google doesn’t index the daily. Top level posts are often reserved for announcements from protocols, highly regarded posts from the daily, or noobs that don’t know any better.

Why is this important to the story?

TLDR: It’s all because of Google’s SEO.

For example: At some point in the past, you may have googled about a question you had. In the search results, there may have been a reddit post with the same question. You’d click the link and find yourself directed to a subreddit about the topic, where knowledgeable people may have already responded to your exact or similar question.

Since most of the posts on ethfinance happen in the daily thread and not at the top level (as in the example), this content is invisible to Google.

Logris was amassing a treasure trove of content and often wanted to cite it when it became relevant again. This became more pertinent when he came up with the idea for the Double Logris. People started asking about it and wanting to read more about it. His ideas, content, and discussions were disappearing into the ether as it were. So, he started using Google drive to keep track for referral, which was ridiculous. To save time and just generally make the world a better place we decided to create a repository for his writings by making this site.

See the post for the rest of the story where I talk:

About Us
The Original Design
The Opportunities
The Future

Analysis: u/Defacticool just finished studying law and discusses how DAOs fit in existing legal framework

Hope this is an acceptable place to ask some questions both for the mods and regulars here.

Last spring I graduated from law school (here in sweden, my degree is an analogue to an LMM) and I wrote my “final paper” on DAO and defi, from a company law and securities law perspective.

I recently saw and read that paper from /u/Pbrody (hope that’s correct) and EY about how the “best” firm classification for DAO’s are as Co-operatives.

And so I thought maybe there would be some interest to see my own research that I spent 6 months on. (Tldr of my conclusion: “Proper” DAOs don’t fit any current, swedish, firm classifications and are unable to fit in one even if they wanted to, and securities law is unable to in any way sanction or interactive with fully autonomous swapping protocols such as Uniswap)

So my questions are:

Would there be any interest if I posted my paper here?
would the mods be alright with me posting it here?
and finally, does anyone know of a good and accessible site where I could upload my paper and those interested could read/download it? Preferably one where I don’t have to dox myself.

Cheers! I Love this community.

Edit: Thought I should add, I wrote it in english.

Editwo: Just posted it in today’s daily: https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/10oudh1/daily_general_discussion_january_30_2023/j6iwia0/

https://www.mediafire.com/file/tyd530ryrjljst2/DAO_and_DEFI_legal_analysis.pdf/file

In yesterday’s daily I asked about interest for sharing my “final exam paper” from when I graduated law school last year. (After looking into it further, I believe the american term for it is something like “masters research paper”)

I got way greater of a response than I anticipated so I’ll be sharing it with you in this comment! I hope a mediafire link is allowed.

Just some heads up that the version I’m linking you isn’t the final handed-in version but the penultimate version so there will be some grammatical and spelling errors but nothing that should affect the content. This is so I don’t run afoul of any academic policies about sharing examinated material through the wrong channels. (Should be fine, but don’t wanna risk it)

If anyone has any constructive thoughts I genuinely would love to hear them!

In a comment in response to this one I’ll be posting the “Final Remarks” portion, for those that just wants my final take and don’t care to trudge through the rest.

Community: u/696_eth shares the EVMavericks weekly update

EVMavericks Weekly: previous weeks & more!

EVMavericks Weekly #7: Jan 23-29, 2023

Important info:

Proposal to transfer collection rights to The Ben Meadows to verify EVMavericks on Opensea and adjust the banner, etc.
Proposed by Sabishii EVM Distribution Phase, Vote 1 is happening in #ideas channel thru emoji vote to gauge how we want to proceed. Discuss in #marketing and keep an eye on next phases of votes.
ZombieBP hosted another water cooler voice chat, next one is next Monday (Feb 6th)
Weekly Ethfinance Doots Roundup #4
Chad fund has been setup. Council finalized. Activities have started.
Nuwtox brings up a good point about dangers of Polygon’s multisig after Polygon Team tweets a photo of them being all together.
Treebeard reposts a security checklist
InsideTheSimulation initiates the occasional cleanup of the Discord sidebar and proposes some channel basic restructuring.

Other info:

Nuwtox hooks EVMavericks up with free mint slots for ecc0s!
Cool projects and sneak peeks dropped in #creators
Degen chat is not slowing down and continues to be hella degen: NFTs, tokens, stocks, and whatever else you wanna talk about and ape into!
More suggestions of potential projects in the #ideas channel
EIPandas see a pump!

Random: u/LogrisTheBard discusses the crypto education gap

So my wife is working on a post this week on web3 education. On that topic I observe there is a labor to impact mismatch between how web3 education functions today. I see too many tutorials on the basics. Each org like BlueDAO, Bankless Academy, CollectiveShift, BoysClub, etc has their own curriculum. Some of it is even pay gated. It’s a lot of replicated effort and unless it’s paired with a way of access people outside our ecosystem it’s having no impact. On the other end there’s highly technical documents on exactly how the Beacon Chain works or the scaling strategy for Ethereum or frontier takes like /u/liberosist writes. These are written for the dozens of us living at the edge of the frontier. In the middle is a desert of content. Once you get past that entry level content you get chucked into places like /r/cryptocurrency and good luck to you. You’re excited by the potential of what you learnt in the entry level content but you’re not yet proficient enough to spot the scams. Everyone is passionately shilling you something and telling you why it’s the next great thing that’s going to kill Ethereum etc. Basically, you’re someone else’s exit liquidity.

It takes a full market cycle to wisen up. By the time you transition from tourist to settler you’ve probably lost 90% of your investment into altcoins. Many don’t stick around after that and those who leave form a moat of resentment in front of the Rabbit Hole. The abrupt cliff of learning material once you have a Metamask wallet loaded with some ETH is doing a disservice to our space. It’s suddenly a space with no map and no Sherpa and you weren’t taught spelunking. It’s ultimately discouraging people from joining this space and slowing down the adoption of one of the most promising technologies humanity has ever produced.

In the last year I’ve written a bit more for this entry +1 skill level and a bit less on the frontier but anything I write tends to come off more as entry +3 regardless of my intent or else I don’t find it interesting enough to write. My wife is better than me in this regard so I hope web3 does find a space for her to be an educator here. Anything else is a disservice to humanity.

Random: u/Liberosist is cautious not to get overly bullish about long-term ETH issuance trends

As u/15kisFUD pointed out, the sentiment currently is neutral-ish, so it’s a good time to talk about things that everyone will laugh at in bull times or be depressed over in bear times. Now, both u/No_Fix_1183 and I got a ton of backlash (or as NoFix says, “got crucified”) over the last couple of days for broaching the inevitability of secular bear market for emerging markets, and how they typically happen on narratives years before actual adoption - but there’s at least a few people now who are still interested. No one will listen when the bull comes around, so this is our chance. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about a different topic.

When the ponzis spin back up and the mania happens, the ultrasoundmoney cult will be unbearably loud and you’ll see all sorts of absurd projections around the burn, deflation and such. Some of you may remember I was skeptical of the numbers being thrown around in 2021 (having myself fallen for them earlier in 2020) - and even had a little debate with Justin Drake here. It may seem absurd now, but numbers like 20%-70% staking APR, 5% deflation were widely accepted, based off clearly unsustainable usage.

Instead, it would be prudent to form a base case now, and use those numbers instead in the future. The first observation you’ll see that in ETH terms, total transaction fees outside of manias are actually relatively constant - which is a big narrative violation of the up-only rhetoric you saw in 2021 and will see again in the next bull. (Yes, the mechanisms have changed since EIP-1559, but it’s in the same order of magnitude) [PS, edit: other data sources like Coin Metrics do account for EIP-1559; however, as I mentioned originally, it’s in the same order of magnitude] The $ tx fees are still going up, of course, with a larger economy and higher ETH price. But remember - burn rates, staking rates, MEV are all denominated in ETH, so it doesn’t matter.

It’s very likely the type of fees in 2020 (when it peaked) and 2021 will never be seen again - for the simple fact that there’s orders of magnitude more blockspace available across L2s and alt-L1s - and even more coming with EIP-4844. Nevertheless, the “premium” ponzis and “luxury” status symbol type NFTs will always be on L1 - so we’ll definitely see huge increases in gas prices.

Anyway, getting back to the base case, and what actual sustainable revenue looks like - as mentioned above, it has been relative constant over the years. This comes with the implication that, actually, staking rewards are going to be relatively constant - in the ~1.5%-2.5% range for priority fees + ~1% range for MEV. Meanwhile, issuance is going to reduce over time, so we can safely conclude the long-term staking rewards are going to be somewhere in the ~5% range. Coincidentally, at current staking rate, we should expect very mild deflation, but as more is staked this will revert back to mild inflation.

