Headlines
Vitalik reveals some regrets about Ethereum’s initial design
Last week at the ETHBerlin event, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described some of his regrets about Ethereum’s initial design.
Vitalik said there were a series of things he could have done differently, including developing the Ethereum virtual machine, smart contracts, and the PoS consensus mechanism.
He also said that even as Ethereum becomes more mainstream, it is still misunderstood. “The narrative for Bitcoin is simple, it’s digital gold. But when it comes to Ethereum, it’s like, ‘Wow, what the hell is Ethereum?’ ”
ETHBerlin organizer Afri Schoeden asked: “Based on everything you know and have learned over the past 10 years, if you could start from scratch today, how would you build Ethereum differently?”
Vitalik said that Ethereums original EVM design chose 256-bit processing instead of 64-bit or 32-bit. The original design was too complex for 256 bits. 256 bits is very inefficient and can generate a lot of redundant data on the blockchain even when performing simple tasks.
In addition, Vitalik said that Ethereum’s switch from the PoW consensus mechanism to the PoS mechanism in 2022 should have been done earlier. “We ended up wasting a lot of time trying to make proof of stake perfect. If we had a simpler PoS mechanism as early as 2018, we could have saved a lot of trees.”
Vitalik also mentioned: “Automatic logging of Ethereum transfers should have existed from the beginning. It only took us 30 minutes to code it, but it became an EIP.”
EIP-7708, submitted by Vitalik on May 17, will make this exact change. Vitalik said that if he were to choose again, he would use SHA-2 to encrypt Ethereum instead of the currently used Keccak encryption algorithm.
Despite a series of small design mistakes, Vitalik said that any project is bound to have such a situation. He said: I am really happy that I feel that our core developers and their execution capabilities seem to be getting better every year. We are now able to effectively and safely correct some of these mistakes. (DL News)
BlackRock may buy $10 million in ETH to fund its Ethereum ETF
BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers with $9 trillion in assets under custody, is said to be purchasing $10 million worth of ETH to fund its Ethereum ETF. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BlackRock stated, “On May 21, 2024, Seed Capital Investors, an affiliate of the Sponsor, purchased a seed creation basket of 400,000 shares at $25 per share, subject to conditions, and the Trust received gross proceeds from the sale of the seed creation basket of $10,000,000. The Trust intends to use the proceeds from the seed creation basket to purchase ETH at some point, and may not have made any purchases at this time.” (trustnodes)
Six US Ethereum ETF applicants may choose Coinbase as custodian
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the spot Ethereum ETF, it was reported that Coinbase would become the custodian of at least six of the nine companies planning to launch Ethereum ETFs. Coinbase is already the second largest Ethereum validator. Experts expressed concerns about centralization issues and warned that these centralization and concentration risks could pose serious security risks. (decrypt)
Industry News
Robinhood launches cryptocurrency trading API for US users
Robinhood announced the launch of its crypto trading application programming interface (API) to US users. The cryptocurrency trading API allows US traders to set up automated trading strategies, which will allow users to react to market movements and get ahead of market trends. In addition, users can also use the API to trade cryptocurrencies directly without opening the Robinhood application. With the API, users can also write programs that interact with real-time crypto markets. Robinhood said they can use algorithms and strategies to execute trades. (Cointelegraph)
Vitalik Donates 30 ETH to Juicebox: Free Alexey Roman
Arkham data shows that Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterins address vitalik.eth donated 30 ETH, equivalent to about US$113,000, to Juicebox: Free Alexey Roman.
Currently, Juicebox: Free Alexey Roman has raised 589 ETH, and the funds will be used for a legal defense fund to support Tornado Cash developers Alexey Pertsev and Roman Storm.
Robinhood to settle lawsuit with investors over GameStop and other meme stocks
Trading platform Robinhood is working to reach a settlement with investors who sued it for halting trading in certain meme stocks, including GameStop, in 2021.
Robinhood’s lawyers said in a May 28 filing in federal court in Miami that the company is “finalizing a settlement agreement” with investors and expects to reach a settlement within the next two weeks.
Details of the settlement were not included in the filing. Robinhood, its lawyers and lawyers for the investor groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It is reported that investors, including lead plaintiff Blue Laine-Beveridge, accused Robinhood of illegally manipulating market prices and wiping out tens of billions of dollars in investor rights by selecting stocks that users can buy between January 28 and February 4, 2021.
