Weekly Project Updates: Hope.money Introduces Visa Cards, etc

1. Ethereum’s Weekly Summary

a. Ethereum Foundation Officially Launches Ethereum Execution Layer Specification link

On August 30th, the Ethereum Foundation announced the official release of the Ethereum Execution Layer Specification (EELS) after over a year of development. EELS is a reference implementation of the Ethereum Execution Layer, written in the Python programming language. It is designed to help developers simulate the Ethereum Execution Layer, making it easier for them to develop and test applications.

While EELS serves the same purpose as the Ethereum Yellow Paper in describing how Ethereum works, its use of Python makes it more accessible and understandable for developers. EELS is also a codebase that can be used to run tests and validate new Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). EELS will be updated after each Ethereum network upgrade to stay synchronized with the mainnet, and it can be used for state testing and execution to prototype new EIPs. It provides a complete protocol snapshot after each network fork, making it easier to track and understand compared to EIPs (which focus on displaying changes) and production clients (which focus on integrating changes).

b. Summary of the 169th Ethereum Execution Layer Core Developers Meeting (ACDE) link

On the 1st of September, as per Tim Beiko’s summary of the 169th Ethereum Execution Layer Core Developers Meeting (ACDE), the meeting predominantly delved into several key areas. Progress on Devnet-8 was discussed, generally appearing promising, though some lingering issues with certain clients warrant further investigation. If subsequent stages transpire without bugs, it’s anticipated that Devnet-9 could serve as the final developer network before proceeding towards testing the Cancun upgrade fork on the testnet. This progression will involve Holesky, Goerli, and Sepolia, each in succession. Additionally, discussions revolved around the Blob limit within the testnet, pertaining to the network’s capacity to handle substantial blocks. Adjustments were considered for both the “target blob limit” and the “maximum blob limit,” with the new testnet Holesky potentially considering a ratio of 3:6. The meeting also ventured into the theoretical realm of Verkle Tries and State Expiry, exploring Ethereum’s endeavor to implement a persistent solution for statelessness, which may even necessitate modifications to Ethereum’s address format.

2. StarkNet’s Weekly Summary

a. StarkNet’s Leading Wallet, Braavos: The STRK Token Will Soon Be Configured and Open to the Public link

On the 28th of August, Braavos, the prominent wallet for StarkNet, issued a recent statement indicating that after nearly 12 months of deployment on Ethereum, the StarkNet STRK Token is poised for configuration and imminent public accessibility. StarkNet’s forthcoming plans in the following months encompass the reduction of transaction costs through a novel data availability model, modification of block creation models to enhance user experiences, and allowing wallets to pay Gas fees with any ERC-20 Token, among other developments. The STRK Token will serve various purposes, including governance, staking, and acting as payment for Gas fees.

On the 29th of August, Braavos removed the disclosure article from the 28th, which had mentioned the imminent configuration and public release of the StarkNet STRK Token.

b. The Quantum Leap Commemorative NFTs Released by the StarkNet Community to Celebrate the Mainnet, Available for a Limited Time on the 30th link

On August 30th, the commemorative NFTs celebrating the StarkNet community’s mainnet launch, known as Quantum Leap, were made available for minting at 13:00 UTC. However, users expressed dissatisfaction as the minting interface for Quantum Leap collected various user information, including details about their devices, browsers, operating systems, time zone settings, and IP addresses. This sparked complaints from users.

Later in the day, the website for claiming the Quantum Leap commemorative NFTs displayed a message stating that due to the inability to provide a satisfactory user experience under heavy load, a difficult decision had been made to temporarily halt the distribution of the remaining airdrop NFTs. The website expressed the hope of resuming the airdrop of NFTs within a few days and thanked users for their understanding and continued support.

3. Offchain Labs Announces the Release of Code and Public Testnet for Arbitrum Stylus link

On September 1st, the Offchain Labs development team behind Arbitrum announced the release of the code and public testnet for Arbitrum Stylus. This development allows developers to build applications on the Arbitrum Nitro chain using traditional EVM tools and WASM-compatible languages like Rust, C, and C++. Offchain Labs claims that Stylus significantly reduces gas costs by improving computational, storage, and memory efficiency. It also supports new resource-intensive blockchain use cases, such as alternative signature schemes and more.

4. Mantle Announces Incentive Campaign “Mantle Journey” link

On August 30th, Mantle announced the launch of the incentive program called Mantle Journey. The Alpha season kicks off with a reward pool of 20,000,000 $MNT. Additionally, a two-week event will provide an extra 500,000 MNT and 20,000 whitelist spots for the first NFT series by Mantle called “Citizens of Mantle.” Mantle Journey allows participants to choose offline rewards by linking their social media accounts with their MJSBT.

5. Uniswap v4 to Launch After Ethereum Dencun Upgrade link

On September 2nd, Uniswap Labs announced that Uniswap v4 will be launched after the Ethereum London upgrade. Currently, the London upgrade is undergoing testing on the testnet. V4 is built upon Uniswap V3’s concentrated liquidity model and brings updates like Hooks functionality, Singleton contracts, flash accounts, native ETH support, ERC-1155 account support, enhanced governance features, and a donation function. These changes aim to enhance Uniswap’s flexibility and composability.

6. Hope.money Announces Visa Card Service HopeCard link

On August 31st, the decentralized stablecoin project Hope.money announced the launch of the HopeCard Visa service. Users who hold the HopeCard will be able to make online or offline payments at over 80 million merchants worldwide, including PayPal, Google Pay, eBay, Amazon, Netflix, Alipay, WeChat, and more. Additionally, registration for the HopeCard is not yet officially open, but users can currently sign up for early access on the official website.

7. EOS Token Receives Whitelist Approval from the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association link

On August 30th, the EOS Network Foundation announced that EOS tokens have received whitelist approval from the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA). BitTrade exchange, formerly known as Huobi Japan, is set to list EOS trading in mid-September. The exchange currently supports 25 currencies and 36 trading pairs, with a 24-hour trading volume of $3,694,340.

8. OpenSea Introduces Redeemable NFT Standard, Offers On-Chain Redeemability Support to All Creators link

On August 30th, OpenSea introduced two Ethereum improvement proposals (ERC-7496 and ERC-7498) and two Seaport improvement proposals (SIP-14 and SIP-15) to advance the development of the redeemable ecosystem. Redeemable NFTs allow redemption to receive another on-chain or off-chain item. To illustrate this experience, they launched a public concept verification where users can mint a Baby Burn egg on the OpenSea Drop page, then destroy it and exchange it for a Burnie. OpenSea plans to extend on-chain redemption support to all creators and expand the on-chain redemption standard.

9. 1inch Team Address Purchases Millions of Dollars Worth of ETH link

On August 28th, as reported by @EmberCN, the 1inch team address made a purchase of 6087.7 ETH using a total of $10.07 million, consisting of 10 million USDT and 70,000 USDC, at an average price of $1655 per ETH. Previously, on July 5th, the 1inch team had sold 11,000 ETH at an average price of $1906, totaling $20.97 million.

10. CyberConnect Releases Emergency Proposal to Address Multi-Chain Liquidity Balancing Issue link

On September 2nd, CyberConnect released an urgent proposal, CP-1, to deploy the CYBER-ETH, CYBER-BSC, and CYBER-OP bridges supported by LayerZero ProxyOFT. These bridges will utilize CYBER tokens from the Cyber community treasury that are currently locked to provide liquidity for cross-chain operations. There are a total of 7,000,000 CYBER-BSC and 3,888,000 CYBER-ETH tokens available to maintain liquidity for the cross-chain bridges. The foundation will aim to maintain 25k CYBER-ETH, 25k CYBER-BSC, and 25k CYBER-OP tokens in these bridges.

If there is a shortage of funds in CYBER-ETH, CYBER-BSC, or CYBER-OP, the foundation will perform token burns and minting across the different chains to balance the CYBER tokens. The total supply of CYBER tokens across all chains will always remain at 100,000,000.

It’s important to note that this urgent proposal does not adhere to the DAO’s standard 7-day voting period policy. The voting for this proposal ended on Saturday afternoon at 4:19, with a significant stakeholder, 0xEd…1496, casting 54k CYBER tokens in favor. The proposal has been approved.