Etherscan Newsletter Block #41: Emerging As The Primary Settlement Layer

Happy Merge Anniversary! It's fascinating to witness Ethereum's remarkable journey thus far, accompanied by the successful relaunch of Holesky, the largest public PoS testnet. Let's also keep our core values in mind amidst all the ongoing Ethereum development efforts.

At Etherscan, we have released a security feature to help guard against exploitable token spoofing scenarios and launched an explorer for the Holesky testnet.

In this issue, we look back at the emergent trends one year after The Merge upgrade went live. The quiz tests your knowledge of Post-Merge MEV. Answer it for a chance to win $10 in ETH!

ETHERSCAN

Highlight

Post-Merge Emergent Trends

As numerous marvelous developments unfold in the year following The Merge, we explore the emerging trends that have resulted from Ethereum's switch to PoS. These include:

Rising Popularity of Liquid Staked ETH
A New Paradigm for Maximal Value Extraction
Growing Validator Set Count Post-Staking Withdrawals

FEATURE

Popup Reminder

Reminder to verify copied addresses from token transfers in potentially risky scenarios.

FEATURE

Holesky Testnet Explorer

The explorer and faucet for Holesky, a replacement for the Goerli testnet, is live!

ECOSYSTEM

Banana Gun Found Bug In Contract After Token Launch

The bug passed two audits, but ChatGPT quickly detected it. The team plans to relaunch the token with an airdrop to compensate investors.

twitter.com/BananaGunBot

Canto Plans Migration To Ethereum As Layer 2

Canto will use Polygon's CDK to create a ZK-powered Ethereum Layer 2, in line with the trend of chains moving to Ethereum such as Astar and Celo.

cointelegraph.com

Balancer Frontend Hit By DNS Attack

Thanks to the community's swift action, losses were limited to ~$238k, and the website is now SAFE to use. Galxe also faced a similar attack.

theblock.co

Base Introduces Pessimism

Pessimism is an open-source monitoring system enhancing Ethereum's security by rapidly detecting and responding to various protocol threats.

twitter.com/BuildOnBase

VanEck To Donate 10% ETF Profits To Protocol Guild

The ETF & Mutual Fund Manager, pledges to donate 10% of their $EFUT profits to the Protocol Guild for at least 10 years.

twitter.com/vaneck_us

Developers

Sunset Of Truffle And Ganache

Beginning December 20, 2023, Truffle and Ganache codebases will be publicly archived, with a full migration guide to Hardhat available here.

twitter.com/trufflesuite

How Vyper Compiles Into Bytecode

Learn about the workings of the Vyper compiler and explore its various compilation phases, including a sequential compilation example.

hackmd.io/@pcaversaccio

Community

Remove Phone Number From Your Twitter Account

This PSA followed the compromise of Vitalik's Twitter account by scammers through a SIM-swap attack, resulting in victims losing over $691,000.

twitter.com/timbeiko

On Enshrining More Things Into Ethereum

Vitalik discusses the nuances of enshrining more things into Ethereum, including ERC-4337, ZK-EVMs, PBS, private mempools, and liquid staking.

vitalik.ca

Pick of the Month

Transaction: $24M Liquid Staked ETH Lost To Phishing Attack

A whale lost their entire stETH and rETH balance in two transactions, falling victim to a massive phishing attack through unauthorized token approvals.

Address: Stolen Funds Recovered Via Onchain Messaging

HTX communicated with the hacker via onchain messaging and offered a 5% white hat bonus to the hacker who returned the full 4,999 ETH.

FAQ

Questions received last month:

What are Event Logs?
Event logs in smart contracts notify key onchain actions like token transfers and DEX activity, facilitating communication with external applications and contracts. Learn more about it here.

What does it mean when my transaction is unfinalized?
Unfinalized transactions are vulnerable to reorgs. Typically, a transaction finalizes with 80 block confirmations, requiring two rounds of attestation from 2/3 of validators. Learn more about transaction finality here.

Confused with some terms in this newsletter?
Remember to check the Etherscan glossary!

Pro Tip

Filter for an Event Log emitted by a contract
Visit the Logs tab on the Transaction Details page (Example), click the magnifying glass icon to filter for a specific contract event, and use additional filter fields to refine your search.