Now, some will argue “but there are whole new usecases that will come online”. Sure, and fees will go up over time in $ times, but as 7 years of data suggests, not in ETH terms. Also, as mentioned above, there’s orders of magnitude more space available on L2s going forward, who will pay relatively negligible fees to L1 post EIP-4844 as there’ll be a dedicated data fee market. So why won’t L1 fees collapse? Because L1 will remain the premiere execution layer - even the perfect L2 won’t be quite as secure and Lindy, and the venue for high-value settlements for the foreseeable future.

Tl;dr: staking rewards are likely going to remain the ~5% APR range long term and inflation will probably tend towards being mildly positive, so when you see absurd projections based on unsustainable mania burns during the bull - remain resolute and sell your ETH to those who are aping in thinking 10%-20% yields and 2% deflation is sustainable.

My final “do it while neutral sentiment lasts” rant - I’ve used the phrase “markets are forward-looking” often. Based on the backlash I’ve received in the last few days, I sense that people misunderstand it as meaning “investors can predict the future”. It’s kind of the opposite - in the bull market people will price in a utopia that may be years away; likewise in a bear market people will price in the doom. We have seen this multiple times in crypto. But what we (arguably) haven’t seen is a secular peak where the wider market with a majority of institutions/HNWIs will price in a mature Ethereum 5-10 years from now. It’s very wrong to think ETH price is up-only until “Ethereum’s vision is delivered and there is mass adoption” - markets have never worked like that, especially emerging markets. There are countless examples to look at with very few exceptions - but the most obvious and relevant one to study is, of course, the dot-com bubble. They priced in the final form of the internet way back in 2000, which took till the 2010s to actually deliver - and yes, many internet companies took 10 years to revisit their 2000 highs. Now, some will argue that Ethereum is not a company - but that doesn’t matter, ETH’s value is derived by market forces, and crypto markets follow the same behaviour.

Jan 27, 2023 - Episode #4 | James Wigginton

Special guest James Wigginton joins us from Orrick to discuss DAO/COOP configurations and the benefits over an LLC structure.

Shitpost of the week: u/superphiz

Phiz, if you can see this, you’re in yesterday’s daily. WAKE UP!

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Settlement layer,

Immune to any slayer,

Best blockchain player.

Today in Ethereum: u/ZeroTricks

On this day…

In 2022:

Syndicate introduces Web3 Investment Clubs, a social investing tool built on the Syndicate Protocol transforming any Ethereum wallet into an investing DAO.
Vitalik Buterin lists the technical challenges and possible solutions in moving Ethereum to single-slot finality.
Risk Harbor Core v2 is released, featuring levered vaults, a risk management automated market maker and a risk engine.
Arbitrum gets updated to lower transfer fees.
Crypto exchange MEXC Global adds support for Arbitrum.
Spot the misfeth at $2455, or ₿0.06646.

In 2021:

Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital announces Ether-focused funds.
ConsenSys partners with China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) to make Consensys Quorum accessible for enterprises and government organizations.
ETH takes off better with headwinds, from $1391 to $1325, or ₿0.04306 to ₿0.04092.

In 2020:

Curve Finance fixes a critical vulnerability found by Sam Sun, which allowed anyone to drain the smart contract.
ETH thinks outside the box at $161, or ₿0.01929.

In 2019:

Zachary Williamson proposes EIP1724, or “zkERC20”, a confidential token standard.
ETH winces at the sight of $116, or ₿0.03233.

In 2018:

No-cost stock trading app Robinhood announces zero-fee trading of Bitcoin and Ether, starting in February.
Nate Rush and Danny Ryan release v0.2 of the CBC Casper prototypes.
Mobius Network’s CEO David Gobaud reasons why his startup held its $39 Million ICO on Stellar instead of Ethereum: “too slow, too expensive and too insecure”.
ETH adjusts its angle of attack to $1053, or ₿0.09451.

In 2017:

Microsoft and IoT platform Mojix announce Project Manifest to track goods using RFID on the Ethereum blockchain.
Tendermint v0.8 is released, with vastly improved stability, validator set changes, handshake between Tendermint and the app, BFT-liveness fixes, more tests and the port of TMSP to ABCI.
ETH radiates at $10.6, or ₿0.01173.

In 2016:

MyEtherWallet announces a Chrome Extension.
Love is in the ETH from $2.1 to $2.5, or ₿0.00532 to ₿0.00637.

Community: u/alexiskef has an ELI5 for the Ethereum KZG ceremony

Hey friends! As you might have noticed from the many comment threads these past 2-3 days, the Ethereum Foundation has been running (since the beginning of this week and for approximately two more months) something called the KZG Ceremony.

MY noob-friendly eli5 is that this super-easy-to-participate and open-to-everyone ceremony will contribute (via super-fancy-behind-the-scene math) the necessary randomness for the trust assumptions of the upcoming EIP4844, aka ProtoDanksharding.

(The official explanation is: “This ceremony, sometimes called a “Trusted Setup”, will generate a structured reference string (SRS) which is needed for the commitments to work. An SRS is secure as long as at least one participant in the ceremony successfully conceals their secret.”)

The website of the Ceremony has plenty of information on all things ceremony, however, I wanted to share with you all an 🎧🔥 excellent podcast episode 🔥🎧 with a conversation between Carl Beekhuizen & Trenton Van Epps from the Ethereum Foundation and the host of Epicenter.tv, Friederike Ernst.

The topics the three of them touch on, are:

Danksharding and scaling Ethereum
Data BLOBs and data availability
KZG ceremony
How trusted setups evolved
KZG commitment requirements
How trust is ensured
Combining randomness
How storing secrets is prevented
General contribution details
Special contributions
Quantum vulnerability
General EIP-4844 timeline

I certainly do not understand 99% of the math, but this conversation really helped me understand the basic ideas behind the whole process! Enjoy!

Random: u/Bob-Rossi is familiarizing themselves with Linux for the start of their staking journey

Public accountability update on my staking journey w/ u/benido2030

After an appreciated pep-talk last week, I took a few hours this week to continue to familiarize myself with Linux. Namely the terminal - found a random YouTube video to just follow along with and type through some basic commands. I think this has been helpful so far because my first attempt at all this I just jumped into a staking guide with literal zero understanding what was going on with the terminal. It was an unnecessary stressor knowing one deviation from a guide and I’m screwed.

I am hoping to get a little more familiar with Linux in general before I go further. So if anyone has ideas / videos of things that helped them when they were starting I’d love to see them. I noticed the CoinCashew Guide has a lot of security best practice type things I need to familiar myself with, so may start focusing on that stuff.

If anyone cares (and to in general share back links myself) someone here gave me this link (sorry, it was awhile ago) — https://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php — which was a nice starter read and this was the video I followed along with — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3ii48qYBxA — which had a lot of similiar stuff but was easy to follow in video. Both super basic, but I can’t stress enough how much of a newbie I am with Linux… so it was a comfy start.

I’d also like to keep this quasi-weekly thing going, so if anyone else is trying going down their staking journey feel free to jump in.

Analysis: u/LogrisTheBard discusses NFT tickets

I think the form of NFTs ripe for the next bull cycle will be different. Just as web2 innovated on web1 by adding interactivity, I think we’ll see the same occur for the next wave of NFT’s. Gone will be the hype for profile pictures and we’ll transition towards NFTs with steady demand and which produce revenue streams.

I don’t think the infrastructure will be there next bull market for real world asset NFTs like car or house deeds. Governments already have systems for those and even if it would reduce their costs that isn’t a metric they are optimizing for. So, I’m looking at informatic use cases of the blockchain that can remain in the digital realm to the point of delivery.

Chief among these are live events or NFT ticketing. Live events occur on a regular basis and the total addressable market cap here makes the art market blush. I particularly like this use case because it serves everyone better except the existing parasitic middlemen.

Just from a technical feature perspective, NFTs provide a provenance trail. If you gate NFT transfers to KYC’d customers then the venues which switch to this system can actually know who attended their events. This is obviously useful information which is lost now and it enables entirely new pathways to engagement between performers and attendees. For example there could be exclusive ticket sale rounds to whitelisted addresses based on previous event attendance.

Additionally there are trust and corruption issues with current ticketing approaches such as corrupt release mechanisms and opaque service charge fees. At the very least having the sale logic on the blockchain can add transparency and equal access to the process. Protocols like POAP and Funfair have already demonstrated provably fair lottery mechanisms when demand outstrips supply. Alternatively more market-like initial auction systems have been demonstrated by newer tokens like Gearbox which used 0xCider. Blockchains are demonstrably excellent at executing a provably fair, transparent process.

