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evanvanness · 4 years

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Annotated edition for the May 31, 2020, Week in Ethereum News

Here’s the most clicked for the week:

I think the Societe Generale bond issuance paying Banque de France with a CBDC digital euro hadn’t been hyped at all, hence why it led the list. In fact, I don’t think anyone had noticed the press release until Julien Bouteloup tweeted it a week after it had gone out.

Given France’s history protecting domestic industry, you would expect Tezos to be getting these projects due its (probably inaccurate) reputation as being a French project. And I bet Tezos will get some involvement in the future from the French government linked projects, but it’s still notable that these things are still on Ethereum when Tezos has been live for nearly 2 years (though with very little use).

Meanwhile, alongside yesterday’s announcements of Starkware and OMG, Vitalik tweeted that “initial deployment of ethereum's layer 2 scaling strategy has *basically* succeeded.” That’s not wrong, but it’s prone to misinterpretation.

The history of layer2 in blockchain is not a particularly successful one. I’d argue that the question isn’t whether it works, per se, but can it work in a way that gets users over the long haul. Sure, we’re starting to see that (loopring is live with a million trades on its rollup!) - and we appear to be on the verge of real apps running on layer2 - but there’s a long history in Bitcoin and Ethereum of unrealistic expectations for layer2.

Here’s the high-level things for Eth holders reads:

8 things you should consider before staking

Devcon6 will be in Bogota in 2021

Liquidity mining: now you earn Balancer tokens for supplying liquidity or Compound tokens for supplying/borrowing

Lots of folks are considering whether to stake, how much to stake, whether to use a staking service, etc etc. Cayman’s post was a pretty good primer on these questions. Eth2 staking will lock your ETH up for awhile. The return is likely to be quite good, though as more people lock up ETH, the return declines. So it’s hard to say exactly what the return will be - and you won’t be liquid for a long while.

Eth2′s beacon chain is designed for decentralization, with penalties for being offline or doing something wrong (eg, double signing) going up exponentially if they are part of an attack (”correlated”).

That is to say, you should be totally fine staking at home even with mediocre residential connection - going offline usually just means you miss rewards. And even if you go offline when AWS goes down, as long as you bring your connection back up quickly, you should be relatively ok.

Staking services should professionalize the staking in ways that ameliorate some risks but which might provide hidden risk if they don’t make sure to think about the risks. Do they do their staking in the cloud, especially something like AWS east? Do they spread across different clients? How much of a honey pot are they?

Meanwhile, Devcon will be in Colombia but postponed until next year.

Finally, of my 3 high level articles to read: liquidity mining. DeFi apps like Balancer and Compound are decentralizing themselves by giving tokens to their users, to bootstrap the things the network needs to be example. By no means are these the first examples of giving away tokens to users, but these are 2 notable examples of a trend to keep an eye on.

Now for the annotations. A few sections I don’t have anything to add:

Eth1

Latest core devs call, discussion of EIPs for inclusion in Berlin hard fork, whether or not to include 2046 (static call to precompile gas reduction) and 2565 (modexp reprice). Working toward an ephemeral testnet for Berlin.

Latest fee market change (1559) call. Notes from the EIP1559 call

Discussion thread on meta transactions, oil, opcode repricing

Snap sync mainnet benchmarking, single peer on AWS

I basically say the same thing in this section every week. People are implementing the EIPs and figuring out which ones will be ready to go for Berlin. EIP1559 will not be ready until the hard fork after Berlin. Then in the longer-term, there’s lots of work on Stateless Ethereum (or the non-preferred nomenclature: 1.x 🤮) and that’s in discussion.

And then Peter is working on a new sync (formerly known as leaf sync) which seems to cut bandwidth way way down.

Eth2

Latest what’s new in eth2, features a Schlesi testnet postmortem

The new multi-client testnet is Witti. Here’s a guide to staking

Latest eth2 implementer call. Notes from Ben and Mamy

Cross-shard transaction simulation

8 things you should consider before staking

RocketPool is going to wrap the ETH locked up in Eth2 staking, thus giving liquidity to eth2 stakers

New multi-client testnet. They’re basically going to spin them up, try to break them, and not worry about rescuing them if they go down, since you can spin a new one up. This one is called Witti.

RocketPool deciding to tokenize the 32staked eth is interesting. It’s basically inevitable - anything that can get wrapped, eventually will get wrapped. This may end up being the decentralized way to get liquidity for your staked ETH if plans change and you decide you need liquidity for your 32 staked ETH. There will almost certainly be centralized ways - exchanges eventually offer staking and let you trade IOUs. Of course, that depends on how much you trust the exchange.

