EthHub Weekly #187

The Merge updates, Altair mainnet announcement, Optimism to donate $1mil to public goods, Flashbots Protect announced and much more!

Anthony Sassano

Oct 12

Curated by Anthony Sassano (@sassal0x) and Eric Conner (@econoar)

🐼 The Merge ComETH

The ‘Merge Interoperability Event’ attended by various Ethereum core researchers and developers wrapped up last week and culminated in a devnet. This is absolutely incredible progress and it means we may get The Merge sooner than most people expect - though again I would cautious against getting too excited just yet - I’m sure we’ll get more clarity on exact timing soon enough!

Don’t forget to check out this livestream I did with David Hoffman from Bankless - we spoke in-depth about ‘modular blockchains’ and how they are quite literally a paradigm shift in how crypto-networks will be built going forward.

Have a great week everyone!

- Anthony

News of the Week

⚖️ Department of Justice Announces Crypto-Focused ‘Enforcement Team’

A senior U.S. Department of Justice official said Wednesday that the department is forming a "National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team" focused on cybercrime and money laundering.

Unveiled during the Aspen Cyber Summit, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that the goal of the initiative was to "protect consumers."

"We want to strengthen our capacity to dismantle the financeable ecosystem that enables these criminal actors to flourish and to profit from what they're doing," Monaco remarked. Her statement at the Aspen event was live-streamed.

🤔 Circle Continues to Face Investigation From SEC’s Division of Enforcement, Filing States

The Securities and Exchange Commission continues to investigate the stablecoin-focused crypto company Circle, according to a regulatory filing from October 4.

As spotted by CoinDesk reporter Danny Nelson, Circle first received what it called an "investigative subpoena" from the SEC's Division of Enforcement back in July. The subpoena was first disclosed in an S-4 filing dated August 6 and submitted to the agency by Circle as part of its bid to go public via a special-purpose acquisition vehicle, or SPAC. Much of the coverage at the time focused on Circle's stated plan to become a kind of bank.

"In July 2021, we received an investigative subpoena from the SEC Enforcement Division requesting documents and information regarding certain of our holdings, customer programs, and operations. We are cooperating fully with that investigation," Circle said in its filing at the time.

The same language was included in a new filing made public on Monday.

Project Updates

Altair Mainnet Announcement

The first network upgrade for the consensus layer (eth2), Altair, will be hitting mainnet at epoch 74240 which is scheduled to occur on October 27th, 2021 at 10:56:23am UTC).

What’s New in Eth2 - 8 October 2021

Altair is coming, Rocket Pool delayed, tales from The Merge workshop and more updates in this weeks eth2 recap.

The Aperture - Vol. 1

The Aperture series will provide regular development updates on the Portal Network which is an in progress effort to enable lightweight protocol access by resource constrained devices.

$1 Million Dollars for Public Goods

In the next month Optimism will give away $1 million to Ethereum public goods for their amazing contributions to the community.

StarkNet Alpha is Coming to Mainnet

StarkNet alpha is launching on the Ethereum mainnet in November and support simular features to those currently available on the Goerli public testnet.

Announcing Flashbots Protect

Flashbots Protect is a suite of tools that makes it easier to use Flashbots for frontrunning protection. The first two Protect products are an API for developers and an RPC endpoint for end users.

Introducing Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is bringing together a small group of talented teams building new projects on Ethereum, and doing a collective sprint until the end of the year. It’ll be running from Oct 18 to Dec 17, and will have a group Discord, weekly calls/demos, and support from some of the most effective builders/operators in the space.

Alchemix Roadmap

In this post, the Alchemix team detail their long-term development roadmap including their layer 2 plans, path to decentralization, the AlchemixDAO and much more.

Merit Circle Raises $4.5 Million

The seed round had participation from DeFiance Capital, Mechanism Capital, Digital Currency Group and more with some angels also joining the round.

Perpetuals on CryptoPunks

With Futureswap V4 you’ll be able to trade leveraged perpetuals on CryptoPunks and any other NFTs. This is due to NFTX’s fractionalized NFT marketplace where you can buy and sell NFTs instantly.

Lido Ethereum Staking Dashboard Introduced

Users can now track their Lido staking deposits, daily rewards, average staking APR and much more - at the click of a button.

Introducing FWB Fellowships

This new programs goal is to promote access for exceptional creatives into our community, awarded on the basis of merit, need, and representation.

Introducing Fei v2

Fei v2 brings with it a host of new features including robust peg maintenance, efficient management of risk, liquidity and yield, aligned incentives between TRIBE and FEI holders and more.

Introducing FundMovr: Seamless Cross-Chain Bridging

FundMovr is the Google Maps for the multi-chain world: it helps users move their funds between chains via the best possible route.

Treeverse Raises at $25 Million Valuation

The seed round was co-led by IDEO Ventures and Animoca Brands. Other investors include SkyVision Capital, Stani Kulechov, and several angel investors.