Judge Denies Tornado Cash Dismissal
Judge Failla denied a motion to dismiss the indictment against Roman Storm, an open-source software developer for Tornado Cash.
A judge denies Tornado Cash case dismissal.
Impact of increasing the blob target.
Hyperdrive goes live on Base.
Aerodrome surpasses $1 billion in TVL.
U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla denied a motion to dismiss the indictment against Roman Storm, an open-source software developer. His trial is scheduled for December. In August 2023, Storm was indicted on charges of money laundering, sanctions violations, and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business related to the Tornado Cash privacy tool. Essentially, he faces charges for actions carried out by third parties who used the decentralized privacy tool. Storm's legal defense team is still accepting donations through Juicebox, needing approximately $2.5 million to support extensive legal research for the case.
Ethereum core developer Potuz highlighted a division of opinions between client developers and researchers regarding a proposal to increase the blob target. Potuz, who supports the increase, pointed out that some folks remain silent despite having opinions, particularly after Vitalik Buterin voiced his support for the change. Researcher Ben Edgington raised concerns about how the increase might affect bandwidth requirements, particularly for home stakers with slow internet connections. He emphasized the lack of adequate compensation for including blobs in blocks, as blob fees are burned, and suggested giving home stakers the flexibility to set a minimum tip per blob. A blob target increase allows more data to be included in each block, reducing costs and improving scalability. Ethereum community member Ryan Berckmans proposed an initiative to research validator bandwidth requirements to better understand the risks associated with changes like increasing the blob target.
Hyperdrive, an AMM for trading fixed and variable interest rates, is now live on Base. Users can access fixed-term pools, provide liquidity to earn trading fees, benefit from variable rates on idle funds, and trade against others on the protocol. Hyperdrive features like on-demand terms, single-sided liquidity, and continuous liquidity provision. To earn a fixed interest rate, users can purchase interest tokens at a discount, which mature to their full value or can be sold at a discount before maturity. For a variable rate, users pay the fixed rate to the pool and receive capital equal to the discount on their interest tokens.
Aerodrome, an AMM and liquidity layer developed by Velodrome, reached $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), representing over 50% of the total TVL within the DeFi ecosystem on Base. Aerodrome's governance and reward mechanics are inspired by Curve Finance. Users can lock AERO tokens to receive veAERO, which grants voting power for pool incentives. veAERO holders are rewarded with a share of protocol trading fees proportional to their votes.
Geth v1.14.10 release
Charon v1.1.1 release
Coinbase asset recovery supports Base
Fileverse introduces Offline Mode
Celestia Blobstream upgrades to SP1
CZ is released from prison
SEC charges Mango Markets
Introducing Truth oracle
uniBTC post mortem
Developers Determine Pectra Scope
The scope is to that of Devnet 3, which currently includes eight EIPs. EIP-7742 and EIP-7762 are still CFI'd for Pectra, with all other EIPs pushed to Fusaka.
Core devs determine the scope for Pectra.
Synthetix proposes a protocol referendum.
Ethena introduces the UStb stablecoin.
Polygon PoS activates Ahmedabad upgrade.
During this week's ACDE call, core developers determined the scope for the upcoming Pectra hard fork. They decided to keep the scope strictly to that of Devnet 3, which currently includes eight EIPs. EIP-7742 and EIP-7762 are still under consideration for Pectra. All other EIPs that were CFI’d for Pectra have been removed. The excluded EIPs will now be CFI’d for the Fusaka hard fork, the next upgrade following Pectra. Fusaka’s inclusion list includes EOF and PeerDAS. The other EIPs will remain under consideration and will only be added to Fusaka once EOF and PeerDAS are stable on devnet. Notably, Verkle, which was initially planned for Fusaka, has now been pushed to the Amsterdam hard fork.
Synthetix governance introduced its first Synthetix Referendum (SR) proposal, SR-2, which aims to overhaul the current governance framework, reboot the project's vision, and establish a comprehensive 2025 roadmap. The proposal focuses on improving accountability and launching the Synthetix Foundation, with the ultimate goal of restoring Synthetix's relevance in the DeFi ecosystem. Key elements of the overhaul include replacing the existing governance structure with a new seven-member Spartan Council. The near-term roadmap outlines initiatives such as redesigning SNX tokenomics, operationalizing SNaXchain, and deploying Synthetix Perps V3 on Ethereum Mainnet and Solana. SR-2 is currently under discussion in the Synthetix Discord.
Ethena Labs, in collaboration with Securitize, introduced UStb, a new stablecoin backed by tokenized U.S. Treasuries through BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund. The BUIDL Fund is a tokenized asset fund on Ethereum that offers accredited investors onchain access to U.S. Treasuries. Ethena is a decentralized stablecoin protocol known for its synthetic USDe stablecoin, which is backed by assets like stETH and delta-neutral positions in derivatives markets. UStb and USDe will operate as independent products, each with their own distinct risk profile. Currently, USDe, has a market cap of $2.5 billion, while BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund manages over $500 million in assets.
Polygon PoS underwent the Ahmedabad upgrade. The minor upgrade increased the maximum code size from 24KB to 32KB, allowing for more complex smart contract deployments. It also addressed issues related to gas pricing. It also changed token symbol on Polygon PoS from MATIC to POL, and WMATIC to WPOL.
EIP-7762 Impact On Blob Fee Market
The proposed blobspace base fee increase would lead to more predictable blob pricing.
Impact of EIP-7762 on blob fee market.
Commit-Boost nears production readiness.
Celo sees a surge in stablecoin adoption.
Base gas target increases to 11 Mgas/s.
Flashbots researcher Datalaways published an analysis on the impact of EIP-7762, a proposal to increase the minimum base fee in blobspace from 1 wei to approximately 33.55 MWei. The research debunks the misconception that blobs don’t contribute fees to the network, revealing that submitters already pay between $0.10 and $3.00 per blob in mainnet execution fees. The analysis also highlights that the proposed fee increase would reduce the frequency and severity of Priority Gas Auctions (PGAs), leading to more predictable blob pricing. EIP-7762 also addresses the "cold-start problem," where the blobspace fee market is slow to react to rising demand. Datalaways concludes that the impact on market fees will be minimal, with the lowest-cost blobs experiencing a slight increase. Base developers have also expressed their support for EIP-7762.
Commit-Boost, a software tool designed to restore block-building autonomy for Ethereum validators, is approaching production readiness. The tool enables validators to impose conditions and constraints on block construction, providing greater control when outsourcing the task to external builders via MEV Boost. Commit-Boost standardizes how validators approve specific block construction protocols, known as "shapes," helping to avoid fragmentation within the Ethereum ecosystem while reducing associated risks. As an open-source public good, Commit-Boost invites Ethereum stakeholders to participate in testing ahead of a production-ready release later this year.
Celo, an EVM-compatible L1 that is transitioning into an OP Stack L2, is seeing increasing adoption for stablecoin usage on its network. Data from Artemis shows that Celo has now surpassed Tron in daily active addresses for stablecoin transactions. Artemis also highlighted that the growth in transfer sizes across various categories suggests the increase is not driven by spam transactions. The surge in activity is partly due to the rise in mobile payment applications in Africa, such as MiniPay, which enables users to send and receive stablecoins on Celo via their phone numbers. Vitalik Buterin commented on Celo’s progress, emphasizing that global access to basic payments has always been a crucial use case for Ethereum. Celo currently has a TVL of $120 million.