Layer2

Raiden v1 is live on mainnet for DAI and WETH, with some token limits

Deconstructing a state channel app and how a dev interacts with a state channel wallet

A zk-rollups to scale blockchain explainer

Understanding optimistic rollups by building one

Dharma and Interstate open source their Tiramisu optimistic rollup for token transfers

Raiden shipped with the training wheels on!

Not much else to say around layer2 besides what I said above. Gotta get users.

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Stuff for developers

Array slices in Solidity v0.6

Truffle v5.1.27 – debugger support for Solidity inline assembly

Upgradeable contracts using diamond standard

web3j now includes abi v2

Typescript types for Solidity AST

i18n translation strings for Defi, available as npm package

Build your first Harberger tax app tutorial

eth95: retro UI for calling contract functions

secp256k1 twist attacks

BLS12-381 pairing-friendly curve in JavaScript, now with hash-to-curve v7 and 50 pairings/sec

Ecosystem

Devcon6 will be in Bogota in 2021

All the projects from EthGlobal’s Hack Money

A surprising 120 submissions for Hack Money!

I’m not surprised Devcon got pushed to 2021, but I am disappointed. I’d like to see a prediction market on when the next ETH event is which has more than ~400 attendees.

We’re also getting out of the spring conference season (note for southern hemisphere readers: sorry, I know it’s fall for you), so I’m curious whether we’ll see online conferences continue to pop up for every day of the week. I suspect not, but it is open real estate at the moment.

Enterprise

First Central Bank Digital Currency public blockchain transaction is on Ethereum: Societe General issued €40m of covered bonds as security tokens and paid with Banque de France digital euros. While the press release does not make it clear, the transaction was on Ethereum mainnet

It actually took me the better part of an hour to find the link that confirmed that this was on Eth mainnet.

DAOs and Standards

Summoning the spirit of DAO ops

ERC2680: eth2 standard wallet layout and naming format

ERC2678: EthPM v3

EIP2681: Limit account nonce to 2^64-1

EIP2677: Limit initcode size

Application layer

Enjin plugin for Minecraft to tokenize Minecraft items on your server

Umbra: stealth payments to ENS names, running on Ropsten testnet

How does NexusMutual become an efficient version of Lloyd’s of London?

Maker’s Oasis now makes it easy to leverage up with ETH

DeFi777 – wrap your erc20 tokens as erc777 tokens, then swap through ENS names

RenVM brings BTC, BCH, and ZEC to Ethereum as ERC20 tokens

Mstable basket of stablecoins live on mainnet, includes yield from Compound/Aave plus swap fees – there’s a zero slippage stablecoin trade with 30 basis points of fees

Centrifuge’s Tinlake asset factoring is on mainnet, with factoring for freight shipping and Spotify payments

4/8 arbitrarily classified as DeFi this week.

Zero slippage stablecoin trade is an interesting approach - of course, as a liquidity provider, you’re assuming those stablecoins stay stable. As a user, you want tiny slippage and tiny fees for going between two things that are supposed to represent the same value. As a liquidity provider you want as much fees as possible, especially since you’re assuming the risk of pegs slipping or being broken.

Also just wait until Centrifuge’s factoring gets pushed as collateral for Maker. I’m curious what the response will be - or is it hohum since some trusted assets have already been added?

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Liquidity mining: now you earn Balancer tokens for supplying liquidity or Compound tokens for supplying/borrowing

Zap your liquidity around in one transaction

Ryan Sean Adams: Eth is doubly undervalued

Gavin Andresen: crypto markets take a long time to reflect reality

People seem to call it maximalism these days when you point out that anything is overvalued, but I thought Gavin’s post was a concise reflection of the irrationality of crypto markets.

General

LadderLeak and ECDSA explainer

Hundreds of thousands of Thai users switching to Minds, a Twitter/Facebook hybrid social network incentivized through an ERC20 token

I checked out Minds. They did a token sale two years ago, though you can still buy it on their site now. It’s an interesting concept, you can get paid to post, except you have to pay to be a paid member first. I couldn’t quite work out what the incentives were for me, but social networks need to get traction in one niche and then expand, and it seems like they may be getting that in Thailand. I’d like to see more social network attempts using tokenized incentives.

Housekeeping

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Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-may-31-2020/

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

June 1-6 – DAO Rush Week

June 3 – BlockVigil’s free remote developer bootcamp begins

June 16 – deadline to apply for Gitcoin’s Kernel incubator

Oct 2-Oct 30 – EthOnline hackathon

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mcdouglecompany-blog · 5 years

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Stossel Defending Capitalism, Designer Babies, The Best and Worst Ideas, Hilarious Remy Raps on Dems Debate and Bernie.

