Blockbytes Weekly - Week 8, 2023
"The 🚀📈💰 emojis objectively mean one thing: a financial return on investment"
Arbitrum
TLDR
MetaMask has added support for Arbitrum and Optimism to its new bridging network, MetaMask Bridges
MetaMask Adds Optimism and Arbitrum to Its Bridging Network
MetaMask has added support for two new major networks, Optimism, and Arbitrum, to its browser wallet's bridging network count, bringing the total number of supported chains to six.
The addition of Optimism and Arbitrum marks the closing stages of the MetaMask Bridges beta phase. Coming out of beta, the Bridges product will now include a sub-1% fee for bridging but boasts increased transfer limits, now capped at $50K, and better stability.
The concept around Bridges is what MetaMask describes as “a flight aggregator” for bridges, utilizing a “carefully curated set of bridges” to provide an all-in-one solution.
Six chains are now supported within the Bridge product: Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, and now Optimism and Arbitrum.
Avalanche
TLDR
Ava Labs has partnered with Tencent Cloud to support rapid node development within the Oceanic sector.
Two suspects have been arrested in France linked to the Platypus Protocol hack.
The team has released a compensation plan to see a minimum of 63% of funds returned to users.
A company has introduced a proposal to deploy Uniswap V3 on Avalanche. The proposal is in response to Uniswaps Business Source License expiring soon, which will make V3s code available for public use.
Ava Labs and Tencent Cloud Announce Partnership
Ava Labs has announced that it has entered a strategic partnership with Tencent Cloud, a cloud provider subsidiary of Chinese multinational technology conglomerate Tencent. The partnership will support projects and developers across the Avalanche ecosystem through rapid node deployment.
A full Avalanche node is now live on Tencent CLoud in sync with the Avalanche public blockchain, enabling Tencent Cloud’s infrastructure to support efficient and rapid node deployment for developers and validators across APAC.
These features and functions aim to support faster throughput and development for projects in the region building on Tencent Cloud while helping achieve resource decentralization.
Platypus Protocol Hack - Arrests and Compensation Plan
Platypus Finance has announced that it will repay a minimum of 63% of funds to users after recovering a part of the $9 million drained from the protocol last week.
The protocol contacted Binance to confirm the exploiter’s identity. The hacker used a Binance account that went through know-your-customer checks for a withdrawal request.
Platypus contacted law enforcement and filed a complaint in France. French police have arrested two suspects in connection to the hack, with 210,000 euros worth of cryptocurrency seized in the arrest.
Proposal to Deploy Uniswap V3 on Avalanche
A company has put forward an urgent proposal to launch Uniswap V3 on Avalanche.
Uniswap v3’s Business Source License (BSL) is expiring soon, so after April 1st, all BSL-protected code will be open source under a general public license.
Blockchain at Michigan suggested the proposal in anticipation of the influx of V3 copycats that will soon hit the Avalanche network.
BNB Chain
TLDR
A Forbes article compared Binance’s recent on-chain activities to FTX's suspicious dealings before its collapse last year.
Binance Accused of Malpractices Similar to FTX
Forbes has recently released an article comparing the on-chain activities of Binance to maneuvers by FTX. The investigation discovered that the exchange transferred $1.78 billion in users’ funds to various hedge funds. The article also reveals that the exchange completely emptied its collateral for B-peg USDC without reducing its supply.
A Binance spokesperson clarified in Jan. that the peg funds were mistakenly moved to cold wallets. Patrick Hillmann, the Chief Strategy Officer of Binance, told Forbes that “There was no commingling,” and it was normal business conduct.
Ethereum
TLDR
The Ethereum Sepolia testnet has successfully upgraded in preparation for the upcoming Shanghai hard fork.
The Shanghai upgrade enables validators to withdraw their staked Ether (stETH) from the Beacon Chain back to the execution layer, amongst other upgrades.
Speculators have been trading testnet Ether on the open market despite the token’s intended purpose being testing.
Ethereum testnet successfully forks in the Shanghai upgrade rehearsal
The Ethereum blockchain’s Sepolia testnet has undergone a successful upgrade that simulates the upcoming Shanghai hard fork. The “Shapella” upgrade, which combines the names of the upcoming Shanghai and Capella hard forks, was successfully implemented on the testnet on Feb. 28.
Shanghai is the fork’s name on the execution layer client side, and Capella is the upgrade name on the consensus layer client side. One of the major changes enables validators to withdraw their staked Ether (stETH) from the Beacon Chain back to the execution layer.
The next step before the Shanghai fork goes live on the mainnet will be to release the upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli testnet, which is expected to commence in March.
Speculators Push Price of Testnet Ether on Goerli Network
The price of testnet ether on the Goerli testnet spiked to $1.60 last week as traders speculated on a token intended to be worthless.
