Sign in Subscribe
4 min read

DeFi Developer News 2/26-3/1: Perpetual Protocol Audit Contest, MEV-Boost 1.7 (Required Upgrade), Frog Makes Frames Easier

If you haven't already, sign up to get our low noise weekly newsletter.

Grants & Contests💰

  • Perpetual Protocol launched a security audit contest for Perp v3 with 150k USDC in rewards. The contest started on Feb 26 and will end on Mar 18.

Hackathons & Events 🧑‍💻

  • Solana Renaissance Hackathon is a global Solana hackathon running from March 4 to April 8. There are prizes & pre-seed funding up for grabs.
  • Colosseum published the Solana Renaissance Hackathon developer resources page, a one-stop shop for everything technical builders will need during the competition and beyond.

Research 🧑‍🔬

  • 0xAphaist published Frequent Batch Auction on SUAVE.
  • Ethereum researchers released a paper to present a game theoretic model of simultaneous liquidity provision by passive LPs

Tooling 🛠

  • Celenium 1.7 is out. This version brings enhancements for Celestia users, including a validators list & pages, a revamped block page with events, a transaction tab with filters, etc.
  • Paradigm developer Gakonst released Frog, an open-source framework for Farcaster developers to build "performant and lightweight Frames in just a few blocks of code."
  • Remix v0.44.0 is out. The release enables saving deployed contracts, Sindri integration, and Vyper compiler updates.
  • Eiger has released its first series of Celestia creates for Rust developers.
  • Squads introduced Squads Github Action for program upgrades. Teams can now propose a new program upgrade directly when running their customized workflow.

Education 🧑‍🏫

  • The Encode Club x Solana Bootcamp Spring cohort is live. This is a free, 6-week course starting on 25th Mar and offers deep dives into Rust, Solana's tech & hands-on project building.
  • Developer shafu published the "EVM from scratch" book. The book is open source and still a work in progress.
  • pcaversaccio wrote a short guide on how to get started with Vyper modules (Vyper v0.4.0 release coming soon).

Infrastructure 🏗

Ethereum

  • Nethermind released Juno v0.10.0. This update introduces experimental support for peer-to-peer (P2P) syncing on the Sepolia test network.
  • Reth 0.1.0-alpha.21 is out. This follow up release includes a fix of a critical bug during live sync that could lead to panic or a bad state, as well as OP-reth updates, performance improvements, and RPX fixes.
  • Nimbus v24.2.2 is out, a hotfix release addressing a consensus violation issue affecting Deneb-transitioned networks such as Holešky.
  • Geth v1.13.14 out, featuring minor blob pool polishes and the reduction of the blob pool capacity from 10GB to 2.5GB to avoid surprises during/after the Cancun fork.
  • Flashbots MEV-Boost release v1.7 is out. This is a Required upgrade for the upcoming mainnet Dencun fork on March 13 13:55:35 UTC.
  • Coinbase Cloud has begun rolling out support for Nethermind — with support for Erigon close behind.
  • Pontem Lumio is now on mainnet with EVM capabilities as ‘SuperLumio’ to join the Optimism Superchain.
  • Ethereum Dencun is scheduled for mainnet activation at epoch 29696, occurring March 13 13:55 UTC.
  • The Ethereum ACDE call #182 discussed testing updates for the Dencun upgrade and several candidate EIPs for the Pectra. 

L2s

  • Arbitrum ArbOs 20 Atlas upgrade will activate on Arbitrum Sepolia at 13:00 ET on Feb 29, 2024. Arbitrum Sepolia node operators need to upgrade to Nitro v2.3.0.
  • OP Chains Ecotone upgrade will launch on Thurs., March 14 at 00:00:01UTC. Node operators need to take steps to prepare for the upgrade.
  • Modulus Labs unveiled Remainder, a ZMKL prover that achieved a mere 180x proof generation overhead vs. the same (non-verifiable) computation on an M2 Mac.
  • The Elderberry upgrade is now live on Polygon zkEVM testent. The upgrade includes ROM optimizations that will reduce certain out-of-counter errors on the network.
  • Polygon Labs released Sepolia-anchored testnets for Polygon PoS and Polygon zkEVM: Amoy and Cardona.
  • StarkWare announced Stwo Pover, built based on the recent mathematical advancement of Circle-STARKs.
  • ArbOS 20 Atlas, which brings the Dencun upgrade to Arbitrum chains, has been activated on Arbitrum Sepolia as of Feb 29 2024 13:00 ET

Avalanche

  • Avalanche Developers started a HyperSDK Developer Community Call series. During last week's session, developers discuss details of the codebase, HyperSDK roadmap, and potential first use cases.
  • Connor Chevli, Avalanche's frontend tech lead, released Avalanche Warp Messaging and Teleporter updates, with C-Chain Testnet support and Subnet EVM support.
  • Avalanche Durango 2 is out. This version (v1.11.2) is backward compatible to v1.11.0. It is optional but strongly recommended for all node operators.

Security 👾

  • OpenZeppelin has launched Defender 2.0 into general availability. Defender 2.0 is a security platform that allows developers to code, audit, deploy, monitor, and operate blockchain apps.
  • OpenZeppelin Contracts 5.0.2 is out, with a fix to the Base64 library issue where dirty memory located just after the input buffer is affecting the result.

Bug Bounties 🐞

  • ZeroLend is a lending market on zkSync and Manta Network. The Bug Bounty Boost will go live on Feb 29 with 200,000 USD in the reward pool.
  • Ambire Wallet is a DeFi-focused smart wallet that aims to provide better UX than Metamask, while still having power user features.
    • Smart Contract: 3,000-80,000
  • Orderly Network is the permissionless liquidity layer for web3.
    • Smart Contract: 1,000-100,000
    • Websites: 1,000-10,000

Product Launches 🚀

  • Blast L2 mainnet is live. Early users can now bridge to Blast Mainnet and start to earn native yields, Blast Points (users), and Blast Gold (dapps).
  • Babylon Chain, a Bitcoin staking protocol that adopts the concept of native Bitcoin staking, launches testnet. Users can now stake Singet Bitcoin (sBTC) on Bayblon to get the Pioneer Pass NFT.
  • Arweave launched the testnet for Arweave AO, a scalable blockchain network built on its data storage platform.
  • Mint Blockchain, an L2 for NFTs, launches testnet for users and developers to bridge funds and deploy contracts.
  • Synapse launched testnets for Synapse Interchain Network and Synapse Chain.
  • Curve has deployed contracts for Llama Lend, Curve’s isolated lending markets. The UI is not live, users can interact directly with the code.
  • Ajna introduced the Juiced App, an automated deposit protocol for Ajna markets. Juiced vaults take a single asset (like DAI or WETH) into a Yearn Vault, which maximizes the user’s yield in the protocol and manages their deposit.

DeFi Dev News is put together by Today in DeFi. If you have questions or comments, please reach out to support@todayindefi.com