This ACU Show consists of 5 segments from ReasonTV. Subscribe for free today!

Stossel: In Defense of Capitalism.

Stossel: Don't Be Scared of Designer Babies

Stossel: 2020 Candidates’ Worst and Best Ideas.

Remy: Democratic Debate (The Rap)

Why Bernie Sanders' Communist Misadventures Still Matter

Stossel: In Defense of Capitalism.

https://youtu.be/X5ZDgz8MO1M

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 18, 2019

People acting in their own self-interest created modern prosperity, says Ayn Rand Institute's Yaron Brook.

Progressives claim capitalism is "immoral" because some people become rich while others stay poor. Yaron Brook, chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute, says the opposite is true. "We have basically made about $2 a day for 100,000 years," Brook told John Stossel. "In other words…we could eat what we farmed and that was it." "And then something amazing happened." About 250 years ago, a few countries tried capitalism. For the first time, people were allowed to profit from private property. "Two-hundred and fifty years ago we suddenly discovered the value of individual freedom," says Brook. "We suddenly discovered the value of leaving individuals free to think, to innovate, to produce without asking for permission, without getting the state to sign off." As a result, humans "doubled our life expectancy," says Brook. "We have dramatically increased the quality of our life and we are wealthier than anybody could have imagined." Brook, who's an objectivist, says that "doing for others is fine—but only if that's what you want." "The key is that somebody else's need is not a moral claim against your life," he adds. "Your life is yours." Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes. The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

Stossel: Don't Be Scared of Designer Babies.

https://youtu.be/Mh7KoFwSyQU

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 11, 2019

Gene-editing technology will eventually allow parents to alter their future offspring's intelligence, height, eye color, and more. And that's worth celebrating.

Have you heard of "designer babies?" Parents who use in vitro fertilization can already select an embryo by gender and screen for diseases. Gene-editing technology will eventually allow them to alter their future offspring's intelligence, height, eye color, and more. This scares some people. Eighty-three percent of Americans say editing human genes to improve intelligence goes too far. "Of course they say that," says Georgetown University Professor Jason Brennan in an interview with John Stossel. "When you have any kind of intervention into the body that's new, people think it's icky. And they take that feeling of 'ickiness' and they moralize, and think it's a moral objection." Jenna Bush Hager, who's the daughter of former President George W. Bush, recently said that "there should be things that we leave up to God." "I'm not really sure I'm going to take her word for it," says Brennan. "If God appears before me and says 'don't do this,' I'll stop." "We already give our kids music lessons, braces, tutoring, karate lessons," Stossel says. "Any advantage we can—why not also give them the best genes?" In the future, he notes, humans could be much smarter—perhaps possessing the wisdom enough to avoid wars and travel to other planets. Sheldon Krimsky, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Tufts, argues that it'll "be a new way to create disparities in wealth." "Every bit of technology that we enjoy today follows the same pattern," says Brennan. "You look in your automobile, and you have a CD player or an MP3 player, and a GPS. All of these things, when they first became available, were incredibly expensive," he says. When asked if he was simply opposed to technological progress, Krimsky responded, "I love change…But I think there are some boundaries." Will there be social pressure for everyone to have "designer babies"? "It's not so clear why that's a problem," Brennan says. "If everyone is making their kids healthier and stronger and smarter, and less prone to disease, and you feel social pressure to go along with that, good. Shouldn't you do that as a parent for your child?" Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes. The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

Stossel: 2020 Candidates’ Worst and Best Ideas.

https://youtu.be/1_PDfZ9BP24

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 25, 2019

Stossel reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2020 campaigns.

The 2020 campaign season is getting started. John Stossel says he's "repulsed by most politicians" because "not only are they mad for power, they push bad ideas." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has proposed that the post office go into the banking business, so that poor people can access banking. Sanders says the "Postal Service could make billions of dollars a year by establishing basic banking services." Stossel wonders: "Really? The people who mishandle mail?" The post office loses billions every year. "Now they're going to manage our money?" he asks. Sanders doesn't stop there. He wants "a ban on for-profit charter schools" and a moratorium even on nonprofit charters. He wants that even though the vast majority of studies show charters increase learning. The bad ideas keep coming. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) wants to force everyone to buy fertility treatment insurance. Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.) wants government to guarantee everyone a job and to pay many people's rent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) would cancel student loan debt of up to $50,000. Former Vice President Joe Biden would make college free. Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) would force companies to prove they pay men and women equally for the same work. And she'd "hold social media platforms accountable" for "hate." "That sounds nice," Stossel points out, "but if politicians get to decide what is 'hate,' they will censor any idea they don't like." President Trump also has bad ideas. For example, Stossel says, he misunderstands the trade deficit. That's led him to start trade wars around the world. Fortunately, many of the candidates also have good ideas—from Trump's regulation cutting to Biden's support for free speech, to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's (D–Hawaii) steadfast opposition to war. "All the candidates have bad ideas," Stossel says. "But some are a bigger danger to our liberty than others." The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

