Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)
🎮 Ready Player Eth2
It was a pretty significant week for eth2 this week as the Prysmatic Labs Topaz testnet went live. This new testnet is running the full mainnet configuration for Phase 0 of eth2. There has been a lot of chatter about what hardware you’ll need to run an eth2 beacon node and validators so I wanted to give a little bit of insight here.
Beacon Nodes are heavyweight nodes (like current eth1 node software) and validators are lightweight. To stake in eth2, you can either spin up your own Beacon Node and point your validators at it or use a third-party one. In either case, you only need one Beacon Node but you will need a separate validator instance for every 32 ETH you plan to stake (remember, validators are lightweight). What this means is that you can run validators on hardware such as Raspberry Pi’s or other mini PC’s but you will need a more beefy system if you want to run your own Beacon Node. Hopefully that explanation provides some clarity!
A fresh new guide was added to EthHub this week that gives a straightforward explanation of ERC20 tokens on Ethereum. Check that out here.
Got ideas for a cool DeFi app but not a developer? Add a comment to this Google doc with your idea and a hacker might just build it at ETHGlobal’s online Hack Money hackathon!
Have a great week everyone!
– Anthony
News of the Week
😬 dForce Loses $25mil in Exploit
dForce, a Multicoin Capital-backed Chinese decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has been exploited.
The total value locked in the dForce ecosystem was down by 100% to $6 over the past 24 hours, per DeFi Pulse data. A day ago, the total value locked in the system was $24.9 million. The Lendf.Me website is no longer accessible.
It is worth noting that in January, Lendf.Me integrated with imBTC, an Ethereum token pegged to BTC. Earlier today, a liquidity pool for imBTC on decentralized exchange Uniswap was exploited, resulting in a loss of around $300,000 worth of tokens.
The imBTC attack took advantage of the fact that imBTC uses ERC 777 standard, which allows the hacker to continuously call the Uniswap smart contract to withdraw funds before the external balance could be updated. Lendf.Me experienced a similar attack to the imToken one, as transaction records show that the hacker repetitively called Lendf.Me’s withdrawal function to take out imBTC that was supplied to the lending protocol by the hacker in the first place.
🤔 ‘Black Thursday’ losses spur $28 million class-action lawsuit against Maker Foundation
A proposed class-action lawsuit seeking more than $28 million from the Maker Foundation and several of its affiliates is set to be filed in U.S. federal court, according to documents obtained by The Block.
In a draft complaint, the Maker Foundation – a non-profit organization supporting the development of the MakerDAO decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol – was accused of misrepresenting the protocol’s risks to investors and failing to protect investor interest.
Specifically, the complaint alleges negligence, intentional misrepresentation and negligent misrepresentation in connection with the claimed losses. The lawsuit does not seem to have been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“While misrepresenting to CDP Holders the actual risks they faced, The Maker Foundation neglected its responsibilities to its investors by either fostering or, at the very least, allowing the conditions that led to Black Thursday, all after actively soliciting millions of dollars of investment into its ecosystem,” the complaint states.
Project Updates
Announcing Gnosis Protocol
Gnosis officially launched their protocol this week which is the result of two years of research and development. Gnosis Protocol is a fully permissionless DEX (decentralized trading protocol) that enables a new mechanism called ring trades to maximize liquidity. Ring trades especially improve liquidity for illiquid or “long tail” tokens such as prediction market outcome tokens, by facilitating trades not normally possible on traditional trading protocols.
You can try it out and trade today on Mesa, the first dapp built on Gnosis Protocol, or directly on smart contract level using this tutorial.
DeFi Market Cap Website Launched
The new website lets you compare various different DeFi assets such as protocol tokens (MKR, ZRX), Compound cTokens, Uniswap pool tokens and much more.
EF-Supported Teams: Research & Development Update
Quarterly update for all of the EF-supported teams – grab a coffee because this is one long read (but totally worth it)!
What’s New in Eth2 – 17 April 2020
Lots of testing/testnet news in this weeks edition along with links to some more eth2 explainers and a bunch of research updates.