As to fees, a lot of the service fee charged by Ticketmaster actually goes to middlemen or the venue. It’s how they were able to grow to their current size: they stopped treating the attendee as the customer. There is a market opportunity here to reduce Ticketmaster’s cut of the fees though. That is still substantial. Ticketmaster’s revenue was $12.3B in 2022. It’s a rather perfect opportunity for some Defi mullet and we’re already seeing it start to happen even from Ticketmaster themselves[1][2][3]. This is where things like Rarible’s multi-chain protocol would really shine as it is fully indexed and is made to allow numerous frontends, dial their own parameters, and for people to pick whatever chain they want.

Finally, unlike a normal ticket stub or plain digital record an NFT ticket can be associated with extra metadata (even after the event). A system like Ticketmaster could add some type of history system so you can view a collection of your previous events and event highlight reels for each but they haven’t in 20 years. By contrast, this is much more normal for NFTs already. Integrate this into a digital picture frame and you can have a place on superfan’s wall that cycles through highlights of the favorite games they’ve attended or that lets them build a digital gallery in something like Decentraland and compete with other fans.

So, there’s an opportunity here to improve the status quo for venues, performers, and attendees and the only one who stands to lose is a generally reviled middleman. I don’t think we’ll get as much push-back from the consumers here as we’ll see from Gamefi. However, stuff will need to be built.

The UX for buying tickets needs to be tailored to buying tickets. Customers need to see the layout of the venue for the seats being sold, be shown the context of the event, and be offered pathways to deeper engagement with that event’s community. All of these are UI centric changes that don’t require much contract code and are ripe for innovation. Adjacent to the chain, the NFT metadata stored on IPFS could be standardized for easier integration into navigation and viewing software.

OPSEC: u/REALJohnBMacLemore has two cybersecurity updates for us

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/norton-lifelock-accounts-targeted-what-to-know-and-how-to-protect-your-passwords/

Norton’s “Lifelock” password manager accounts hacked in credential stuffing attack.

Credential stuffing is where an attacker uses usernames and passwords obtained in a previous hack to access other accounts. Phase 4 of my guide addresses this btw.

Stay safe out there!

https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/10j5dkj/daily_general_discussion_january_23_2023/j5mes6h/

macOS/iOS bros! Stop watching SuperPhiz reruns and update now! Moooaar security updates! Moooaar kernel vulnerabilities patched! macOS 12, macos 13, iOS 15, 16 and … iOS 12!? Yeah… 12. Weird. So if you’re still using an iPhone 3GS, update it too.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

Edit: Oh and macOS 13 got Yubikey support. About f’ing time Apple!

Community: u/Syentist shares good news from the first Shanghai upgrade shadow fork

Mainnet shadow fork 1 finalising, according to Marius from the Geth team. 🥳

Assuming devnets run for another month, and then the two public testnets are spaced 3 weeks apart, that would put end March Shanghai. If devnets are run for two weeks and then the two public testnets each spaced two weeks apart, Shanghai date would be early March. Either way Shanghai in March seems increasingly likely (Just my own guessing, nothing official from the core devs on a date yet)

Random: u/bakindhuman is getting started on their solo staking journey

https://youtu.be/-o3IV3AClw8

I’m a long time hodler. At the moment I have most of my ETH staked with CB. With withdrawals coming soon. I figured now is a good time to explore solo staking. Since I’m not tech savvy. I feel solo staking is a little out of my comfort zone. I looked into using dapenode and rocketpool. After looking at tons of videos and guides. I decided to try the rocketpool route. I followed this guys YouTube video.

I was able to follow along pretty good and now I’m officially running a node on rocketpools testnet. I’m surprised it’s actually working. With that said. I feel like I’m missing so much understanding of what is really happening with my node. All I know is I followed a bunch of copy and paste code into the terminal and got it to work. Did I secure my device enough? Did I set up ssh that I have no idea how to use? Is my firewall setup? What is my computer going to do when I lose power? At this moment I’m a very dangerous eth staker. There’s so much I need to learn in order to trust myself with staking real eth. I wish there was some kind of staking class I could attend. I’m going to keep learning as much as I can until withdrawals are enabled. Once that happens my eth will go back to the safety of my hardware wallet until I feel 100% comfortable staking on my own. Thanks to everyone of you that help guys/gals like myself. Cheers.

Jan 20, 2023 - Episode #3

Shitpost of the week: Meme from u/pr0nh0li0 who stole it from Hsaka

Lmao

Stolen from Hsaka

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Network density,

Half a million validate,

For security.

Random: u/Tricky_Troll decides now is a good time to reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly of how he played the last bull market

Disclaimer: This is a long-winded reflective post. Skip to the end if you would prefer a TL;DR.

Now is the perfect time to reflect on your own personal wins and regrets from the bull market just gone. It’s quiet, fundamentals are showing strong with Ethereum’s strength above $1,000 and a bottom feels like it may have formed. Don’t @ me if I jinxed it.

Personally, I’d give myself a 5/10. Overall I did ok.

The Good:

My early bull run strategy was good. I sold the last of my Bitcoin after its initial run to $30K/40K as the first part of taking profits. I splashed out on a couple of things I’d been wanting for a while and I diversified into to physical assets as well as leaving some aside for paying tax (just not quite enough in the end 🙃). Also, losses which will be covered in “The Ugly” were kept to a responsible (enough) % of my stack and I did not double down or try to gamble back shitcoin losses. Losses were accepted and rational portfolio allocations were stuck to. Once the shitcoins went to Goblintown, my precious ETH stack was left untouched.

Finally, I managed to hit my 32 ETH target and run a solo validator node. It was a lot of learning for me but solo staking is very satisfying and worth the effort.

The Less Good:

I sold all of my shitcoins and was full ETH by the time the bear market kicked in to 5th gear. This allowed me to fund quitting my job temporarily to go to Hodlercon and do a long delayed trip with my family in the UK. I should have sold these earlier but I managed to shake these bags before we entered Goblintown.

The Bad:

I had a cash out plan and my target was not hit as I was hoping. My cash out plan evolved after an event I will cover in the next section. The bad thing is that part of my target was hit and I did nothing about it.

The Ugly:

35% of my stack was lost to shitcoins in 2020 and DeFi coins in 2021. Overconfidence from picking out Chainlink in the 2018 bear and then selling the top in late 2019/early 2020 contributed to this greatly. It was a humbling experience but also, unfortunately this loss of 35% of my stack was the reason why my cash out target was not hit. I had a set $ amount I wanted to sell (which would be hit at around a $4.5K ETH) or when a bunch of my favourite indicators on https://www.LookIntoBitcoin.com flashed sell. After losing the 35%, the cash out amount crept up since I had less ETH to sell (it went up to about a $9K ETH). Due to the elongated nature of the late bull run, less than half of the sell indicators I was following flashed sell. I tried to time the peak too close. As a result, the peak I expected never came and I never sold when I should have.

Learnings:

So what have I learned and what can you learn from me? My first piece of advice is never to double down to re-coup losses. After I lost my shitcoin stack I was tempted to double down and I had other coins lined up. But guess what, those coins did terribly. I would have only lost more ETH and wouldn’t be solo staking today. Set aside a portion of your stack to leave invested in ETH for the long run. Do not waver from this allocation. If you find that hard, maybe staking is for you. A 16 ETH rETH minipool or 32 ETH solo node cannot be partially sold. It’s a great way to keep assets locked in for your long term investment thesis, also earn a yield and of course help to decentralise Ethereum!

Secondly, I think it’s important to stick to a cash out plan. Furthermore, I think laddering out is better too. It’s easy to want to hit a target but this market is too unpredictable to rely on such a hit or miss strategy. Everyone is different, so I don’t think this strategy suits everyone but if you are someone with a cash out plan, I’d recommend sticking to it and I’d also recommend having multiple targets over a single cash out price.

My final piece of advice is to stay humble and stay cautious. Now that I have experienced the feeling of winning a big bet on one of just 2 altcoins to go on a big run up last bear market and subsequently thinking I’m a genius and can do it again, I see this attitude everywhere. Look at Do Kwon or any of the has beens last bull run. They think they can make a comeback and are trying to build up their redemption arcs. They got lucky. Then they got overconfident and greedy. Then the market turned and their shenanigans that they thought was proof they were geniuses revealed that they really aren’t any better than the rest of us. In fact, they’re worse. At least I kept my losses limited and didn’t keep leveraging up. Keeping my bullishness and self-confidence in check is the only reason I didn’t lose it all. There were definitely points where I wanted to go all in on my shitcoins but I didn’t because I knew it was irresponsible.

Anyway, I apologise for the long-winded nature of this post. I don’t really have the time today to flesh it out into a nice concise ordered write up. I guess I’ll leave you with a TL;DR instead.