--------- Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------

Remy: Democratic Debate (The Rap)

https://youtu.be/QL0g6KmFRYw

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 28, 2019

Remy joins the debate stage to out-Democrat the Democrats. Apparently they'll let anybody up there. Written and performed by Remy. Mastered by Ben Karlstrom. Video by Austin Bragg.

LYRICS: Free contraception! That's right, that's my mission Yeah I'm stopping more wangs than Harvard admissions They say they'd fund Planned Parenthood? Well that's not enough Not only would I fund it, son I'd start a loyalty club You think they would spend more than me? You'll change your mind in a hurry I'm dropping more Jacksons Than Conrad Murray I'm dominating this debate Spartacus is impaired How do I know all the answers? Let's just say I prepared… They say they got plans They'd do a lot for the nation But unlike some people on this stage I got reservations Para el climate change-o Despacito Cinco de Mayo Burrito There's people locked up in cages We gotta act fast Not at the border, mind you Amy Klobuchar's staff I'll comb through the laws See which ones are valid Beam me to the next debate Here, use this for your salad I don't know half of these people Y'all ain't go no chances Got more write-offs on this stage Than Bernie Sanders' taxes Joe straight up killed busing You know it was gory Axed it like NBC News On a Weinstein story It's the economy, stupid It's like no one is hearing me I'd be the best thing for business since Russia conspiracies Reminds me of an accident I encountered today Not that kind of accident, Beto Why you running away? I got a plan to beat ISIS Install a puppet leader who'd lead them into insolvency Hmm…who could we choose… And North Korea is evil I just honestly learned it By checking that foolproof resource Bernie's Travelocity searches Guns are bad Of that I'm the most cognizant I'd get rid of arms so fast You'd think you're at the Saudi consulate

------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ------------------

Why Bernie Sanders' Communist Misadventures Still Matter.

https://youtu.be/K2d3DMC6qyg

ReasonTV

Published on Jun 3, 2019

Sanders no longer favors government takeover of "the major means of production." But his four-decade quest for political revolution continues.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) has spent his entire career explaining away the inevitable downsides of massively increasing the power of the state over the individual. Sanders once identified as a socialist who, with reservations, admired the economic achievements of Cuba under Fidel Castro, of Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, and of the Soviet Union right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Running for office as a candidate for the Liberty Union Party in Vermont in the 1970s, Sanders sought a top tax rate of 100%, saying "nobody should earn more than $1 million." Sanders wanted to stop businesses from moving out of their original communities, arguing that the ultimate solution to protect workers was national legislation that would "bring about the public ownership of the major means of production." He favored the government seizure of "utilities, banks, and major industries," without compensation to investors or stockholders. Shortly after he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981, Sanders told a room full of charity workers, "I don't believe in charities," because only the government should provide social services to the needy. He traveled to Nicaragua in 1985 to meet Sandinista leaders, who had installed a socialist government after overthrowing an American-backed dictator. Sanders attended the sixth-anniversary celebration of the Sandinistas' revolution and praised Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. In 1988, he visited the USSR, three years before it collapsed. After his trip, Sanders praised the Soviets' social and cultural programs, saying American leaders had much to learn from the communist system. In 1989, Sanders traveled to Cuba to seek a meeting with Fidel Castro—though he ended up settling for the mayor of Havana. Today, Sanders calls himself a "democratic socialist" and has become a millionaire. He favors single-payer health care, free public college for all, and a $15 minimum wage. And he has distanced himself from some of his former positions in support of the Sandinistas and Castro, pointing instead to Nordic countries as examples to follow. But one thing has remained constant as Sanders has shifted his focus from Nicaragua, Cuba, and the USSR to Denmark, Finland, and Sweden: In all of these countries, he's misled his followers about the political and economic realities on the ground. Produced and edited by Justin Monticello. Graphics by Joshua Swain. Audio production by Ian Keyser. Music by Silent Partner; Jingle Punks; Topher Mohr and Alex Elena; Jimmy Fontanez, Doug Maxwell & Media Right Productions; The 129ers; Sir Cubworth; MK2; and Riot. For full text, links, and credits, go to https://reason.com/video/why-bernie-s...

------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/reasontv Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts: https://goo.gl/az3a7a Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ----------------

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