Introducing Topaz Testnet
Prysmatic Labs’ Topaz eth2 testnet went live this week! This is a big deal because this is a full mainnet configuration testnet – you can participate by following the onboarding guide here.
ENS Integrates New Upload to IPFS Tool
This new tool that allows users to upload files to IPFS and save the IPFS hash to their ENS records all directly from the ENS Manager. The tool uses the IPFS pinning service Temporal Cloud.
Compound Governance is Live
Community governance has now replaced the administrator of the Compound protocol. From this point forward, all changes (from supported assets, to system parameters) will originate from COMP token-holders
Geth v1.9.13 Released
This release ships a new snapshot format, raises transaction limits to 128kb, can run HTTP and WebSocket on the same port, keep the DAG in RAM and more.
Access DeFi with Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase Wallet has integrated with Frontier’s Mobile interface, enabling users to access Native DeFi dApps on mobile without having to import seed phrases or private keys.
Authereum’s Model for Sustainable Free Transactions Detailed
Using Authereum, users will get 10 free transactions per week (under 750,000 gas) and all transactions are free for apps that are part of their partner program (such as ErasureBay and OpenSea).
0x Announces Matcha
Match is a new trading platform that aggregates all DEX liquidity to give users the best price. Launching Q2 2020.
Uniswap V2 Bug Bounty Program Announced
You can find all the information about the program here.
Token Terminal Website Update
Project pages have been added to Token Terminal that track various metrics such as earnings, transactions and more.
Introducing Automation v2 on DeFi Saver
The latest automation system can now react to the next price in the MakerDAO protocol and utilizes flash loans for better optimized ratio and leverage adjustments.
Etherscan Releases ETHProtect
Integrated directly into Etherscan, ETHProtect lets users know in advance if an address is potentially ‘Tainted’ so that they can better protect themselves and avoid unexpected surprises.
meTokens Now Live
meTokens are a new kind of personal token that can be used within DAOs, are collateralized and issued using a bonding curve.
SheFi Announced
SheFi is a DeFi educational program that is also a vehicle to donate funds to nonprofits that educate women in STEM programs.
Wrap BTC With One Click
You can now turn your BTC into WBTC with one click using a CoinList wallet.
Introducing the Reversible ICO (rICO)
The Reversible ICO is a new form of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). A “rICO” runs on a Blockchain to fund projects and (decentralized) infrastructure in a safer way. In a Reversible ICObuyers reserve tokens and then buy those reserved tokens over a period of time (e.g. 8 months) automatically. During this time buyers have the option to return still reserved tokens at any time and receive their associated ETH back.
Community Member Spotlight
This week we’re highlighting the great work of Paul Hauner!
Paul has been a professional software developer for 8 years and is currently working on building the Lighthouse eth2 client at Sigma Prime. He previously worked as a software engineer for embedded systems working in health, defence, and enterprise.
Keep up the great work Paul!
Interesting Tweets
Ecosystem Bits
Blog Posts
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When DeFi meets Rollup (recommended read)
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What is Web 3.0, and What Does it Promise Financial Services Consumers?
Videos
Podcasts
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David Hoffman: Tokenizing Real Estate on Ethereum – Into the Ether
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The Rise of MakerDAO: A Personal Journey – Unchained
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Ether’s Value Mechanisms – Bankless
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AZTEC Protocol: Bringing Zero-Knowledge Transactions to Ethereum – Epicenter
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Hypergrowth, Browser Marketing and the Future of Brave – Cryptotesters
Misc
Meme of the Week
Looking for Work?
Top jobs listed on Cryptocurrency Jobs this week:
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Big Data Engineer – Santiment
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Lead Front-End Engineer – Balancer Labs
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OpenEthereum Project Manager – Gnosis
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Executive Director – Enterprise Ethereum Alliance
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+100’s more on the Cryptocurrency Jobs website!
Support EthHub:
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Donations (ethhub.eth)