TL;DR:

Stay humble. Watch out for the trap of over-confidence after you make a smart investment or two thinking you can do it again. Chances are you can’t.
Keep responsible allocations. I’d have lost it all had I not resisted the urge to double down in an effort to recoup losses. Running a staking node can help with this.
I recommend cash out plans and sticking to them. Furthermore, laddered cash out plans help protect against uncertainty. My all or nothing plan has left me frustrated and short on liquidity in this bear.

OPSEC: u/696_eth reminds us of some tips to keep our crypto assets safe and secure

hardware wallet is a MUST if you have more than $2k in crypto and you are not cashing that out right now and leaving.

Transfer your valuable NFTs from hot/burner to COLD (hardware) wallet. While Gas is still quite cheap at night US time/morning EU time. You can bundle (x20 items) thru OS. Yes, you might end up paying like 0.01-0.02e per transfer.

Another good practice is to use revoke . cash ‘s application and also remove permissions from time to time.

I know to most people it’s a given but I keep seeing people getting hacked here and there and I’d rather remind again. And your not garbage NFTs are valuable to! so remember that. Trust me, it might suck and feel like unnecessary investment and use of money transferring assets but you’d be happy you still have all your stuff cause for non-hardware wallets it’s not IF it’s WHEN you’ll lose it all so act accordingly.

OPSEC: u/RooftopPortaPotty investigates the Revoke.Cash extension and reveals some privacy concerns

https://imgur.com/CRRvUfJ

The following will serve as an extremely abbreviated version of my research into the revoke.cash browser extension, focusing as narrowly on privacy as I can.

Obviously we’re taking a different direction here, as this is clearly not a wallet. However, I think its fair to say that this one is particularly relevant to my ethfinanciers.

Revoke.cash was downloaded directly from the chrome webstore

Starting off, the extension’s privacy tab on the chrome webstore page looks good. No data collection is always good to see.

https://imgur.com/qw2xLIY

Immediately upon installation we see this POST request to Amplitude, an analytics platform.

There are a few identifiers, including ‘user_id’, ‘device_id’, ‘session_id’, and ‘insert_id’. Not so great.

And the keen reader may notice the fields ‘initial_referrer’, and ‘initial_referring_domain’. The values here are ‘EMPTY’, but I take massive issue with this in the case that they are ever used to collect that data.

If they’re going to be collecting your referer header, the least they could do is misspell it as the HTTP spec does haha.

I will go into how the extension functions in a more extensive revision, which will include a review of some crypto scams, and a taste of malware analysis.

But this single request to Amplitude got me wondering what happens when I visit https://revoke.cash using my everyday use firefox installation, with only uBlock Origin and NoScript enabled.

https://imgur.com/xtgQ1KM

Here we see a request to hxxps://scripts.simpleanalyticscdn.com/latest.js - An obvious tracker, BOOM instantly killed by NoScript

Worth noting that I did not see a request to this domain when using the extension.

https://imgur.com/O01Qczo

Here we see a javascript file trying attempting to force my browser to generate POST requests to 127.0.0.1:8545

Either way, killed by NoScript.

Maybe theres some extension functionality that its trying to interact with?

https://imgur.com/jwoL55B

On the bottom right of the page you can see those connections are refused, even with the extension in use. Odd.

https://imgur.com/dXONMEH

Back to firefox, we see a request to amplitude just as generated by the extension. However, this time uBlock killed that attempt.

I keep harping on the fact that by installing extensions, you allow them to completely bypass protections such as NoScript and uBlock Origin.

Be careful out there, folks

Community: u/SwagtimusPrime WANTS YOU to contribute to the Ethereum KZG ceremony!

gm gentlemen,

a quick reminder about the KZG ceremony: https://ceremony.ethereum.org/

You can help by contributing your randomness to the whole thing. The more people participate the better, as it only takes one honest person to make the whole thing a success.

It’s really easy and fast to do. All you need is an Ethereum wallet address with more than 3 transfers, and then it’s just writing some random text and signing a bunch of messages and you’re already done. The whole process takes <2 minutes.

You’ll get a POAP too, so get going and help secure & scale Ethereum! This will be used for the danksharding implementation later on.

Random: u/RooftopPortaPotty gets thanked by u/interweaver for their security analyses with a great explanation why they are so important

To make an analogy, your posts about security analysis, and potentially teaching us to do those kinds of investigations ourselves, play the same role in the broader ecosystem that fraud proofs do on optimistic rollups. If you start with a trusted system, and the system is honest, then all is well and good, but if they’re not honest, and nobody is checking on them, then they can get away with anything. For such a system to become trustless, you need a sufficient number of capable fraud-checkers who are checking often enough such that there’s a near-certainty someone would catch malfeasance if it were present. The more people capable of checking ecosystem tools to see if they’re doing bad things, the more trustless the ecosystem becomes. It’s really crucial

/u/interweaver on EVM discord

Beautifully put. To this end, I will be putting together a guide detailing exactly the steps I have been taking, along with resources, and assistance wherever needed. The vast majority of the process is non-technical, just critical thinking with an almost cynical mindset haha.

I previously announced that I will be releasing a more in-depth review of revoke.cash, where this extension will also be used as we explore a variety of interesting crypto scams.

If you’re interested in learning more about infosec in a very easy to digest fashion, I would recommend checking that out when it is released.

I have also promised an analysis of Fire.

No commitment to any particular order can be made, but these are all on my plate.

This is last call for requests, before I leave this up to the community to continue.

Random: u/davidahoffman shares his perspective on recent criticisms of Bankless

https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/108x76j/daily_general_discussion_january_11_2023/j4d8cqf/

Hey Fam

There was a comment a few days ago in the daily about me tweeting about JPEGs, and also the frequent “Bankless has too many ads!” Take

I typed out a pretty thorough response, as it’s stuff I hear a lot and also I think is shortsighted. Since the comment was 3 days ago, it’s buried to the depths of Reddit, so I wanted to draw attention to it here:

Would love y’all’s thoughts / feedback.

Love you guys

Community: u/Spacesider shares his staking experience and tips for anyone else experiencing similar issues

So a little something regarding how my staking experience is going.

Prior to the merge I was running Geth on one SSD and Lighthouse on another SSD.

My attestation performance was fairly good, consistently around 97-98%. Back then you didn’t rely on the execution client for attesting, just for block proposals, so it wasn’t a huge deal if it couldn’t keep up.

Coming up to the merge I moved away from Geth and installed Nethermind on the same drive as Lighthouse, and on the other drive installed Teku-Besu (As a fallback pair).

Now with both a consensus client and execution client on the same SSD, and an execution being a requirement, it can’t quite keep up. Attestation performance is averaging around 93-94% and I am seeing the occasional message pop up in my logs stating that the execution engine is not in sync.

I’ve been putting off addressing this for the longest time… But I figure better now than never!

I’ve ordered an NVMe that has 10x the read/write speeds and 10x the IOPS of the current SSD’s I have. Hopefully in the next week I will get it and install it and move the primary pair (Lighthouse-Nethermind) across.

If anyone else has been getting poor attestation performance, this may be something to look into.

Random: u/benido2030 shares their learnings from 2022

I wrote a long post about my learnings at the end of 2021. That was (in hindsight) after we had peaked and I think it’s just reasonable to update that post and include my 2022 learnings.

