Last month, our article in The Protocol highlighted how the blockchain design principle “intentions” was gaining ascendancy among developers at the forefront of the industry. This week, our Sam Kessler is back with the scoop on how popular crypto wallet MetaMask, from Ethereum developer Consensys, quietly rolled out a version of an intent-based routing mechanism that could revolutionize the way users interact with blockchains.
MOORE IS MORE. Co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterinthe de facto high priest of the world's largest smart contract blockchain, launched last week on a Reddit “Ask me anything” that it would be “reasonable” to increase the network’s “gas limit” – a very technical way of referring to the amount of transactions that can be obtained. stuck in each new block. He suggested an increase to “40 million or so”, implying a 33% increase from the current limit of 30 million gas. (Yes, for the uninitiated, a unit of gas, in this context, is just… a gas.) The main reason why this is now possible, according to Buterin, is Moore's law – the observation that computing power seems double every year. This is relevant because of the amount of data needed to store the “state” of Ethereum – the complete record of blockchain history; As computers become more powerful, they should theoretically be able to handle higher transaction capacity, which could potentially help lower fees for end users. “There seems to be a constructive desire to explore this topic further”, analysts at Coinbase Institutional wrote. But some members of the Ethereum community have raised yellow flags. Péter Szilágyi, Ethereum developer, tweeted that such an increase could slow down the network's “synchronization time.” Galaxy Research's Christine Kim wrote in a weekly newsletter that “larger blocks would certainly increase block propagation latency and potentially lead a higher number of missed blocks.” Marius van der Wijden, Ethereum software developer, estimated that the network status is currently around 87 gigabytes (GB) and growing by 2 GB per month. That would put it at 111GB in one year and 207GB in five years. In an age where a 1 terabyte USB stick can be purchased on Amazon.com for $19.99, it doesn't look very intimidating. “The problem here is not the size itself,” van der Wijden wrote. “Anyone will be able to store this amount of data. However, accessing and modifying it will become slower and slower.” There seems to be some consensus on one point: it's worth waiting a bit to see the impact of the next one.”Dencun“network upgrade, which will introduce a new way of storing data in the form of “blobs”, effectively providing an increase in capacity.
THE BLACK DRAGON BREATHES FIRE: Just two months later NEAR protocol Co-founder Illia Polosukhin took over as director of the NEAR Foundation, he announced drastic cuts last week in the organization's workforce – impacting 35 colleagues, a reduction of 40%. According to Polosukhin, the decision came after a “thorough review of the foundation's activities,” which resulted in comments that “the foundation was not always as effective as it could have been.” Polosukhin noted that the financial situation remains healthy, with over $285 million in “fiat” or government-issued currencies and 305 million NEAR tokens “worth over $1 billion,” as well as $70 million in investments and loans. Referred to in foundation communications as “black Dragon” Polosukhin could be under pressure to breathe new life into the alternative layer 1 blockchain, which ranks 32nd among networks based on the closely watched metric of total value locked, or TVL, according to Lama DeFi. NEAR is notably trying new strategies, pivoting last year to serve as “Data availability” network and enter into an agreement with the pioneer EigenLabs to create a “quick finality layer” for Ethereum layer 2 networks.
ONE BETTER THAN TWO: The Binance incubate BNB Channel the ecosystem announced a plan called “Fusion” which will see the original BNB Beacon Chain decommissioned while reinforcing the primacy of sister BNB Smart Chain. According to a statement on the open source software platform GitHub, the proposal will help “overcome existing services and technical debt, enabling faster iteration and development.” According to Wu Blockchain newsletter“BNB Beacon Chain is expected to leave the scene in the next six months.”
Highlight blockchain technology upgrades and developments.
1. Taikodeveloping a so-called type 1 zkEVM to help evolve the Ethereum blockchain, announcement the launch of “Katla”, its alpha-6 testnet, according to a message from the team: “Katla lays the foundation for the launch of Taiko's mainnet in 2024.”2. Parallel network has officially launched on mainnet and is open to developers, according to the team, claiming to be the first Layer 2 network on Arbitrum Orbit to go live. “It is also the first non-custodial omni-chain margining protocol, which allows liquidity to be pooled across multiple chains and made immediately available on the parallel network.”
