• Celestia releases its roadmap to 1GB blocks.

• Paper on what impacts crypto prices.

• Erigon releases Erigon 3 Alpha 3.

Celestia introduced its roadmap to scale to 1GB blocks, aiming to dramatically increase data throughput and reduce transaction fees for rollups. As a modular data availability blockchain, Celestia allows rollups to use any virtual machine for their execution layer. Celestia’s first upgrade, named Lemongrass, is currently in development. The roadmap to 1GB blocks will involve multiple technical upgrades, including a content-addressable mempool, node sharding, and an enhanced data availability sampling protocol. In addition to scaling, Celestia aims to ensure its blockspace is verifiable by anyone, on any device, through light nodes that can run in web browsers. 

Uniswap, in partnership with Copenhagen Business School, released a research paper titled "What Drives Crypto Asset Prices?." The study examines the effects of conventional monetary policy shocks, risk premium shocks, and crypto-specific demand shocks on the market. The research found that monetary policy significantly influences cryptocurrency returns. It found that crypto adoption shocks lead to increases in both crypto prices and stablecoin market capitalizations. The also paper noted a growing disconnection between cryptocurrency markets and traditional financial. It concluded that stablecoins have become safe-haven assets within the crypto ecosystem.

Erigon released Erigon 3 Alpha 3, the latest version of its all-in-one EVM node, supporting both the execution and consensus layers. The release introduces mining support, a 30% reduction in state size, significantly reduced RAM usage, and a 50% decrease in chain data size. A full node resync is required for the updates to take effect. Erigon 3 is optimized for use as an archive, full, or pruned node, featuring ultra-fast RPC calls and the capability to handle over 1Ggas/sec in block production.

• Introduction to SNAXchain

• EigenDA 16mb Blobs

• Embedded fee markets and ERC-4337

• ETH Global Scalability Summit

• Gelato Native Oracle Module on Base L3s

• Coinbase FOIA litigation update

• Coinbase security against DPRK

• Polygon upgrades MATIC to POL.

• EIGEN Season 2 Stakedrop.

• Liquity releases its V2 codebase.

• Base commits to increasing its gas target.

Polygon successfully upgraded the staking contract for the Polygon PoS network, changing the primary staking and gas token from MATIC to POL at a 1:1 ratio. The token migration is automatic for MATIC holders on Polygon PoS. Users may need to update their wallet settings to reflect the new token ticker. Users with MATIC on Ethereum can migrate their tokens using the Polygon Portal. There is no deadline for users to migrate their tokens. POL is a new hyperproductive token that will enable validators to validate multiple ZK chains. The migration is part of Polygon’s 2.0 roadmap, which transitions the PoS Chain into Polygon ZK-EVM as part of the AggLayer. In subsequent upgrades, POL will be used to support roles in block generation, data availability, and ZKP generation.

The Eigen Foundation announced the EIGEN Season 2 Stakedrop, distributing 86 million EIGEN tokens to stakers, operators, ecosystem partners, and community members. Users who staked or operated on the protocol between March 15 and August 15, 2024, can claim their share of 70 million EIGEN tokens starting September 17, 2024. Ecosystem partners will also be able to claim their tokens starting on September 17, 2024. Community members, including open-source contributors, early advocates, and podcasters, must verify their social identity on the Eigen Foundation website by September 11, 2024. EIGEN, coined as the Universal Intersubjective Work Token, is anticipated to become transferable in the coming month.

Decentralized borrowing protocol Liquity released its V2 codebase, enabling developers to build on the protocol. Liquity V2 introduces user-set interest rates and multiple collateral support, including rETH and wstETH. Liquity V2 will also support BOLD, its new yield-bearing stablecoin that will coexist alongside the existing LUSD stablecoin Liquity V2 introduces Protocol Incentivized Liquidity (PIL), which allows LQTY stakers to direct subsidies from protocol interest revenue while still earning fees and rewards. Like Liquity V1, Liquity V2 will remain governance-minimized and immutable.

Base committed to increasing the network’s gas target by 1 million gas per second (Mgas/s) each week, beginning in late September 2024. The increase will expand the capacity per block, allowing more transactions to be processed while reducing network congestion. By the end of the year, the update is expected to bring capacity to 30 Mgas/s.

• Solidity v0.8.27 release

• Privy cross-app wallet connector

• Euler V2 goes live

• Etherscan Stylus Contract Verification

• Namespace opens for all

• Penpie exploit post-mortem

• Ethereum Film NY premiere

• Octant x Gitcoin QF Round

• Arbitrum Stylus goes live on mainnet.

• Aave introduces the Sky Aave Force.

• Matter Labs lays off 16% of its staff.

• Devcon opens general ticket sales

Arbitrum Stylus, a versatile programming environment for writing smart contracts using WebAssembly (WASM), is now live on Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova mainnet. The launch introduces MultiVM support, allowing a fully interoperable WASM VM to work alongside the EVM. Developers can write smart contracts in high-level programming languages like Rust, C, and C++. Stylus significantly reduces gas costs by offloading resource-intensive operations to the more efficient WASM environment. To further accelerate the development of Stylus-based smart contracts and tools, Arbitrum is launching the Stylus Sprint program, offering 5 million ARB tokens in grants for teams building on Stylus.

Aave introduced the Sky Aave Force, a collaboration with Sky, formerly known as MakerDAO, to onboard USDs and sUSDS, the rebranded versions of DAI and sDAI, to Aave V3. As part of the collaboration, Aave will add sUSDS as a collateral and borrow asset on Aave V3. The Sky Aave Force will also include a Direct Deposit Module (D3M) for USDS in Aave's Lido-specific V3 market, with an initial debt ceiling of $100 million. In return, Sky will offer token incentives to liquidity providers, including 3.33 million SPK tokens per month as part of a pre-farming airdrop incentive program. The migration from DAI to USDS is scheduled to go live on September 18th.

Matter Labs, the company behind the ZKsync EVM-compatible ZK Rollup, announced a layoff of roughly 16% of its workforce as part of a broader restructuring. In a letter to employees, co-founder Alex G. attributed the layoffs to changing market conditions and business needs, noting that current talent does not match the project’s needs. Affected employees will receive an exit package that includes three months of base pay, four months of healthcare coverage, full vesting of equity, career support, and immigration assistance. Matter Labs has raised a total of $458 million in funding to date.

General ticket sales for Devcon VII are now live, marking the final ticket wave until tickets are sold out. General Admission tickets are priced at $599 with discounts available for past attendees, public goods projects, open-source contributors, and local SEA builders. Devcon VII is the largest Ethereum developer conference, set to take place in Bangkok, Thailand, from November 12-15.

• DAI vanity address compromise

• EF AMA on 5th September

• Etherscan adds Builder score

• SEC fines Galois Capital

• Samsung Next joins Soneium

• POL upgrade details

• EIGEN token upgrade is queued

• Aerdrome turns one