Don’t invest in last cycles coins - Still very valid, and probably even more important now that we might be on the verge of recovering and potentially starting a new cycle.
Understand the narrative - This one is tricky. I think when I wrote this in 2021 I thought by just understanding the narrative and being early you will print. True is: narratives are important, but most likely (at least for me) only really relevant in a bull market. Or the other way around: Narratives are nice in bear market, but that doesn’t mean they will safe you. E.g. There was a “real yield” season and GMX did hold pretty nicely, but it’s probably an exception. Other narratives didn’t help me at all. This leads to:
NEW: In a bear you gotta be patient (and buy ETH) - Now this sounds crazy, but I really think this might be the biggest learning from the last 12 months. Fade narratives in bear market. Sell last cycles coins. All of them. Don’t think they will recover, because even if they do, they will lose vs ETH and you can increase your holdings if you really want to double down. I kept two tokens and let me tell you I am not happy :) Buy ETH whenever you feel like it (longterm it’s most likely a good buy). But also with ETH, be patient, history maybe doesn’t repeat but it rhymes. E.g. I bought the bottom at 800$, but I also made some more buys in the other crashes at e.g. 1750. Why? Because of “FOMO”, being scared it could immediately pump - which it usually doesn’t in a real bear market. There is capitulation in a crash and a time based capitulation. And YES! I know that I / we don’t know. And maybe next cycle is different. Still I think understanding what patience means is important.
NEW: Make a bear an opportunity - This is kind of connected to the the old 6. “Take profits”. I think that’s still very important: having cash on the sidelines means a crash/ dip might even have a positive side, both for your portfolio but also (and maybe more important) emotionally. But I think I would go even further: I sold most of my alts in Feb 22. I felt I was late, didn’t sell the top, bla bla. In hindsight I think that move wasn’t bad at all. But I could have even shorted last cycles trash. Not in a day trading way, but as in shorting and forgetting the short. I was so impressed by some people (especially the Luna short from 100$ to 0 from that one guy that covered his short for 42cents in the end). I know I can’t do that, I know he’s probably one in a 1000, but I also think there is a valid way that includes shorting when you feel the bear has really arrived.
You can’t predict crypto short term, NEW: you can predict crypto long term - I am more convinced than ever that this is the case and I also think that doesn’t really contradict anything I have said before :) But the more important part of this is: I am sure we can predict crypto long term. I’ll probably write about this soon, but e.g. “execution layers” aka “L2s” are alpha. Modular blockchains are alpha. ETH as the one global settlement layer is alpha. I can’t imagine that L2 tokens won’t pump. I am long OP and will try to go long with other L2 tokens, either by buying or CDP.
Finance is a different world - Still valid, still learning so much, see 4.
Take profits - I didn’t take many profits apart from the alts in Feb, so I sucked here. I was too bullish. I was hoping for 10k ETH, 100k BTC etc. etc. So I am planning profit taking now. I am trying to estimate valid prices to exit certain positions, e.g. by understanding what certain prices say about my tokens, I compare them to evaluations of last cycle (example: If OP reached 20$ that would mean 80B FDV which is close to SOLs mcap last cycle - and I think that’s already bullish, even if it’s just 10x, compared to SOLs 100x) and try to be more realistic and less emotional when it comes to taking profits. I think I was driven by greed and euphoria last cycle and will try to change this going into 2023 and 2024.

I have some goals for the next 24-36 months and hope that reflecting on my learnings will help me to make stuff happen. Will it be as easy as I think? Def not (but I also don’t think it is as easy as it might sound here!). But I want to grow, improve, challenge myself, so we need goals to measure success :)

Community: u/etheraider has a message from the EVM stewards giving out free EVMavericks t-shirts at ETHDenver!

Free EVMavericks Tees for ETHDenver!

Hope everyone is pumped for the conference!

If you happen to be going and hold an EVM, we will be ordering EVMavericks tees free for anyone that wants one for the conference! (fyi, First come first serve, there will be a max # of tees ordered)

To sign up, just drop your size and pick up your tee at the conference (no doxxing): https://discord.com/channels/963992696387694592/1064925676479729

We’ll also get some laptop stickers made for anybody that wants one! (No EVM necessary)

There will also be a few ethfinance & evmaverick hang outs planned for ETHDenver, so be sure to check those out if you’re going! Details to come!

Community: u/pbrody shares the latest updates on Nightfall hitting the mainstream media!

PR: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-ey-and-polygon-organizations-update-source-code-for-blockchain-privacy-based-protocol-nightfall-301724406.html

Greetings all…there’s been great coverage on the Nightfall privacy announcement. I’ve got a consolidate list of the links we hit:

Bloomberg: https://news.bloombergtax.com/financial-accounting/ey-polygon-update-privacy-based-blockchain-protocol-on-ethereum

Coindesk: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/01/18/ey-and-polygon-ready-privacy-focused-ethereum-for-enterprise-release/

From my POV, a good day here. Made great progress getting everyone at EY on the same page. Much love to the EthFinance community…

Jan 13, 2023 - Episode #2

Shitpost of the week: u/ExperienceGoblintown

What the… Where are y’all going?

Weekly Haiku: u/Jey_s_TeArS

Another night shift,

Review and merge pull requests,

The open-source gift.

Random: u/BigglyBillBrasky has a personal update

The Brasky’s Strike Back Part II

It’s been over 2 months since my wife lost her job and wanted to share an update. We had both found job opportunities on separate coasts of the US and we’re prepared to live apart for a few months so that we could find the income to keep the house and wait for something permanent to open up back home. I had even readied the house and advertised it for rental hoping to find a tenant while we were gone.

At the last minute we both found jobs in town…not only did she get hired with full time employment but she’ll be making 20% more than her previous job!!! I had been watching our little one as my main trade is in construction and the real money is made on large industrial projects but requires traveling away from home. I had found a part time gig that worked well with our schedules but had to quit as I was going back on the road to work. I got a call right before leaving and a side hustle that I had tried to get started back in August has now just opened up…and I’ll be making more than double my previous income while still playing daddy day-care!!!

The last few months have definitely been a trial and has put a lot of stress on our marriage but we came out as better spouses and better positioned than before!! We had enough savings in case of emergencies and I was prepared to start selling my sweet sweet precious ETH if things got worse. We were able to not burn through everything and our ETH stack is still intact earning rewards!! Glad I can share this my ETH fam and anyone else going through the fire. Amazed to have a spouse who can get aggressive and when the bear bites we bite back.

OPSEC: u/magnushansson shares a new paper on crypto network security

Economist Eric Budish presents a new paper (video) showing skepticism regarding the cost of securing the Bitcoin network. The main criticism boils down to the fact that there is no trust in the system (trustless), in the sense that there is no “memory” to build up trust. A miner is only trusted by spending computing resources right now, but does not get rewarded for building up a good reputation. He argues that although this is a perfectly fine model for security, it get’s very expensive. In the concluding remarks, Budish briefly discusses PoS and says that it could potentially be used in a better way.

I think his arguments for the cost of securing the Bitcoin network is interesting and probably valid (depending on what the attack looks like). People in crypto should not be arrogant and dismiss criticism, but instead try to understand all perspectives to be able to build better systems. I’m not sure how trust in a decentralized system would look, or even if it’s a good idea (Any Layer0 player comments?). Also, PoS certainly have clear advantages: E.g., the cost of an attack is significantly larger, as the attacker risks losing the capital (not the case with mining). But if the capital required to secure the network needs to be way higher than the transactional value of the network, that could be an obstacle for growth. Are there any attempts to clearly work out the economics for PoS?

Edit:

Thanks for the comments and suggestions to listen to Justin Drake on this, will take a look!

I also found this quite intense twitter discussion on the subject: https://twitter.com/alexoimas/status/1525505965029830656

And this blog post: https://hugonguyen.medium.com/a-review-of-budishs-51-attack-theories-what-is-the-fair-price-of-an-old-asic-59a7dcf9ff94 which argues that the scenarios in Budish article are unrealistic. The author also argues PoW > PoS.

Random: u/diego-d explains why they don't really see the point in Bitcoin anymore

For the first time in my 6 years of crypto I am starting to seriously ponder: I do not actually get the ‘point’ of bitcoin. It’s unprofitable to mine it. It pays no yield if you already have it. It doesn’t protect you from inflation. It needs a steady supply of greater fools during its cycle because its security costs scale with price (see: boom-bust curve). Its vocal supporters are cringe. I’ve always agreed that bitcoin is pristine collateral while ETH has a place as a programmable crypto asset but things have changed. I’m at the point where the flippening is not a meme anymore - it is the guaranteed outcome of the supply/demand dynamics that we are witnessing now - just needs more time to play out. ETH is now the pristine collateral imo, and I don’t see why in the future ETH can’t have flipped Bitcoin multiple times.

Community: u/waqwaqattack shares their latest interview on RocketFuel with Jasper aka u/sikhsoldiers

I recorded a new Launch Pad episode with /u/sikhsoldiers. Jasper is an extremely popular member of the Rocket Pool community.

In the episode, we talk about how his early crypto journey had him spending time here in ethfinance, his path to the Rocket Pool community, and how he became Rocket Pool’s resident DeFi expect. At the end of the video, we do a run through of his paper “Why Paradigm Was Wrong: How rETH Will Flip stETH”.

You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/DwUQMZA9Jus

For those of you who don’t know, Launch Pad is an interview series within Rocket Fuel - a daily news show summarising everything happening in the Rocket Pool community.

Ecosystem: u/austonst enlightens us to the conflict of interest for entities running MEV block builder and MEV relays

MEV-Boost relay transaction censorship has gotten a good amount of attention since the Merge, and for good reason. Fortunately, word has gotten around and the trend is improving.

So I think it’s time to emphasize another problem in the relay space: relays who also run builders. Relay-builders as opposed to independent relays? I need a better term for this. This is informed by my time working on the Aestus relay, and while I believe our relay can help with this problem, I hope you can trust that my goal here is not marketing. We don’t make any money off this relay anyway.