Investors claim they hold GameStop, AMC, Bed Bath Beyond, BlackBerry, Nokia, trivago, Koss, Express Inc., and Tootsie Roll shares affected by Robinhood’s actions. The lawsuit focuses on Robinhood’s alleged securities violations as part of a broader lawsuit filed in multiple U.S. jurisdictions against the company for its meme-related stock practices. (Cointelegraph)
Project News
Wallet, a third-party cryptocurrency wallet bot on Telegram, notified users of several updates to its KYC system. From June 3, all default functions except withdrawals will require updated account details (name, phone number and date of birth) to use these functions.
Wallet on Telegram also announced that starting May 30, 2024, wallet services will be provided by WOT Global Solution.
After the change, all user data will be transferred to WOT Global Solution. The announcement states that the collected data includes name, address, phone number, transaction data, and any other user data the wallet may have. (Cointelegraph)
Polyhedra responds to conflict with zkSync: will use ZKJ transaction code
Polyhedra Network, the developer of the zero-knowledge interoperability protocol zkBridge, said it will trade under the ticker symbol ZKJ when it is listed on cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Global on Friday, in response to a week-long conflict with zkSync over its old ticker symbol ZK. (TheBlock)
LayerZero Announces Launch on Solana
LayerZero Labs announced on X Platform that LayerZero is now live on Solana. The LayerZero Endpoint on Solana was released in “Mainnet Beta” and supports full-chain messaging across 8 chains: Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Polygon.
After the fourth and final round of audits is complete, the “Mainnet Beta” designation will be removed from LayerZero documentation and all 70 chains will be connected to Solana.
Character*Voice
Vitalik: In the crypto space, DAO means project and official means scam
Vitalik Buterin said in a post on Warpcast: “An important part of cultural awareness is understanding that the same words have different meanings in different cultural contexts. For example, in most European languages, ‘actual’ means ‘current’ and ‘concurrency’ means ‘competition’. In the field of cryptocurrency, ‘DAO’ means ‘project’ and ‘official’ means ‘scam’.”
Chain detective ZachXBT posted on the X platform that American rapper Lil Pump tried to claim that his social account was hacked, even though he had promoted multiple scams before. The screenshots he disclosed showed that Lil Pump had previously posted a post promoting the Meme coin lilpump, but the relevant post had been deleted.
ZachXBT also claimed that Lil Pump was involved in promoting cryptocurrency scams as early as 2022.
Cathie Wood: Ethereum spot ETF approval is related to cryptocurrency becoming an election issue
ARK Invest CEO and Chief Investment Officer Cathie Wood stated at the 2024 Consensus Conference that the Ethereum spot ETF application was approved because cryptocurrency was an election issue.
“The interpretation was that it would not be approved, absolutely not approved,” she said in an interview. “If it was approved in the normal way, we would be questioned by the SEC. But no one had received such a question before.”
Wood also said the evolving mood in the House of Representatives around the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT 21), which passed last week with bipartisan support, suggests this could be an election-year issue.
In addition, she said ARK Invest will allocate a certain percentage of private fund revenue to support Bitcoin developers, ensuring they receive continued support regardless of the profitability of the ETF.
Wood added that while the Solana ETF may be approved, a meme-focused fund is unlikely to be approved because large brokerage firms and investment advisory firms will not accept funds outside of “the majors.” (CoinDesk)
Investment and Financing
Babylon completes $70 million in new round of financing, led by Paradigm
Bitcoin staking project Babylon announced a $70 million round of funding led by Paradigm, with participation from Polychain Capital, the venture capital arm of cryptocurrency exchange Bullish (also CoinDesks parent company), HashKey Capital, Mantle, HackVC, ViaBTC Capital, Amber, imToken, Breyer Capital, IOSG, HTX Venture and LD Capital. The latest round of funding follows the $18 million raised in December last year. (Coindesk)
Neynar, which provides developers with tools to build decentralized social networks, announced the completion of a $11 million Series A financing round, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from a16z, CSX, Coinbase Ventures and Union Square Ventures. Currently, most developers using Neynar services are developing social applications on Farcaster, which plays a quite critical role in this journey because it minimizes the contact points between users who are tired of encryption and the underlying blockchain, creating an experience similar to Web2 applications such as Instagram or X. (fortune)
According to official news, the decentralized secure computing project ARPA Network has completed a $6 million strategic round of financing, with participation from Nomuras Laser Digital and DeFiance Capital, Animoca Ventures, Metrics Ventures, ArkStream Capital and Trinito. ARPA Network has also previously received a multi-million dollar strategic investment from DWF Labs to promote the development of decentralized computing solutions.