Cross-chain platform LayerZero created a way for Goerli's testnet ether to be traded and swapped between the Ethereum mainnet and the Goerli testnet. The idea was to create a more convenient way for developers to acquire testnet ether. Typically, developers must access a faucet or ask another developer for coins.
Ethereum developers have proposed one solution that may address the problem. They are planning to build a new testnet called Holli that would make it easier for developers to acquire its testnet ether, reducing the need for a secondary market where it must be purchased.
Optimism
TLDR
Coinbase has revealed its latest project, an Ethereum L2 network developed in conjunction with Optimism.
Coinbase unveils new Ethereum L2 network powered by Optimism
Coinbase has revealed that it will enter the Ethereum L2 network with its new platform, Base. Base will be built on Optimimsm’s OP Stack with the Optimism Collective. The company says Base will be the new home for Coinbase's on-chain products and, ideally, an open ecosystem for millions of new decentralized apps.
The platform will be created to be modular and standardized and will integrate with Optimism’s rollup agnostic Superchain vision. A testnet for Base has been live since the beginning of February, with multiple web3 partners already working on development.
Polygon
TLDR
The Polygon blockchain temporarily fell out of sync, which caused performance issues and knocked PolygonScan offline.
Polygon Labs announced that it had reduced its headcount by 20%, roughly 100 positions.
Polygon Blockchain Nodes Briefly Went Out of Sync
Polygon experienced a blockchain quirk affecting 157 blocks or approximately five minutes of network activity last week after some of its nodes fell out of sync, causing a cascade of problems that hamstrung performance and knocked popular blockchain explorer PolygonScan offline.
The interruption was down to a chain reorganization or ‘reorg,’ a problem Polygon attempts to fix.
The interruption on PolygonScan created the appearance that no transactions were taking place, sowing confusion and ultimately prompting Polygon’s leader, Sandeep Nailwal, to tweet that there were “issues” with the blockchain explorer.
Reorgs occur when network nodes fall out of sync, and two distinct chains of blocks are produced concurrently. This may be due to a bug, network latency, or malicious activity. When nodes sync again, one canonical version of the chain is kept, and the blocks included in the invalid ‘fork’ are ignored.
Polygon Labs cuts Staff by 20%
Polygon has become the latest web3 company that has had to reduce team headcounts amidst the continuing crypto winter. In a blog post from Polygon, the team detailed that 20% of staff, or roughly 100 positions, had been reduced across multiple teams.
The blog post provided an update on the development team’s treasury, stating that it remains ‘healthy with a balance of more than $250 million and more than 1.9 billion MATIC. The announcement comes just days after Polygon revealed the launch of its zkEVM Mainnet.
Solana
TLDR
Solana developers are still investigating the source of a network-wide outage that affected the blockchain over the weekend.
Rollup provider Eclipse is launching a Polygon/Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) scaling solution.
Solana Network Offline for the Tenth Time
The Solana mainnet suffered another network-wide outage over the weekend, with Solana developers still investigating the root cause. The problems that started as sluggish transaction processing spiraled into a near-complete shutdown of activity on Solana.
Users could not move any tokens or conduct any transactions during the outage period before a restart by the network’s validators saw transactions occur again, albeit very slowly.
This marks the tenth network outage the Solana network has suffered.
Eclipse launches software to allow Solana apps to be compatible with Polygon
Customizable rollup provider Eclipse is launching a Polygon/Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) scaling solution, allowing applications to be compatible with Polygon and increasing throughput speed and interoperability across the crypto space.
The SVM will be powered by Eclipse and can run smart contracts and tooling compatible with Solana.
Through the launch, decentralized applications (dApps) built for the Solana blockchain can migrate or become multichain through the Polygon SVM, which can open the doors for both communities using and building on different blockchains.
Boom or Bust?
TLDR
A New York Federal Judge has ruled that certain emojis constitute financial advice.
To the Moon? Judge rules Emojis can be financial advice
A New York federal judge has ruled that emojis used in certain situations can only "objectively mean one thing" – financial advice indicating a return on investment.
Southern District of New York judge Victor Marrero talked about using rocket ships, positive stock charts, and money bag emojis by people promoting NFT projects like Dapper Labs and the NBA's Top Shots Moments. The organizations are sued in a class action case alleging they violated US securities laws.
"Although the literal word 'profit' is not included in any of the Tweets, the 'rocket ship' emoji, 'stock chart' emoji, and 'money bags' emoji objectively mean one thing: a financial return on investment," Marrero wrote.
To back that up, Marrero said the court only had to turn to the subjective observations of Moments purchasers, who clarified that the intent was to profit. The Judge referred to the purchase of a LeBron dunk NFT, which sold for $208,000 because its buyer believed it "was worth seven figures right away."