In a world without relays, proposers and builders would have to trust each other directly: depending on the implementation one would always be able to steal MEV from the other. Relays sit in the middle and take on all that trust. As long as the relay is trusted, proposers and builders each enter a trustless relationship with the other.

However, a malicious relay, working with one side or the other, can execute all the attacks they were supposed to prevent. A relay working with a builder can steal MEV from a proposer or the other builders, and likewise, a relay working with a proposer can steal MEV from a builder.

Now let’s bring relay-builders into this. An entity that is running both a relay and a builder has a clear conflict of interest. Compromising the relay’s neutrality by working together with their builder could immensely improve profitability. Let’s list out some potential attacks that relay-builders could carry out. These are in roughly increasing order of subtlety and with names I’m making up on the spot, with “you” being the relay-builder:

Single-Block Copying: Some third party builder has submitted a block to the relay that is more valuable than the block your builder made. Simply copy all the transactions from the third-party builder’s block, but make it so you keep any value that is not sent to the proposer. Send a bid to the proposer with your block instead of the other builder’s. A competent builder should be able to detect this and trash your reputation.
Ignoring Other Builders: A third-party builder submitted a block more valuable than your builder’s block. You should pass on the third-party bid to the proposer. Instead, pretend you didn’t see it. Submit your builder’s bid instead. Done naively like this, the third-party builder should be able to catch it.
Multi-Block Copying: Multiple builders have submitted blocks with valuable MEV. Build your block from the most valuable transactions from each of them. Make sure your bid to the proposer will legitimately win the auction, but keep the rest of the MEV for yourself. I don’t know if builders would detect this, might take some analysis and time.
Obfuscated MEV Copying: Same as with the first two copying attacks, but with intent to be subtle about it. For example, if a third-party builder/searcher has a truly novel source of MEV extraction that only they know how to do, they’d recognize if it were stolen, so only copy MEV that can be identified as a recognizable strategy and is unlikely to come from a private mempool. Implement some fuzzing, make your copied MEV transactions slightly different so as to give plausible deniability that maybe your builder found that MEV on their own. Might be hard to detect.
Auction Manipulation: Anyone can check the best current bid through the relay API, which is a problem in itself, but the relay has particularly low-latency access to this info. In case a third-party builder only very slightly outbids your builder, quickly create a new block with a winning bid and propose that instead. The relay has some wiggle room with timing to make sure your builder can always outbid. Catching this would require long-term analysis and may be covered by plausible deniability or obfuscation.
Block Timing Manipulation: A third-party builder submitted a block more valuable than the one made by your builder. Give your block priority in the relay’s block validation system, or better yet, don’t waste time validating it at all (you made it, you trust it). Make your competitor’s block low-priority for validation or otherwise stall it so it’s less likely to be ready when the proposer asks for the best bid. Hard to detect, covered by plausible deniability, and current data APIs don’t expose enough timing information to help with detection or can be manipulated. This could be an actual concern.
Builder Colocation: Most builders will make ~1 submission per second, with value increasing over time as more bundles and tx’s arrive. Builders that are geographically closer to the relay, with lower latency, will tend to have slightly higher-value blocks because of it. If a relay and builder are running in the same data center, under the same account/project, on a high-speed private LAN, that will give them a competitive edge. This maybe doesn’t quite qualify as an attack, but a neutrality concern at least.

I want to be clear that I have no reason to believe existing relay-builders are malicious and carrying out these attacks. But why accept the possibility that they may some day occur? Why connect to relays that require extra trust assumptions when there are alternatives?

Right now, Ultrasound and Agnostic are the only relays not operating their own builders. Aestus is temporarily running a builder, but it doesn’t extract MEV, doesn’t take any profit, and only operates until we get a reliable set of third-party builders connected (otherwise we might not have any blocks for connected proposers). I would encourage everyone to direct their validators and builders to those relays and to ask existing relay-builders to consider only running one or the other. I’m grateful to the early relay-builders for getting us off the ground, but now we can start to hold the space to a higher standard.

Ecosystem: u/superphiz has some predictions for the Shanghai upgrade

I’m going to make some guesses for what might happen on the beacon chain regarding withdrawals. I want to qualify these as “guesses”, because reality rarely unfolds as we expect and it would overestimate my foresight to call them predictions. Also, since I’m not making predictions, I acknowledge that it’s difficult to quantify the results of many of these guesses.

Shanghai is likely to happen some time around Tuesday, March 28, 2023. This isn’t based on any factual information and I’m VERY behind on core dev calls, but I do think that developers want to push this in March, and Tuesdays are a good day to do these. Guess confidence: 4%.
Network usage will skyrocket immediately after the merge as people race to take advantage of whatever strategy they’ve developed to respond to withdrawals. Some folks will be racing to claim stolen beacon chain funds, while others will be racing to save their funds from an attacker. Other people will have novel strategies that I can’t conceive. This will lead to high execution rewards for validators who propose those blocks. Guess confidence: 20%.
MEV block rewards will be very high for several hours based on the previous point. Guess confidence: 15%
There will be few “real” validator exits, but there will be validator shuffling that will appear as exits and spook some people. For example, providers who have merged or folded will want to re-secure their keys under new management and will exit to re-stake under improved security, but this won’t be clear to observers who will only perceive it as “churn”. Guess confidence: 30%.
The price is likely to fluctuate 2% either way, but will quickly reach homeostasis because people are already committed to their positions. There will be sellers who have been eager to claim gains after having locked coins, and buyers who are comforted by the knowledge that withdrawals are real and sustainable. Guess confidence: 0%
Over the next year, individual deposits to the beacon chain will climb steadily as observers who couldn’t commit to an unknown timeline now accept that the beacon chain is stable. I’m expecting 20 million staked Ether aka 625,000 validators by the end of 2023. Guess confidence: 5%
Large institutions will finally be comfortable depositing their treasuries into the beacon chain and taking staking rewards. This will occur over a 1-3 year period and result in significant locked coins. It remains to be seen whether they’ll take a profit maximalist or chain maximalist approach to staking, but based on our educational efforts it’s realistic to assume that many of these institutions will recognize the value of decentralization, trustlessness, and chain health when staking. Guess confidence: 10%
We’ll see a new wave of LSD products, with products who support chain health leading the charge, and products who who maximize greed seeing less usage. In simple terms: institutions know that parasitic engagement with the beacon chain will reduce the long term viability of their investment. Guess confidence: 20%
Public goods like schools/universities, and local governments will slowly begin dipping their toes into staking, especially in cooperatives arranged around DVT solutions that help them dilute the risk of running validators. We ought to promote these cooperatives rather than encouraging centralized approaches. Guess confidence: 2%
We’ll discover that some people and entities have lost staking keys. In the true fashion of cryptocurrency, I expect these keys to miraculously turn up in someone’s private possession after many years. Guess confidence: 5%

BONUS: What our community can do to support this transition:

Educate everyone you can about the transition to Proof of Stake. Many people are still unaware that this has happened.
Talk to people about the relationship between “good staking” on a healthy network and the price. People who think they’re staking selfishly will harm themselves by reducing decentralization. Staking in decentralized ways will have a positive impact on the price.
Help people recognize that withdrawals are a fruition of the promise by core developers to prioritize withdrawals after the merge. They deserve plenty of credit for being consistent and predictable.
Don’t let people get complacent. So many people promised to move to solo home staking, or even just a better staking solution when withdrawals were enabled, but there’s a natural tendency to get lazy and complacent when the opportunity is real - don’t let people be lazy!
Keep learning and building. The price is a lagging indicator of what the developers and community bring to Ethereum. You don’t improve the quality of your asset by simply watching the price.

OPSEC: u/Maleficent_Plankton reminds us about a recent scam that has been going around

There was a fairly-notable phishing post on r/CC yesterday where the user mistakenly sent tokens to an address that looked very similar to his actual address (same starting and ending characters). He originally thought he had clipboard malware that changed his address, but it turned out he actually copied to the wrong address.

If you look at his PolygonScan history days before the mistakenly transaction, you can see that he was targeted multiple times.

All these similar-looking address had interacted with his account in the past 2 weeks:

0xDD1B7Ce698d0d58Cd521A9c186e6a95CF043614C (his)
0xDd12B7E4B8e74745986DD80DDAd191D2a4d7a14C
0xdD1f22080CF69E1B1A92D33E8f3d6a766447614c
0xdd1b4452Ef12D5838fBed7649c9B77C90Cc4614C
0xDD1b08cbc37C8cBBEfbA339D969439b45D06614C
0xdD1fAF3643A67b7e9d0629F2a9230B806AF2614c

This is known as address poisoning. Attackers send low-value token transactions and receive 0-value token transactions to-and-from your addresses, hoping that you accidentally pick their address in future transactions.

