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Optimism Will Roll Out Single-Click Launch For Ethereum Projects

Many layer 2 solutions are competing on being the most active in developments. Amid these scaling solutions in Optimism, and given its latest announcement, it will soon enable developers to launch DApps with just a single click of a button.

Optimism provides support for all the apps on the Ethereum ecosystem. It ensures that transaction fees are lower by keeping its data on the blockchain but running computation off-chain.

The team’s latest blog reveals that an upcoming upgrade will facilitate the launch of DApps on its layer. This means that every tool running on Ethereum will also run on Optimism.

Latest Upgrade To Provide Support For Ethereum Protocols

The disclosure by the Optimism team assures the developer’s community that the upgrade will help them to simplify the process of launching their decentralized apps. Also, this simplicity stems across features such as gas and traces. Developers targeting Geth now have the opportunity to launch without changing their codes.

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Optimism disclosed that it had overhauled the codes. As a result, it can now go beyond being compatible Ethereum Virtual Machine only to become an EVM equivalence by making its protocol efficient and lightweight.

One of the steps the team took to reduce the protocol’s load was to delete its custom compiler. It also deleted over 25,000 lines of codes as it upgraded.

According to the post, the team asserts that developing the “EVM-compliant rollup” is not very easy given that it aims to support the whole Ethereum stack. Moreover, to also implement the security features which EVM requires will also cost a lot of money. However, it is mandatory because every line of codes added to the system comes with possible vulnerabilities.

Optimism Pursuing Compatibility

As for now, the layer 2 scaling solution is now fully equivalent with EVM using Geth. Though it is working to become compatible with alternative node implementations such as Erigon and OpenEthereum using below one thousand lines of codes. The team disclosed that they hadn’t changed the security model of the protocol even with this release.

The reason behind the growth of Optimism is the move from Ethereum mainnet to other chains & layer 2 solutions compatible with EVM

Ethereum has fallen by 7% in 24 hours | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

The migration of capital from Ethereum to these other solutions was to reduce the high fees characterizing transactions carried out on its base layer.

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The information from Dune Analytics even reveals that another rollup network Arbitrum has a TVL of $2.62 billion, which is the largest ETH Bridge. This rival protocol went live three weeks ago, and it is already making waves.

But it is not the only protocol as Polygon ERC-20 Bridge emerged after Arbitrum and is now boasting $2.35 billion in TVL. After Polygon came, Avalanche Bridge and Fantom Anyswap Bridge and each now record $1.86 billion and $476 million, respectively.

Featured image from Forbes, chart from TradingView.com

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Cream Finance Loses $25 Million To A Flash Loan Attack

PeckShield reported through a tweet of the new hack on Cream Finance. The blockchain security company said a flash loan attack on the decentralized finance lending and borrowing protocol.

#FlashLoanAlert https://t.co/JPW7e368qd

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) August 30, 2021

PeckShield explained that the hacking came through a 500 Ethereum flash loan from the attacker. This was used to infiltrate a reentrancy bug in the smart contract of the Flex Network. Usually, flash loans being undercollateralized can be borrowed and repaid within a single transaction.

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As a DeFi protocol for lending, Cream Finance allows users to earn interest from their deposited assets. Though Cream Finance is a fork of the Compound protocol, its operation is quite different from Compound or Aave. The platform has several more markets for some esoteric digital assets.

1/4 @CreamFinance was exploited in (one hack tx: https://t.co/JPW7e368qd), leading to the gain of ~$18.8M for the hacker.

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) August 30, 2021

This attack on Cream Finance was exploitation involving 1,308 Ethereum and over 418 million AMP, the native token of Flexa Network. According to PechShield, the Ethereum records reveal that over $6 million were hacked at 5:44 UTC.

Cream Finance Becomes Another DeFi Protocol Hacked In 2021

Furthermore, the Cream Finance team members confirmed the authenticity of the hacking reporting. Then, reporting on Discord Channel, the project’s official channel, the members started working with PeckShield.

The team revealed that the hacking was on the CREAM v1 market on the Ethereum Blockchain. Furthermore, they mentioned that it’s through the reentrancy of the contract on the AMP token.

At the time of writing, AMP’s value has dipped by 15% within few hours to $0.05. Also, the value of Cream Finance’s native token, CREAM, plummeted by about 6%.

However, ETH is at $3, 190.46 showing a slight dipping within the last 24 hours. The total amount of the Crean Finance hacking is more than $25 million. The address of the hackers shows that they presently have about $18.8 million.

Amidst the hack, Cream Finance is down by 6% | Source: CREAMUSD on TradingView.com

The Cream Finance team has put a stop to any further loss. The team said that it now has a pause on AMP’s supply and borrow. It further acknowledged that the hack doesn’t affect any other market. Eason Wu, the protocol’s production Manger, disclosed this information on Discord.

Recall that earlier in the year; Cream Finance had a huge hack. The attack led to the loss of $37.5 million worth of digital assets. According to the report, the earlier hacking had a root cause from the exploitation of Alpha Finance.

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Flash loans have remained one of the controversial features of decentralized finance. This’s because there’s no collateral needed for the loans, and hence, they are susceptible to hacks. This accounts for the recent attacks and hacks of flash loans.

A similar incident is a hack on the Bilaxy crypto exchange on August 28. The exchange had a huge hot wallet hack that compromised about 295 ERC-20 tokens. Also, a hack on Liquid on August 19 resulted in a loss of about $100 million.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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The USDC Stablecoin Will Soon Expand Its Reach To 10 More Networks

The second biggest stablecoin by market capitalization is already a multi-blockchain project. Soon, though, USDC will live almost everywhere. According to Coindesk, it will soon be available in, “Avalanche, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Kava, Nervos, Polkadot, Stacks, Tezos, and Tron.” That will bring the total to 14; since USDC is already functional in Ethereum, Algorand, Stellar, and Solana.

The biggest stablecoin, Tether or USDT, is only available in 8 of those. Currently, the most used stablecoin is Tron’s version of USDT. 

Related Reading | Is USDC’s Billion Dollar Growth A Sign Crypto Smart Money Is Ditching Tether?

With that in mind, CENTRE said:

“We anticipate that USDC on these blockchain platforms and multichain protocols will further accelerate the use of the world’s fastest growing digital dollar currency.”

The consortium that runs USDC, CENTRE, is a joint venture between Coinbase and payments processor Circle. The information comes from, “a draft announcement from USDC administrator CENTRE obtained by CoinDesk.”

USDC market cap for 06/30/2016 - TradingView

USDC market capitalization | Source: TradingView.com

What Is USDC And How Does It Work?

For this, we have to go back to the academy. Coinzilla informs us:

USDC is one of the fastest-growing stablecoins pegged 1 to 1 to the US Dollar.

What is more remarkable is that Circle, the company that developed the stablecoin, is actually holding the amount of money required for backing the USDC in circulation. 

That’s definitely a shot at USDT. Tether’s audit and legal issues have been a topic of contention in the cryptocurrency community for a while now. Can they back all the Tether they’ve minted? A burning question that’s harder to answer than you’d think. 

For what is worth, USDC’s April independent audit is on the public record and says:

  • USD Coin (“USDC”) tokens issued and outstanding less tokens allowed but not issued (218,807,037) and less blacklisted tokens = 14,697,267,257 USDC  

  • US Dollars held in custody accounts are at least equal or greater than the USDC tokens outstanding at the Report Date and Time. 

Back to Coinzilla’s academy, the stablecoin’s characteristics are:

In essence, USD Coin is an ERC-20 token that functions through the Ethereum Network. