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February saw the space simultaneously flooded with hype over NFT crypto art as well as exorbitant gas fees causing congestion. NFT collectibles reached 9-digit monthly USD volumes while at the same time Ethereum wallets around the world did their best impressions of the Ethereum logo. While painful in the short term, readers of this newsletter will be aware of the Eth2 and Layer 2 efforts underway to improve congestion on Ethereum.

This month, we take a look at some data around EIP1559, an Ethereum Improvement Proposal that attempts to make gas fees more predictable. We also share a quiz on NFT art - answer some trivia and stand to win $10 in ETH.

On Etherscan a number of new features have been added over the last month. Two of the most useful ones are Pending Transaction Queue and Contract Diff Checker!

EIP 1559: Wherefore Art Thou?

Recent congestion on Ethereum has brought more attention to EIP 1559, a proposal to change the transaction fee mechanism of the network. Commonly misunderstood as a way to lower gas costs, it's primary aim is in fact to make gas fees more predictable. It is broadly welcomed by the community with the exception of miners. We take a look at:

• Why EIP 1559?
• Miners' resistance
• Potential compromises

FEATURE

Pending Transaction Queue

Get a quick view of your transaction's queued position in the transaction pool.

FEATURE

Contract Diff Checker

Compare the source code of two smart contracts side-by-side.

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Christie's Auction House Accepts ETH and its First Digital Art

The "first purely digital NFT-based work of art ever offered by a major auction house" had bids go from $100 to $1 million in less than 10 minutes.

bloomberg.com

Bitfinex, Tether Settle with NYAG for $18.5 Million

The two firms finally closed a two-year case alleging that USDT was not backed 1-1 by USD. Both are now banned from servicing New Yorkers.

theblockcrypto.com

Proposal for Eth2's First Hard Fork

Key goals include adding light client support and testing the forking mechanism for sharding & Eth1-Eth2 merge. Vote on its name via POAP!

notes.ethereum.org/@vbuterin

NFTs and a Thousand True Fans

How NFTs enable the "1000 True Fans" vision of a creator economy: removing rent-seeking, granular price-tiering and making users owners.

a16z.com

A Review of Decentralized Finance by St. Louis Fed

Trending more due to its publisher than its content, its publishing shows far DeFi has come. Good link to share with skeptical TradFi friends!

twitter.com/stlouisfed

EVM Features Potentially Worth Removing: Gas Refunds

Highlighting one of several proposed feature removals from the EVM: Gas Refunds. Its removal will result in the end of the popular Gas & Chi tokens.

hackmd.io

A Theory of Ethereum State Size Management

Vitalik walks through the problem of growing state size, which if solved by the community could mean higher block gas limits that resolve congestion.

hackmd.io

Quantifying MEV: Introducing MEV-Explore v0

Flashbots research into MEV found $314 million worth of extracted value and $4.5 million of wasted gas fees (equal to 4,500 blocks) since Jan 2020.

medium.com/flashbots

Where Does Yield Come From, Anyway?

Julian Koh examines four categories of yield generation in DeFi: demand for borrowing, exchanging risk, service provisioning, and equity growth.

juliankoh.medium.com

Transaction: A First-of-its-Kind Arbitrage

The transaction utilized zero gas, accessed higher capital via flash loan, was privately relayed & frontrun-shielded, and paid nothing unless it succeeded.

Address: $6 Million Liquidator

In the liquidation frenzy amid a sharp drop towards the end of February, this address netted a profit of ~$6 million in 36 hours - accounting for gas costs!

Questions received last month:

Does Etherscan have a glossary of crypto terms?
We do - you can find it in our Knowledge Base. We'll strive to add more terms to help you understand this newsletter!

Does Etherscan support languages other than English?
We currently support Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian with plans to support Spanish. Click on Preferences in our website footer to change it.

Looking for a job in crypto? Check out these roles below!

Senior Solidity Engineer at Aegis Studio | United States

Ecosystem Integrations Engineer at Textile | North & South America

Engineering Lead, IBC at Interchain GmbH | Remote

Technical Product Manager at Rigel Protocol | Remote

POLL

Quiz: Crypto Art

Answer trivia on Crypto Art and stand to win $10 in ETH!