Blockchain explorers and and some wallets will show these transactions. The recommended way to avoid getting tricked is to use an address book of whitelisted addresses. Most wallets and exchanges have an address book feature.

I’ve posted a comprehensive list of crypto scams here along with best practices to avoid getting scammed: https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/106lsai/comprehensive_list_of_common_crypto_scams_and/

If you’re active in DeFi, you’ll probably come across many scams and random phishing airdrops on your accounts. Especially true on low-fee networks like Polygon PoS and BSC.

Community: u/DoubtStarsAreFire invites everyone to join the Hodlercon discord ahead of planning for the 2024 meet up

https://youtu.be/M2bOnABFneo

We had so much fun in Hawaii we’re going to do it again… for those of you that don’t know HodlerCon 2024 is currently in the planning stages. Join our Discord to get involved

Luau Dao is submitting a presentation about our Decentralized Layer Zero Vacation at ETH Denver! 🤞Fingers crossed we get accepted. That being said, we had to make a pitch video for the talk. I couldn’t keep it to myself because I wanted to share it with you fam! I hope you enjoy!

Random: u/MinimalGravitas discusses goats and staking?!

GM EthFam,

So I’ve been thinking about whether LSDs represent almost a multipolar trap.

A multipolar trap is a situation where participants are incentivized to act in a way detrimental the good of the group, and to themselves in the long run. The most obvious example is the tradgedy of the commons. We each share a piece of land, it can support each of us grazing 10 goats. If I graze 11 goats the quality of the land might deteriorate, but so slowly it won’t matter, whereas I get 10% more goat, it’s an obvious choice. Unfortunately you all make the same obvious choice and so the field is overgrazed and after a few years becomes barren and most of everyone’s goats starve. If you decide to be the better person and keep to the original limit of 10 goats, then all you’re doing is disadvantaging yourself relative to the rest of us 11 goat havers. We can all afford more turnips than you due to goat inflation and so you end up out competed.

Getting back to ether staking… by using a centralized service rather than solo staking you get access to an LSD. This gives you advantages in terms of opportunity access, you can swap into something else if you want to or create leveraged positions or whatever.

Like with the shared field, the disadvantage is on a community level. The decentralization and ‘legitimacy’ of Ethereum the network, and by extention, ether the asset is compromized, meaning it is less likely to be as highly valued in the future. Sure, you could take the high ground and not use a centralized service, but then are you disadvantaging yourself with lost opportunity cost. And if you do, and most people chose a centralized service then you still lose out from the loss of perceived legitimacy anyway…

…

Except that entire scenario is not analogous to Ethereum staking today due to another option, that hopefully most of you have been hearing repeat in your heads the entire time you’ve been reading. Rocketpool solves the lose-lose coordination failure, by providing an option that gives people the ability to access an LSD without compromising the decentralization of the whole. With it the multipolar trap is easily disarmed, the field doesn’t need to be depleated for individuals to gain the advantages.

RocketPool is the G.O.A.T.

Community: u/-lightfoot highlights the significance which staking withdrawals has on decentralisation and u/diego-d follows up with their zero to hero staking journey

https://reddit.com/r/ethfinance/comments/108x76j/comment/j3vp7io/

Don’t underestimate the decentralizing impact Shanghai will have. Lots of people fully aligned with Ethereum’s defining values like me have ETH staked with cexs where we would rather not, for various reasons, who will be empowered by withdrawals to revisit their position and consider going solo.

I’ve run validators on testnet but don’t have the skills/confidence to do it with real money right now, but Shanghai marks a big psychological target for me to remedy that and it’s very easy to be inspired by people in this sub, describing how rocketpool, dappnode etc. are very easy to do. Plus ethstaker and all the guides. It’s taking on a huge financial responsibility but it’s about integrity and aligning one’s actions with one’s values and you see that across the Ethereum community and it is inspiring.

It might take 6 months but I’m really looking forward to watching the transition of ETH from centralized stakers to clean green homegrown (fanless, I recently learned here, so no noise and no fiddly dust hoovering!) validators.

I named my testnet validator raspberry pi ‘Goldfish’ because I often couldn’t leave it alone more than a day without it dying. Even put a little goldfish sticker on it. I’m looking forward to carrying that bs over onto a nuc; name suggestions welcome.

This brings back memories. I was so systems illiterate that it took me about a week to set up my rig before even syncing the block chains. Almost every step in the guides I had to Google something or pester the kind people in the ethstaker discord. I’d never used Linux before. Had to actually Google where to find the command prompt in Ubuntu as if ‘Terminal’ wasn’t obvious enough. Didn’t know what port forwarding was. Many such examples. Once I finally felt like I knew what I was doing, I wiped the entire system and started again from scratch. Then did that a couple more times. Each time getting quicker and more confident. I think by the 3rd try I had got it down to 30 minutes before syncing the blockchains. I ended up validating on testnet for only 1 day, then swapped over to mainnet. I specifically remember phiz telling me to practice on testnet longer but beacon chain launch was imminent. I hesitated due to no withdrawal mechanism but decided there was no way I was missing genesis lol. It’s been more than 2 years since then, my rig diligently staking 24/7 without any major problems. In a weird way it’s been one of the only constants in my life, as life’s events pass by.

Tldr; I agree Shanghai will likely increase decentralisation. if I can do it, literally anyone can, and will. A focus after Shanghai should be towards making the process easier to ensure it.

Honorable Mention: Ethereum Foundation Researchers AMA

Jan 06, 2023 - Episode #1

Shitpost of the week: u/nixorokish

mister eth, please report to the principal’s office

Ecosystem: u/ethmaxitard shares zkSYNCS devotion to ethereums vision

‘Make sure Ethereum wins’ — Steve Newcomb reveals zkSync’s prime directive

For him, the end game of Ethereum is security so perfect that no quantum computer can break it and decentralization so good that no nation-state can stop it — in other words, a “private internet computer that cannot be hacked by any computer or stopped by any nation-state.”

“I want people to understand that this is more important than technology; this is possibly as important as what comes after capitalism and democracy,” he says.

Probably stuff all the gigabrains in ethfinance already know but cool to see zkSync’s devotion to the Ethereum vision.

Community: u/RobertLobLaw2 discusses their journey from ETH holder to ETH staker

I have a few Rocketpool validators that are currently pending. They should be active in 3 hours. After I write this comment, I’m going to bed. I’m not very active in this sub but I lurk like a mf. I’m feeling inspired to talk about my journey from an ETH Holder to an ETH Staker.

First I just want to say that it hasn’t been much of a journey. Staking your ETH is not hard. I ran a 8 GPU mining rig for a couple years and the process to set up a validator through Rocketpool is a fraction of the difficulty of setting up a mining rig. Shoutout to the Rocketpool team for the easy to follow documentation.
Secondly, along the way, I realized that Rocketpool utilizes almost every novel financial tool that has gained traction in the world of Crypto. Through the process of setting up a Rocketpool node and validators I have interacted with Automatic Market Makers, Liquidity Pools, Flash Loans, and a DAO. I have used all of these novel financial tools to create a stream of passive income. The only thing missing was an NFT. Although I wouldn’t really say that I was really missing it Bob.
I’ll sleep well tonight knowing that when I wake up tomorrow I’ll be a wealthier person.

That last statement will remain true until either Ethereum fails or I fail to uphold my responsibilities as a ETH Staker.

Ecosystem: u/superphiz brief us on ethereum's big goals for 2023

ICYMI: The target milestone for 2023 is to ship EIP-4844, aka Proto-Danksharding. If you want to make a difference in the Ethereum ecosystem and you’re looking for a way to get involved, learn about EIP-4844 and educate others. While education feels low-value to many people, bringing more eyes to a project like this brings new developers and more momentum. Don’t underestimate your own ability to make a difference on the network. I know that withdrawals in 2023 will get a lot of attention, and we know it’s in the pipeline, but 4844 is the giant target.

Random: u/-DarkKnight’new years resolution is to learn about ethereum and focus less on price

My new year’s resolution is to focus more on learning ethereum rather than focusing on price.

Lessons learnt in 2022:

I lost way too much Eth trying to trade during this bearmarket. Lesson: avoid short term trading. Not worth the time and mental stress.
I tried being a degen in 2022 by buying DOGE, trending NFTs, small cap coins and lost more money. Lesson: Be a reasonable investor and accumulate ETH and other high quality assets at undervalued prices.
My focus on prices has limited my learning. Lesson: Bear markets are for building and learning.

Goals:

Learn about Ethereum and its core upgrades
Learn programming - initially python +/- other web2 languages, which should all hopefully give me a good foundation for solidity / ethereum development

Accumulate more ETH

Analysis: u/RooftopPortaPotty continues their weekly investigation ofnew crypto CHROME extensions

https://imgur.com/bqsyl6E

This is the second installment of my series of posts regarding the privacy of various Chrome browser crypto wallet extensions.

