Epic Web3 – events in AI and Web3 industries

Another week, another hack: weekly Web3 news:

🔐 Ledger Breach Hits Ethereum Apps
Major security breach at Ledger affects Ethereum apps like Zapper and SushiSwap. Users advised to 'Clear Sign' transactions. Impact and loss still being assessed.

📈 Cronos Unveils zkEVM Chain
Cronos launches new L2 network, Cronos zkEVM, set for mainnet in Q2 2024. Testnet coming next year

⛑ Safe's New RecoveryHub Service
Safe partners with Sygnum and Coincover to launch Safe RecoveryHub, offering blended recovery options for crypto users, enhancing security without losing account control.

📝Will games continue to dominate the dApps in the next year?

Though their daily unique active wallets dropped by 16%, they are still the biggest category in the dApps field

Why public state in blockchains doesn't scale

Keynote from Dominik Schmid, Product Manager at Polygon Labs

Different types of modular blockchains → from monolithic to completely modular

🟢Monolithic: they do everything on their own without relying on other blockchains.

🟢Polylithic: have multiple chains linked together, splitting the network into parts.

🟢Semi-Modular: mix their core functions with external systems, handling some tasks internally and delegating others to specialized networks. They can still process transactions independently.

🟢Modular: these blockchains are built for specific tasks and can't handle all functions on their own.

🌟Epic Web3 events - the year 2024

Happy to announce the next events in 2024 year!

😎Be sure to check them out to meet with the big brains of the Web3:
https://lu.ma/u/epicweb3

Wanna become our partner?
Contact us at olly@epicweb3.com or @olyakovalieva

Honey, it's time for your weekly digest:

💰 Babylon: $18M Funding
Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon closes an $18M Series A round led by Polychain and Hack VC, enabling Bitcoin staking on PoS blockchains.

🚀 Ronin x Impossible Finance
Ronin partners with Impossible Finance to launch a Web3 game launchpad, enhancing blockchain gaming and NFT experiences.

🔄 LayerZero's ZRO Token
LayerZero confirms ZRO token, set for distribution in H1 2024, reinforcing their commitment to omnichain interoperability.

What is data availability & what are the main challenges with scaling it in the rollups👇

🤖Explanation from Firat Sertgoz, Engineering Manager at NEARProtocol and PagodaPlatform

🔥Why Vitalik Buterin is talking about Plasma chains again?

Last Vitalik's keynote on L2 days was all about Plasma Chains. Ethereum founders thinks, that in some time they can make a comeback.

Plasma networks, considered "child" chains of the Ethereum mainnet, conduct transactions independently and periodically report final states to the mainnet.

😕There were some problems with Plasma chains

Mainly, client-side data storage costs, exit challenges and defragmentation protocols

☝️But zk-SNARKS can resolve these issues

Zk-SNARKs prove data accuracy without revealing content. Validity proofs, and cryptographic evidence, efficiently tackle Plasma's challenge in payments and data storage. They enable creation a Plasma-like chain running an EVM.

How NEAR Data Availability Layer works😎

Explanation from Firat Sertgoz, Engineering Manager @ Pagoda

Happy Winter!

Here’s the top 3 weekly news to fuel either your rage or happiness:

💸 Wormhole Secures Massive Funding
Wormhole, a leading blockchain interoperability protocol, raised a colossal $225M in a funding round, reaching a $2.5B valuation. This is the biggest raise funding of November.

Major investors included Brevan Howard Digital, Coinbase Ventures, and others. Earlier, Wormhole partnered with Borderless Capital for a $50M Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund, featuring collaboration from Aptos Labs, Polygon Ventures, Solana Foundation, and more.

🚨 KyberSwap Hacker Strikes Again
The KyberSwap hacker issued on-chain demands on Nov. 30. These include control of KyberSwap, authority over KyberDAO, access to all company documents, and claim over the company's assets.

🔬 American Cancer Society Embraces Web3 for Research
The American Cancer Society has partnered with Gitcoin, an open-source funding platform. This collaboration marks ACS’s foray into web3, utilizing Gitcoin's platform for the ACS Cares program and Crisis Response Fund.

Why do we need app-specific chains

App-specific chain is the type of blockchain, designed to be used for one app. Instead of building on top of Ethereum, you develop your own chain from scratch.

This solution provides a ton of benefits:
🟢Customizability: developers can choose whatever stack they like
🟢Sovereignty: appchain works independently from other systems, so if some other system “crashes”, appchain would still work
🟢Costs: the app doesn't compete for block space, so there is no gas fees growth.

But it also has drawbacks. Main are:
🟢Lack of composability: different apps would need to interact by bridging, which requires block space.
🟢Running price: infrastructure is built from scratch and requires money & team to run.

It's time for your daily Web3 tech coaching!🤓

Today we explain different types of ZK-EVMs

☝️Type 1: Full Ether Equivalence mirrors Ethereum exactly, maintaining seamless compatibility with its blocks and smart contracts. It's built without alterations for proof generation ease, thus proof creation is time-consuming as Ethereum wasn’t designed for this tech initially.

💻Type 2: Full EVM Equivalence mimics Ethereum's VM with changes in block/data structure. It's largely compatible with existing Ethereum apps, needing minor tweaks. Proof generation is still slow but quicker than Type 1.

🏎Type 3: Almost Equivalent to EVM, it alters or removes certain features for quicker, easier proof generation. Faster and simpler to build than Types 1 and 2, it presents more incompatibilities, requiring possible rewrites for existing apps

🦖Type 4 uses high-level languages for zero-knowledge proofs, offering fast proof generation. It converts these languages into a proof-friendly format, but has limited compatibility with Ethereum apps, especially those reliant on Ethereum's technical details.

Layer 1 horizontal vs vertical scaling: what’s better?📝

With vertical scaling, you increase the power of the nodes in your system.

With horizontal, you just add more nodes to the blockchain.

What’s better? Well, it depends on available time & team.

🗓Vertical scaling is easy to implement but has its effectiveness capped.

📊On the flip side, horizontal scaling is better for the overall system throughput but requires a bit more time in the development oven.

Generally, having fewer powerful nodes is easier to achieve & may make things faster in the short term. But it lowers decentralization, resistance to censorship & transparency, the core values for Web3.

Web3 Weekly Digest — top 3 important news

💰CZ Binance is under scrutiny
CZ and Binance faced charges for not having effective anti-money laundering programs and violating U.S. economic sanctions. In the settlement, Binance agreed to give up $2.5 billion and pay a $1.8 billion fine. Also, CZ stepped down as CEO of Binance.

🤯Blast is the blast
New Ethereum L2 Blast has raised $20M in a funding round & also has surpassed over $120M in TVL after launch.

However, the project is criticized for using Ponzi-like schemes with its rewards for inviting new people.

🤬KyberSwap DEX is hacked
On November 23, KyberSwap, a multi-chain DEX aggregator, suffered a smart contract reentrancy attack, resulting in around $47 million in losses across various networks and a 90% decline in Total Value Locked

Now KyberSwap offers a 10% bounty to the hacker for discovering exploit.

Top advantages of app-specific chains👍

Check out the full version here

Some of our favorite photos from the ETH Infra Day last week!📸

Thank you, folks, for attending! Looking forward to seeing you at the next events!😘