3. Chain links The Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) has integrated The circle According to a press release, the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) allows users to easily transfer USDC between chains. Developers can now create cross-chain use cases via CCIP that involve cross-chain transfers of USDC, including payments and other DeFi interactions, the release said.
4. The Hedera Council announcement its newest member, electronics manufacturer Hitachi America, Ltd. (Hitachi). According to the team: “Hitachi aims to begin creating proofs of concept for end-to-end supply chain and sustainability solutions on Hedera within the next year. »
5. Lagrange Laboratoriesdeveloper of a blockchain proof system based on zero-knowledge cryptography, has integrated its light client protocol, Lagrange State Committees (LSC), for the Ethereum layer-2 network Mantle, according to the team. LSCs” are a ZK lightweight client protocol for optimistic rollups (ORU), designed by combining Lagrange's ZK MapReduce coprocessor and EigenLayer rollback. Each state board borrows the security of Ethereum by double staking, both via EigenLayer restoration and with the rollup's native token.”
6. Hacka blockchain security auditor, introduced a Rust open source library for code coverage generation for WASM-based protocols, according to the team: “Code coverage utilities are crucial for automation testing to ensure the rigor of code review. Without this, some critical components may remain untested. Although it is available for Ethereum-based projects, WASM-based Radix protocols do not have it. Hacken's Wasmcov is already integrated into the Radix ecosystem, allowing all projects built by Radix to use the code coverage metric. The next protocol to obtain it will be NEAR. The rest can configure it manually. “
MetaMask’s Secret “Intents” Project Could Radically Change How Users Interact with Blockchains
MetaMask has quietly rolled out a limited version of its new routing technology in the new Smart Swaps feature. (MetaMask, modified by CoinDesk)
MetaMask, the most popular crypto wallet on Ethereum, is testing a new “transaction routing” technology that is likely to have major consequences for how value flows across the second-largest blockchain network.
CoinDesk learned about the new technology from developers briefed on the plan, and key details were later confirmed by officials at MetaMask parent company Consensys.
The effort capitalizes on a concept known in blockchain circles as “intentions” which is rapidly gaining momentum, potentially leading to a step change in how people interact with blockchains: rather than specifying how if they want to do something (e.g. “sell tokens X on exchange Y for price Z”), blockchain users may only need to specify What they want the outcome to be (e.g. “I want the best price for my tokens”).
The distinction between “what” and “how” may seem subtle, but it’s a significant departure from how MetaMask and other crypto wallets originally worked – as neutral, relatively simple software for connecting users. to blockchains. The goal of the new technology is for users to achieve better trade execution and greater ease of use, but intent-based programs ultimately represent a significant shift in where – and to whom – value circulates on blockchains.
The new technology is built by Special Mechanisms Group (SMG), a blockchain infrastructure company that MetaMask owner Consensys purchased last year.
We finally got to read the excellent report from Messari analyst Seth Bloomberg, published a few weeks ago and entitled: “The Onchain Economy of ZK Rollups. “It provides a good overview of competition among major Layer 2 Ethereum networks in late 2023. The report reinforced the oft-repeated observation that “publishing data (or making data available) generally remains the cost highest on-chain for rollups”. – thus highlighting the importance of Ethereum's upcoming “Dencun” upgrade, which is supposed to lead to drastic reductions in these expenses. But there are of course different ways to manage data, and the zkSync Era project is notable for “only publishing state differences on Ethereum,” while most rollup networks “publish full rollup transaction data.” the report: “Simply put, publishing status differences means that if two users send each other ETH and other tokens multiple times, only the clear differences in their account balances should be published on Ethereum instead of the full transaction history between the two users. “The result? ZkSync Era has the lowest average transaction costs, at 18 cents, considered a bargain compared to Polygon zkEVM's 45 cents.