Technology Recap:

BitcoinBitcoin is a digital currency (also called crypto-currency) … More:

• Rusty Russell proposed a restricted version of an OP_TX opcode that would allow Tapscript to push to the stack selected parts of the transaction executing it. This would allow for CLTV’s (CheckLockTimeVerify) with fewer bytes than a pure transaction and provide flexibility for nodes that validate transactions.

• The latest Coldcard firmware adds support for Taproot via sending to bech32m addresses.

• The third release candidate for LND’s upcoming v0.15 has been released! The release contains a number of important bug and stability fixes including reducing the space needed to track revocation related channel state by 96%, payment metadata in invoices, and full Taproot support!

• Pieter Wuille shares a write up on Private Authentication protocols and the possibility of encrypting all P2P network connections.

Litecoin:

Ethereum:

• On the path towards The Merge, Ropsten testnet successfully merged! This is one of the last testnets until mainnetThe term is used to identify a realnet/mainet blockchain fro… More is merged. The next ones up are Goerli and Sepolia. Before this though, all clients must upgrade before the next difficulty bomb adjustment slated for July 3rd, 2022.

• Danny Ryan releases Finalized no.35 which focuses on all things Ethereum consensusConsensus is a mechanism, usually used by most nodes on the … More layer with focus on Ethereum staking, data availability and more!

• The Ethereum Ropsten testnet Beacon Chain config has been merged with the Genesis event occurring on May 30th, 2022 at 15:00 GMT with the merge transition occurring on June 8th, 2022.

• Erigon released their latest Alpha release which contains fixes to improve download speed for blockBlocks hold batches of valid transactions that are hashed an… More snapshots as well as reinstating the skip analysis optimization for Ethereum mainnet and BSC mainnet up to block 11M.

• Ben Edgington shares the latest in the Execution Layer with focus on The Merge, mainnet shadow fork 4 and 5, Ropsten testnet and more!

• Danny Ryan publishes the EF Data Availability Sampling (DAS) RFP which aims to take us from EIP-4844 to a fully scalable future.

• Dive into the ideas behind the permissionless nature of Ethereum and its costs.

• Erigon shares the current status of the Silkworm and SilkRPC projects.

• The Go Ethereum team shares how after the merge, there will be a large fraction of “at home” block producers and how we need to think differently about block production and MEV (Miner Extractable Value).

• LiFi Protocol and Ethereum Foundation write about bridging and more!

• ZeroStableCoin is out of stealth mode! Their whitepaper focuses on privacy preserving principles, post-quantum, post P=NP, currency-inclusive and more!

Other C
hains: 

• Cloudflare shares that they will be supporting Ethereum’s move to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and web3 networks.

• The Electric Coin Company activates Zcash’s NU5 on mainnet, eliminating trusted setup and launching a new era for Zcash!

• Optimism introduces Bedrock: the cheapest, fastest, and most advanced rollup architecture yet for optimistic rollups.

• Vitalik shares when to use a blockchainA blockchain—the technology underlying bitcoin and other c… More for non-financial applications.

• Polygon Nightfall mainnet is released! Nightfall is a blockchain solution that leverages cutting edge Optimistic-Zero Knowledge technology to give enterprises an accessible blockchain network with necessary privacy guarantees.

• Aave launches a web3-based social media platform, Lens Protocol.

• Ren announces RenBridge v3.0 with two major upgrades that support stablecoins, generic tokens, layer-1 native assets, and bridging renAssets.

• Binance completed integration of Optimism and opened deposits for ETH on Optimism layer-2!

• The countdown for Aztec Network has started! On June 6, 2022, Aztec’s system for supporting cheap, private transactions on Ethereum mainnet goes live!

• DAOHaus is now live on Optimism. Optimism communities can now launch Moloch DAOs to better coordinate and achieve various purposes.

• CosmWasm v1.0.0 has been released!

• Etherscan shares that method filters are now added for EOA/normal/and non-contract addresses!

• The StarkNet Roundup #16 has dropped with focus on protocol and dev tool updates.

• The Electric Coin Company shares a full report on various fee mechanisms that could be employed along ZSAs in collaboration with CEELab at George Mason.

• Abacus Network is introduced which provides developers with a platform for building interchain applications.

