• Court overturns Tornado Cash sanctions.

• Flashbots launches BuilderNet.

• EigenLayer introduces EigenGov.

• WalletConnect launches its WCT token.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Tornado Cash, concluding that OFAC exceeded its authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) when it sanctioned Tornado Cash smart contracts. The court determined that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts do not qualify as "property" under IEEPA because they cannot be owned, controlled, or altered by any party, including their creators. The decision overturns a prior ruling from August 2023, when a U.S. district court judge sided with OFAC in a Coinbase-backed lawsuit challenging the sanctions. The lawsuit was initially filed in September 2022 by six individuals affected by the sanctions. Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, says that the sanctioned smart contracts should now be removed from the sanctions list, allowing U.S. persons to resume using the privacy protocol.

Flashbots launched BuilderNet, a new decentralized block-building network for Ethereum aimed at addressing centralization, improving censorship resistance, and distributing power more equitably within the ecosystem. Initially operated by Flashbots, Beaverbuild, and Nethermind, BuilderNet uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to process encrypted order flows securely and distribute MEV rewards among participants. Block builders, the entities responsible for assembling transaction bundles into blocks and submitting them to validators, currently face centralization challenges. Flashbots reports that over 90% of Ethereum blocks are built by just two parties: Beaverbuild and rsync. BuilderNet enables multiple operators to collaborate on block building, ensuring secure sharing and processing of orderflow. Contributors are then compensated with refunds based on the value they add to the blocks.

EigenLayer introduced EigenGov, a governance framework designed to facilitate decision-making among EIGEN holders, developers, operators, and stakers. EigenGov derives legitimacy from EIGEN holders while delegating decision-making authority to councils. EIGEN holders retain the power to veto council decisions. Instead of traditional delegation systems, tokenholders endorse council candidates based on expertise. EigenGov also employs a dual-track model: a Core Track for stable, production-ready governance focused on security and robustness, and a Vision Track for experimenting with governance solutions in a controlled environment.

WalletConnect launched its WCT governance token. Over 160,000 wallets are eligible to claim a share of 50 million WCT tokens, split between 30 million for users and 20 million for contributors. The allocations were based on network usage, onchain activity, and past airdrop behavior. While tokens are initially non-transferable, users can decide to stake them for 1 week to 2 years with staking rewards beginning December 19th.

• Uniswap launches $15.5m bug bounty

• Onchainkit introduces Wallet Modal

• Optimism announces Retro Funding changes

• Future of Superchain native interop

• CFTC to regulate Digital Assets

• Ithaca introduces EXP-0002

• Ethereum Protocol Attackathon goes live.

• Voting opens for ZIP-001.

• Farcaster Frames V2 specification.

• Phantom supports Base.

The Ethereum Foundation introduced the first-ever Ethereum Protocol Attackathon, a large-scale crowdsourced security audit contest hosted on Immunefi. With a $1.5 million prize pool, the competition invites both auditing firms and individual security researchers to identify critical vulnerabilities in the Ethereum protocol. The event runs from November 25, 2024, to January 20, 2025. The Attackathon Academy offers technical walkthroughs and educational content to prepare participants. During the competition, researchers can hunt for bugs while having direct access to project teams. After the event, Immunefi will showcase the results through a leaderboard, detailed reports, and NFT awards.

Voting is now open for the first ZKsync Improvement Proposal (ZIP), titled "Protocol Defense." The proposal focuses on improving code readability, maintainability, gas efficiency, and compatibility with Ethereum standards. Key updates include adopting custom errors, implementing stricter linting rules, introducing floating compiler versions, and applying minor gas optimizations. The proposal also enables chains to charge for the overhead of Layer 1 interactions. The enhancements are fully backward-compatible with no disruption to existing contracts or applications. The changes were audited by OpenZeppelin with no critical or high-severity issues found. Voting will remain open until December 2nd.

Farcaster introduced the Frames V2 specification, a revamped standard designed to tackle developer challenges, such as slow image rendering and limited functionality for interactive apps. The update enables developers to build interactive apps that support onchain transactions, user notifications, and enhanced interactivity. Frames are applications that are seamlessly integrated into Farcaster apps. Developers can leverage Frames to create dynamic features and responsive in-cast commands. With the Frames SDK, developers gain access to tools for saving frames, initiating onchain transactions, and enabling wallet interactions. Key updates include context access, action APIs, and Ethereum wallet provider integration. Currently, in a draft stage, Frames v2 is set to launch in the coming week.

Mobile and browser-based wallet Phantom rolled out support for transactions on Base for all users. Phantom users can now seamlessly swap tokens between Base and Solana, as well as interact with Base's DeFi and NFT applications. The addition makes Base the first Layer 2 network supported on Phantom.

• Get Involved with Ethereum

• MetaMask suffers RPC outage

• Same Slot vs. Next Slot Inclusion List

• Hashdex S-1 ETH/BTC Index ETF

• Perena launches Numeraire stable pool

• Optimism releases a guide to Season 7 governance.

• Discussion on increasing the gas limit.

• EF seeks to hire a Protocol Security Engineer.

Optimism released its guide to Season 7 Governance, the next phase of the Optimism Collective, starting on January 16, 2025. Season 7 focuses on advancing the Superchain Product Vision, with interoperability as the core intent. The goal is to achieve Stage 1 interoperable chains processing $250m in monthly cross-chain asset transfers. Key priorities for the season include governance enhancements to facilitate interoperability, protocol upgrades to enable cross-chain functionality, delegation of funding decisions through missions and councils, and continued progress toward technical decentralization. OP Delegates will soon vote on Missions and the ratification of the Interoperability Blockspace Charter.

Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano called for a community temperature check on raising the block gas limit on Ethereum. Sassano supports a phased increase in increments of 10 million, starting from the current 30 million gas limit to 60 million. Gnosis founder Martin Köppelmann also advocates for an increase to 40 million. A 10 million gas increment could potentially reduce Layer 1 transaction fees by an estimated 15-33%. Notably, implementing a gas limit increase does not require a hard fork; validators can adopt the change by adjusting their node configurations. Several solo stakers, including mariano.eth—who spearheads the pumpthegas.org initiative—have already set their gas limit to 40 million.

The Ethereum Foundation is looking to hire a Protocol Security Engineer to join its Protocol Security Research Team. The role focuses on enhancing the security of the Ethereum protocol through activities such as auditing the software stack (including execution and consensus layer clients), developing fuzzers for the protocol’s networking layer, conducting security research, and collaborating with client teams and researchers to mitigate security risks. The position is fully remote and open to candidates worldwide.

• Support Roman Storm’s defense

• Introducing Lens Groups

• Bonsai AI agent

• Presentation: Ethereum as a commons

• Base surpasses $80b volume on Uniswap

• 15 open roles at Arbitrum