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We are welcoming you to our weekly digest! Here we discuss the latest trends and advancements in account abstraction, as well as bring some insights from Etherspot’s kitchen.
Please fasten your belts!
Vitalik Buterin suggests Account Abstraction for quantum resilience
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently enlightened the community about a quantum-computing shield during an AMA session on the decentralized social network Warpcast. This came after a recent episode where his account was compromised.
As quantum computing edges towards reality, the threats it poses to blockchain technologies are becoming real. Buterin’s solution requires a hard fork?—?a non-backward compatible upgrade?—?for its implementation, which, upon execution, would allow users to confirm mnemonic phrases via ZK-STARK technology and recover their Externally Owned Accounts (EOA) addresses.
This proactive approach underscores the community’s resolve to stay ahead of potential quantum threats and ensure the security and integrity of user accounts.
The AMA session also touched on a myriad of topics, including the progress of prediction markets like Polymarket and the Ethereum lottery project PoolTogether.
Amid the discussion, Buterin also shared his penchant for cities like Singapore and Toronto, giving a personal touch to a deeply technical discourse.
Ethereum enshrinement: Quest for a balanced protocol
one of our recent newsletters, we’ve already touched on the news that the Ethereum community is buzzing with a revived debate on ‘enshrinement.’ The discourse revolves around whether to integrate more elements into the core of the Ethereum network protocol or to decentralize them to its edges.
The co-founder of Blockworks, Michael Ippolito, and Myles O’Neil, an associate at Reverie, broached this topic on the Bell Curve podcast
They drew parallels between blockchain governance and governmental or operating system structures. O’Neil emphasized that similar to how operating systems have built-in applications to enhance user experience, certain utilities within Ethereum may need to be ‘enshrined’ to foster a healthy ecosystem.
However, the counterargument stresses that such a move could stifle innovation, likening it to a form of centralized control that might deter future entrepreneurs. The discussion extends to envisioning Ethereum as an operating system where built-in applications serve and protect consumers yet also deter competition to some extent.
There is a crucial concern within the Ethereum community: finding the optimal balance between a robust core protocol and an encouraging environment for third-party innovations.
This discussion is symbolic of the broader dialogue within the blockchain space regarding the degree of decentralization and its impact on user experience, innovation, and the overall health of the ecosystem.
Scroll confirms mainnet launch
The Ethereum ecosystem has welcomed a new player in its quest for scalability with the mainnet launch of Scroll, a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) layer 2 solution.
The Scroll team officially announced the launch on October 17, though blockchain data suggests the mainnet was live since October 8. This development is a great step forward for existing Ethereum applications and developer toolkits, as they can now migrate to this new scalable domain.
Scroll aims to significantly lower transaction costs while ramping up throughput for decentralized applications on Ethereum. It achieves this by batching thousands of transactions off-chain into one and then submitting a succinct proof to Ethereum’s mainnet.
The journey to this milestone spanned 15 months of rigorous testing and security audits across three separate testnets, with over 450,000 smart contracts deployed, enabling over 90 million transactions across 9 million blocks.
Notably, Etherspot’s Skandha contracts are deployed on the Scroll mainnet.
Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang that while the launch will initially have centralized features, the roadmap includes plans for progressive decentralization to eliminate single points of failure and encourage community involvement.
Developers prefer Starknet and zkSync to all other crypto projects
In the past year, the number of developers in many crypto platforms has gone down. However, went against this trend, attracting more developers, according to Electric Capital’s developer report
Starknet saw a 3% increase, while zkSync saw a 6% increase. This is in contrast to big platforms like Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana, which lost developers by 23%, 43%, and 57%, respectively.
Starknet and zkSync are both working on making Ethereum faster, which might be why they are seeing more developers join them. Starknet has a special project called ‘Quantum Leap’ to speed up transactions on Ethereum.
On the other hand, zkSync is working on creating a network of “hyperchains” to help different systems work better together.
These efforts are likely what’s making more developers interested in Starknet and zkSync, even when other platforms are losing developers.
The general drop in developers across other platforms shows a challenging time for the crypto space, but Starknet and zkSync are shining as spots of growth and excitement.
??Web3 Developers! You can remove UX frictions in your dApp by implementing ERC4337 with Skandha Bundler! It already supports 21 chains??
Etherspot’s Dev Portal is coming soon, but until then, enjoy unlimited Bundler access. Get your exclusive API key by Oct 31st
ERC-4337 dev update: Meeting #20
Last week’s ERC-4337 development call shed light on several advancements and challenges.
The Voltaire and Silius teams have completed the P2P implementation and are progressing with full-fledged testing.
Rundler’s feature development reached completion and is awaiting a PR merge.
Work on the Hive test simulation continues.
A unique scenario was discussed regarding bundler interactions and the propagation of User Operations (UOs) across different mempools, revealing a challenge in libp2p’s gossipsub implementation. Two solutions were proposed, but a final decision was deferred, with plans to seek advice from the libp2p team.
Discussions also explored enabling bundlers to efficiently connect to peers supporting specific alt-mempools, addressing concerns over potential clique formations.
The detailed feedback and a recording of the meeting are available for those interested in diving deeper into the discussions.
??This digest is sponsored by TransactionKit
TransactionKit is a smart account React library designed for fast and simple Web3 development. It offers:
- A comprehensive suite of React components (token transfers, approvals and contract calls)
- Gasless transactions and transaction batching
- Complete UI design freedom
- Compatible with 20+ chains
Start exploring Account Abstraction with Etherspot!
- Learn more about account abstraction
- our docs and read all about the Etherspot SDK.
- Skandha — developer-friendly Typescript ERC4337 Bundler.
- Explore our TransactionKit, a React library for fast & simple Web3 development.
For a plug & play integration, review the BUIDLer react component
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