• ZeroDAO shares how users can perform a swap of USDC to BTC without needing any ETH for gas.

• Monero’s p2pool hit 1500 active miners as of May 18th, 2022.

• RiskDAO is launched which provides transparency around DeFiDecentralized Finance (DeFi) removes financial institutions … More borrowing and lending protocols.

Hacks | Vulnerabilities | Exploits:

• Celsius Network pauses all withdrawals, swap, and transfers between accounts. People are realizing that Celsius is insolvent and that this implication as well as the stETH drama will most likely cause massive panic in risky assets. In short, Celsius received a lot of ETH deposits, those deposits of ETH were then plugged into stETH. The stETH <> ETH liquidity dried up via Curve and IDO subsidies not having enough to force 1:1 peg. Thus, people try to pull their spot ETH back and there isn’t enough to handle the expected withdrawal volume – thus liquidation.

• Linked is the code that was used in the May 13th, 2022 attack through advertisements on crypto websites such as CoinGecko and Etherscan. The attacker wanted to get token approvals or perform swaps through DEXes to their addresses..thus pulling from APIs.

• Balancer Labs was n
  otified on May 13th, 2022 of a potentially exploitable scenario involving double entry-point ERC-20 tokensWhat are ERC-20 tokens? ERC-20 tokens are tokens designed an… More, including but not limited to Synthetix SNX and sBTC as well as Balancer flash loans. The disclosure was made through Immunifi and the Synthetix team is working on upgrading their smart contractsWhat are smart contracts? A smart contract is a computer pro… More to remove the second entry point that would allow the tokens to be returned to the vaults without any intervention from LPs.

• The GymSinglePool of GymNet was hacked with a loss of ~$2.1M. The vulnerability that was exploited was due to a lack of caller verification which was used to increase the balance without making any payment.

• During the UST crash and saga developers noticed that Kava Network hardcoded UST to $1. Users were thus able to mint USDX (native stablecoinStablecoins maybe privately issued cryptocurrency or algorit… More from Kava) against UST at 99% LTV without risk of liquidation. From there they could swap to anything. It took the Kava team several days to issue a change to the UST hardpeg.

• PeckShield highlighted that the FEG token is open to a sybil attack via not validating a given path inside the swapToSwap() function.

• Venus Protocol, a lending protocol on BSC, has a critical bug via oracle manipulation due to the fact that they fail to account for oracle liveliness and whether the last reported price of LUNA was within the min/max price threshold.

• PeckShield notes that fomo-dao was hacked apparently on BSC.

• Osmosis outlines how devs were fixing a bug last week after there was a potential loss of ~$5M via Juno.

Mainstream Recap:

• PayPal now supports the transfer of crypto between PayPal and external wallets.

• Coinbase reduces their team’s size by 18%.

• a16z publishes their first annual State of Crypto report!

• Igor Igamberdiev dives into how Jump Crypto tried to defend the UST peg.

• CoinDesk reports that Jump Crypto-backed cross-chain bridge Wormhole has launched support for the Algorand blockchain.

• StarkWare and Web3Auth announce their partnership which embodies their vision to provide secure and easy access to the crypto ecosystem.

• Binance announces that they will not support deposits and withdrawals of LTC using MWEB.

• Jack Dorsey’s TBD unit has announced its building “Web5”  – a new decentralized web leveraging Bitcoin to put users back in control of their data and identity.

• Robinhood plans to roll out a new crypto wallet focused on DeFi with zero network fees.

• Coinbase has entered the liquid staking game through a collaboration with Figment!

• UnicornDAO raises $4.5M to empower women and LGBTQ-led NFTNFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Contrary to a BTC which i… More creators and initiatives!

• a16z releases a full 36-page paper on legal entity selection for DAOs.

• Request Finance has raised $5.5M in seed funding aiming to simplify salaries, payments, and billing for crypto and Web3 based teams.

This Week’s Cup of Coffee:

This week, we are headed to Amsterdam, Netherlands for a cup of an Ethiopië espresso roast from Back to Black. This amazing coffee comes from the Bombe Washing Station in Sidama, Ethiopia. This funky roast yields flavors of melon, milk chocolate, lychee and more! Makes for an awesome flat white or macchiato! Sip up and enjoy!!