Technology Recap:

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

• Suhas Daftuar releases a PR that aims to reduce the bandwidth needed during initial header syncs when a blockBlocks hold batches of valid transactions that are hashed an… More is found. This will improve synchronization of the blockchainA blockchain—the technology underlying bitcoin and other c… More with peers during the Initial Block Download (IBD) and more. 

• Lightning Dev Kit, LDK, has published v0.0.111 which includes support for relaying onion messages! Onion messages are messages that don’t use HTLCs and can be sent across the Lightning network by nodes that support the protocol.

• Jeremy Rubin posted to the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list including information regarding drivechains and trusted setup procedures. Drivechains are a type of decentralized sidechain where depositors send their mainnetThe term is used to identify a realnet/mainet blockchain fro… More bitcoins to a smart contract controlled by an anonymous miner who controls the production of blocks on the sidechain.  

Ethereum:

• On September 14th, 2022 Ethereum successfully transitioned to PoS (Proof-of-Stake) via the Merge!! The chain was finalized after ~13minutes and the largest upgrade to-date was completed. 

• Prysmatic Labs publishes v3.1.1 which contains a fix for a fork choice bug which could lead to a memory leak and gossip-sub optimization. 

• Ethereum mainnet Slot 4700567 was the first ever block produced via mev-boost!

• Volt Capital shares the inner-workings of The Merge, Surge, Verge, Purge…and Splurge. 

• Erigon publishes a new release which fixes stability issues with PoS sync from a consensusConsensus is a mechanism, usually used by most nodes on the … More layer nodeA node, in the world of digital currency, is a computer that… More as well as supporting BSC hard fork. 

Other Chains: 

• Prior to the Merge, the ETHW Core team released an open letter to the Ethereum community discussing the ETHW PoW (Proof-of-Work) chain and ETHW Mining Pool. 

• Eddy Lazzarin of a16z Crypto shares their Zero Knowledge Canon which dives into the history of zero knowledge and the cutting-edge developments going on in the crypto ecosystem. 

• The Interchain Foundation shares the first alpha release for Tendermint’s ABCI++ update. 

• A new proposal and white paper was released at the Cosmoverse conference to expand the utility of the Cosmos Hub and a new vision for ATOM. 

• OpenSea shares that Optimism integration is now officially live!

• The ETHW team published their bridge smart contractsWhat are smart contracts? A smart contract is a computer pro… More for ETH mainnet, USDC, and USDT. 

• Dawn Song announces zkBridge, the first trustless, permissionless, extensible, and efficient cross-chain bridge. 

• BitGo’s new Custodial Lightning allows customers to get up and running quickly to easily integrate the Lightning network into their services. 

• Terence Tsao of Prysmatic Labs shares how 20 ETH validators were slashed within 3 hours due to attester equivocation. At the time, the minimum upfront penalty is 1 Ether. 

• Zaki Manian returns to collaborating with the ICF as chair of the Technical Advisory Board. 

Hacks | Vulnerabilities | Exploits:

• Wintermute was hacked for ~$160M on September 20th, 2022 potentially due to a wallet compromise via a vulnerability in Profanity which was disclosed by 1inch days prior. The attacker exploited the bug in Profanity to recover the private key to the Wintermute hot wallet. 

• Shiba Inu, SHIB, leaked its AWS account credentials on a public code repository in late August. The team that found the vulnerability, Pingsafe, was unable to make contact with the team behind SHIB so publicly disclosed this info to the wider web3 community. 

• Zoom Protocol lost ~$61K as a result of a price oracle manipulation attack on BSC.

• Nereus Finance lost ~$371K in a price oracle manipulation attack on Avalanche.

• Gera Coin notified users that their private key was compromised due to a leak. The hacker proceeded to create two more smart contracts and mint tokens on Ethereum which resulted in a loss of $1.48M.

• A New Free DAO reward manipulation exploit resulted in ~$1.25M in losses on BSC. 

• During fuzzing in preparation for Ethereum’s Merge, a gas allocation error was found in Hyperledger’s Besu client which could result in a 0-day. 

Mainstream Recap:

• Paradigm shares an article on Base Layer Neutrality which focuses on sanctions and censorship implications within blockchain infrastructure. 

• Interpol issues a red notice for Do Kwon, the founder of Terra and is accused of fraud over the company’s $40B collapse. 

• Gemini shares that Ethereum staking is coming to Gemini on September 29th, 2022. 

• Bitcoin Lightning network leader, Strike, announces an $80M funding round led by Ten31 and joined by Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Wyoming, and other investors. 

• California, New York, and others issue cease and desist orders against crypto lender Nexo. 

• Crypto derivatives exchange Derbit has raised funds from existing shareholders at a valuation of $400M. 

• Eclipse announces a $9M seed round co-led by Tribe Capital and Tabiya, following a prior $6M pre-seed round led by Polychain. Eclipse lets developers build customizable, modular rollups using the Solana VM. 

• CoinShares reports a 128% decline in second quarter adjusted EBITDA. The firm’s losses are reportedly from the Terra UST collapse. 

• MarqVision, an NFTNFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Contrary to a BTC which i… More counterfeit detector which uses AI to spot and remove counterfeit physical and digital products, raises $20M in Series A funding. 

This Week’s Cup of Coffee:

This week, we are headed to Dublin, Ireland for a cup of Momentum Blend at 3fe. This seasonal blend is a mixture of beans from Rwanda and Ethiopia which boasts sweet and chocolatey flavors with a hint of nuts. Sip up and enjoy!!