First entry can be found here, where we analyzed Rabby.

My approach:

This analysis has shown that my previous approach of broadly categorizing findings under ‘the ok, the bad, the ugly, and the weird’ is insufficient, subjective, and does not properly represent what I wish to convey.

Using Kali Linux, I downloaded Google Chrome directly from google.com/chrome.

Analysis of encrypted traffic was completed using BurpSuite + the provided root cert, installed in chrome’s local cert repo. Chrome is then launched with a proxy set to Burp’s listening port.

I will not be doing any sort of transactions whatsoever. I will, however, connect the wallet to a dapp.

On this New Years Day we will be taking a look at Tally Ho!

The Tally Ho extension was downloaded from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tally-ho/eajafomhmkipbjmfmhebemolkcicgfmd

I must start off by giving Tally Ho credit for something that Rabby did not implement. As I went through using the wallet to create a new address, I paid no attention to the seed phrase.

I was hit with a quiz that ensures that the user knows their seed phrase. I reinstalled Tally Ho, created a new address, and passed the quiz this time.

An excellent general security practice that every wallet should implement.

https://imgur.com/zbJmXcs

Upon installation, the first request Tally Ho generates is to api.coingecko.com in search of current token prices. Notice crab season in full effect.

https://imgur.com/seC9btg

Here we see a request for Arbitrum’s token list.

This is a ‘web3’ wallet, and as such we see many requests destined for chains and defi services that us ethfinanciers wont (admit to, at least) be using much.

An example of such a request, one which is quite demonstrative of the rest, looks like https://imgur.com/AEjA8m1

I dont have a problem with this activity, but it would be great to have a more Ethereum-centric version of this wallet.

https://imgur.com/VTx7WAJ

api.blocknative.com is used to fetch Ethereum gas fees and block info.

https://imgur.com/T3nHyI2

Tally Ho reaches out to Compound Finance’s Github repo ‘token-list’ for a list of, you guessed it, tokens.

For a benign example of why this is not such a great practice, check out this request to Trader Joe’s ‘token-list’ repo.

https://imgur.com/LXpv2j4

The response is a 404. Not a huge problem, just a bit sloppy seeming. Could be bad news if an attacker is able to gain access to that repo, which is likely much less heavily protected than Trader Joe’s other assets.

Here is where things get a bit more subjective.

https://imgur.com/GAT5Bp8

We see Ankr’s API being used to get the ETH balance of my new Ethereum address, notice the value ‘0x0’ in the response.

And for the Alchemy haters, Ive got some bad news:

https://imgur.com/bsztI6Q

Alchemy’s API is used to fetch my address’ balances of various tokens, which are specified by contract address in the POST request body.

You may notice requests to mainnet.infura.io in the above image. No need to worry, these requests were generated strictly by connecting to staking.synthetix.io.

One thing that left me a bit puzzled is this request to resolve.unstoppabledomains.com

https://imgur.com/0C3NyGb

My wallet address is sent as a GET parameter. Along with an ‘Authorization:’ HTTP header.

I have not had much time to look into this service, and would love to know more if anyone has any insight.

Refreshingly, no requests to telemetry services or advertisers were found.

I call upon the great /u/REALJohnBMacLemore. Would you please be willing to do the dirty deed, ser?

Happy New Year, yall!

Analysis: u/LogrisTheBard discusses the efficiency of yearn finances payroll system

I continue to be amazed by the transparency of Defi sometimes. Just look at the Yearn.finance employee expenses here. Continuously streamed, withdrawn whenever the payee wants. Compare this to your traditional corporate payroll system.

Why should I need a payroll advance service to draw money I’m already due for hours worked? An entire predatory industry should mostly not exist or at least should be replaced by something like Alchemix. I see no reason something like this couldn’t be integrated into a time card system in an automated way for hourly employees too.
You know that whole labor board that people go to when their employer did something fucky with their wages? This makes it obvious instantly when the employer is behind on paying wages. The labor board could just monitor registered company addresses and automatically begin a process if a registered account is behind before the employees even notice to report something.
Why do you need a W2 when you have something like this? This is an IRS dream come true. Imagine all the management software like AGP you could save businesses.

But you know… people say crypto has no value.

OPSEC: u/Maswasnos shares a sus email from juno

Interesting message from Juno Finance:

Dear User,

This is an important announcement.

Juno doesn’t custody crypto assets and relies on crypto partners for providing these services. Due to uncertainty with our crypto partner who is responsible for crypto operations for Juno, we strongly recommend withdrawing your crypto assets into a self-custody wallet. You can also choose to sell these assets for cash and keep them secured in your Juno checking account which is FDIC insured up to $250,000 via Evolve Bank and Trust.

There are daily platform limits for sells and withdrawals and we’re working with our partner to increase them for a smoother transition. Due to current market uncertainty we have also disabled crypto buys on the platform and auto-converted some of the stablecoins (USDC, USDT and mUSDC) to USD. Any fees incurred will be reimbursed. We apologise for the inconvenience and will keep you posted.

All Banking and Card related services continue to operate as usual. We will also transition to a new crypto partner in the coming weeks.

Emphasis mine.

Maybe they’re shifting around their crypto backend and they aren’t sure how assets held by the crypto provider will be handled during the transition. It’s cool that they advocate for self custody.

OPSEC: u/REALJohnBMacLemore recommends all juno and wyreusers withdraw funds

Heyyo! My Pride! I wanted to bring more attention to this post by Maswasnos further down in the daily.

If you have crypto assets stored with Juno or Wyre, withdrawal them now! The email in that post feels funny to me. The words seem exceptionally well chosen to provide the most warning with the least possible legal consequences. I suggest you heed their warning. If you custody with someone else, be sure they are not using Wyre to custody their assets. IMO, that is who Juno is attempting to warn you about.

Again, nothing confirmed, just my feeling.

OPSEC: u/Dreth is listing all the different kinds of scams and collecting examples

Heya fam, I need some help collecting more scam examples that are different to those I already have. If anyone has examples, I’d appreciate a DM with it, a reply to this post with an imgur link or something or a discord DM at dreth#1988 if you have any good examples I haven’t listed.

As of right now I have:

Airdrop scams
Fake exchange scams
Excel malware
Notification that you ‘won a prize’
An offer to use a referral code for ‘mutual benefit’
Someone offering to 10x your investment in 48 hours
Notification of being whitelisted to participate on a presale
Invitation to pump and dump discord groups
Someone asking for help to exchange a token for another in a p2p exchange (despite the token being listen on uniswap with plenty of liquidity)
A story of a scam crypto startup
A fake USDC contract migration with instructions to basically get scammed signing some transactions
The recent fake Chainlink scammer on reddit that DMd some users
The NVO ICO scam and other ICO scams
Fake token staking site scams
Fake token listings on uniswap
Twitter bots tagging me on fake airdrop claim sites
Several email scams telling me money has been moved out of my wallet, that I’ve been hacked and all sorts of shit.

There’s one notorious scam I know I’m missing and that’s fake support people, so I’d appreciate at least one example of that, not more than one is needed.

If there’s any meaningfully different or interesting scams you have examples of, please send them my way. I’d also apprecaite malware or anything that could be misleading to users or put them at risk. Do not post malicious links as a reply to this comment, just DM them to me.

I’m on the EVMavericks discord and moderate the StakeWise discord, verify my username well if you want to DM me on discord, don’t get scammed.

A million thanks to everyone that have helped me out !

Community: u/404bachee is making the most of the build market

have a great day my fellow “eth maxis”.

bear markets are great for buidlers.

while looking for web3/blockchain related jobs, I began working on my own blockchain project : I’m building (from scratch front-end/back-end, the whole 9 yards) an LSD niche focused DeX liquidity aggregator.

way down the road, I’m thinking about adding features like evolving the project into a platform that will make it easier for users to participate into liquidity pools, create and run rocketpool minipool, create finance-focused NFTs using oracles and open order books.

even if the project is a total failure and absolutely no one uses it, I’m still happy to be full hand on on it building everything from UI/frontend to the backend and integration APIs of Uniswap/0x and interacting with Rocketpool/uniswap and building smart contracts.

as a software engineer, it’s an experience that is like a breeze of fresh air to do a fun side passion project that may or may not transform into a “real” product.

worst case scenario, no one uses it but it gives me legitemacy when talking about my experience in the web3 with recruiters.

best case scenario, users love it and it becomes my full time job.

“average” scenario, it has some kind of traction, and keep being a fun passion project I will maintain while working full time job somewhere else.

anyway, thank you for reading my post, have a great day and may the force be with you

Honorable Shoutout