Goerli Testnet Merge Set For August 10th
Goerli is expected to hit the difficulty bomb on August 10th
The Goerli testnet is set to merge on August 10th.
Uniswap to surpass Coinbase in daily volume.
MetaMask Institutional releases its Q2 report.
Across Protocol launches bridge to earn.
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The Terminal Total Difficulty (TTD), also known as the difficulty bomb, has been set for the Ethereum Goerli Testnet Merge at 10,790,000. Goerli is expected to hit the TTD value on August 10th. The Bellatrix upgrade for Goerli is scheduled for August 4th. Bellatrix is the first part of a two-phase process for the merge. Once the Goerli/Prater testnets have successfully merged, Ethereum Mainnet will undergo the transition as planned in early September. Goerli will still undergo a 5th shadow fork planned for Thursday, July 21st at 2 PM UTC. A shadow fork is when the state of an existing network is mirrored onto a merged PoS network in order to test different merge scenarios.
MetaMask is working on updating its UI verbiage for setApprovalForAll transactions. The setApprovalForAll transaction gives smart contracts the ability to withdraw tokens from a wallet. Users who unknowingly sign a setApprovalForAll transaction on a malicious website give the attacker the ability to withdraw their assets. Most recently, Premint suffered a phishing attack on their website with victims signing a malicious setApprovalForAll transaction, resulting in the loss of their NFTs. The new verbiage on MetaMask lets users know they are “giving access to all” tokens when approving a setApprovalForAll transaction. The same verbiage will apply for revoking token approvals.
According to data from Kaiko Research, Uniswap is close to surpassing Coinbase in daily trading volume. Over the last 7 months, Uniswap’s market share of volume relative to Coinbase has grown from 27% to nearly 50%. This means Uniswap is now processing as much volume as Coinbase daily. DEX volume is still a small fraction of global crypto trading, accounting for just 8% of trading volume compared to Coinbase, FTX, and Binance. Uniswap V3 holds a leading position in DEX market share, processing more than 80% of volume across DEXs. Part of Uniswap’s increase in volume can be attributed to the rise of stablecoins and wrapped crypto assets.
MetaMask Institutional released its Q2 2022 report overviewing features implemented on its institution-compliant version of MetaMask. During Q2, MetaMask Institutional released two custodian integrations, an NFT Tracking View, and tracking features including Transaction Notes and Portfolio Snapshots. The new integrations focused on improving the NFT experience, providing investors with a dashboard for viewing all NFT holdings. Updates include portfolio filters at the account and protocol level. MetaMask Institutional supports multi-signature transaction approvals and an interactive portfolio dashboard.
Across Protocol announced the first phase of its token launch as a “bridge to earn” referral program. The program is focused on rewarding users who help grow the protocol’s usage by referring users. Users can generate their unique referral link and earn rewards in ACX tokens when someone uses their link to bridge. The token rewards will be given as a percentage of bridge fees from each referral. Across is estimating a price of $0.10 per ACX token, giving the token an estimated fully diluted market cap of $100 million. Users will be able to claim token rewards shortly after the launch of ACX in Q3 2022. Across is yet to release details of the final token distribution.
Coinbase Adds Support For ENS Domains
Coinbase users can claim an alice.cb.id domain as their web3 username.
Coinbase Wallet adds support for ENS subdomains.
Lido expands stETH to support more L2s.
EIP-4361 moves to a review phase.
Genesis Among Lenders Affected by 3AC
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Coinbase has added ENS support for Coinbase Wallet users. The exchange has opted to use its DNS domain “cb.id” instead of a “.eth” extension for the feature. Users can claim an alice.cb.id domain as their web3 username. The integration is built on ENS infrastructure using the DNS import feature. Coinbase decided not to use a “.eth” extension because some users may believe the domain only works for sending Ethereum. Users who already own an ENS domain can decide if they want to use their domain or the cb.id subdomain as their primary username. Coinbase also plans to offer subdomains ending in .eth at a later date. The move comes amid increasing volume in ENS activity, with over 122k domains registered in June. Samsung.eth was purchased last week for 60 ETH. Amazon.eth currently holds a bid of $1 million USDC, making it the second largest domain sale should it be sold. The ENS token is up 13.6% over the last 24 hours.
Lido Finance is expanding its liquid staking stETH token across L2 chains. Lido has already integrated wstETH within the Argent wallet for zkSync users. stETH is also integrated into Aztec Network through its zk.money application. Arbitrum and Optimism are among the next set of L2s that Lido will support. Initially, users will be able to bridge wstETH between Ethereum and L2 networks. wstETH is the wrapped, non-rebasing version of stETH. Lido then plans to enable ETH staking deposits directly on L2 in order to take advantage of low-cost transactions. Lido has been live on Ethereum since the launch of the Beacon Chain in December 2020.
Sign-In with Ethereum EIP-4361 has moved from being a draft to being in a review phase. Sign-In with Ethereum is an authentication method that enables users to control their digital identity with their Ethereum account and ENS profile. The integration allows users to sign into a dapp by signing a message with their Ethereum wallet. Review is the third phase in the EIP process. Once the EIP is peer-reviewed, it will move to the Last Call phase, which is the final review window for an EIP before it moves to become a Final standard. Sign-in with Ethereum will mark a significant milestone as it hopes to become the web3 standard for logins.
Crypto payments platform Genesis Asia Pacific Pte Ltd is among the latest companies affected by the 3AC collapse, having lent the hedge fund $2.3 billion. The details were revealed in a new legal document published by Teneo, the firm appointed to oversee 3AC's liquidation. The loans were undercollateralized with an average weighted margin call of about 80%. Genesis liquidated GBTC and AVAX collateral when 3AC failed to meet the margin call. 3AC still owes Genesis an estimated $462 million. Genesis is owned by Digital Currency Group, which has assumed certain Genesis liabilities to ensure ongoing operations for the company.
Ethereum Community Conference 5 (ethCC) kicks off in Paris this week. The three-day event will take place from July 19th-21st featuring participation from DeFi Saver, POAP, StarkWare, and Lens Protocol among others. Polygon has teased they will make a special announcement while at the event. ethCC is the largest annual European Ethereum event focused on technology.
Vitalik Releases Book On Proof Of Stake
The book is set to release on Tuesday, September 13th, the same week as The Merge.
Vitalik Buterin releases Proof of Stake book.
Premint hack drains over $300k in NFTs.
Arbitrum releases the Nitro Goerli Testnet.
Empiric Network introduces its oracle network.
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Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin is releasing a new book called “Proof of Stake: The Making of Ethereum and the Philosophy.” The book is set to release on Tuesday, September 13th, the same week that Ethereum is expected to undergo The Merge. The book features a collection of essays covering free speech, prediction markets, and crypto cities. The edition also includes context from media studies scholar Nathan Schneider and a copy of the Ethereum white paper. The book is currently available for pre-order as a Kindle eBook or paperback copy.
Offchain Labs released its Nitro Goerli Testnet for the Arbitrum Rollup. Users and developers can now add the Nitro Goerli Testnet RPC to their MetaMask. The company will also be migrating the Rinkeby testnet to Nitro this month. However, the Nitro Rinkeby Testnet will be spun down at some point in the future as the Ethereum Foundation plans to deprecate the Rinkeby testnet. The Nitro Goerli Testnet will remain the long-term testnet for Arbitrum Rollup, giving developers confidence that the testnet will operate for the foreseeable future. In the coming weeks, Arbitrum will work with infrastructure providers to ensure developers have the tools needed for building on the Nitro Goerli Testnet. The updates bring Arbitrum one step closer to launching Nitro on mainnet.
NFT access list tool premint.xyz suffered a phishing attack resulting in an estimated $400k worth of NFTs being stolen. The company claims a file was manipulated on its official premint.xyz website by an unknown third party. After midnight PT on Sunday, users were being presented with a malicious wallet connection prompt when visiting the website. Users who fell victim for the attack unintentionally signed an “approve all” transaction, sending all their NFTs to the attacker. Premint took down the site after learning of the compromise early morning on Sunday. The attack resulted in the loss of hundreds of NFTs, including 13 Otherdeeds NFTs by BAYC. Premint said they will provide an update after collecting information on the event.
Empiric Network introduced the launch of its decentralized ZK-native oracle network built on Starknet. The project also announced a $7 million seed round led by Variant with participation from Alameda, Gemini, and Jane Street among others. Empiric plans to use the funds toward hiring. An oracle connects smart contracts with off-chain data in the real world, such as price feeds or the temperature in a given city. Most oracles are currently permissioned, rely on trust, and are difficult to audit. Empiric Network hopes to change this by moving oracles on-chain via low-cost zk-powered transactions. Empiric Network will receive proprietary data from exchanges like Gemini and FTX to power its oracles.
Crypto Punk #4156 sold for 2,691 ETH, worth about $3.3 million. The punk is only one of 24 in the entire collection with an ape trait. This comes after a portrait Crypto Punk #4464 sold for 2,500 ETH last week amid a wave in new bids for ape-trait punks. The Crypto Punk floor is currently 83.72 ETH nearly doubling from last month’s low of 45.77 ETH.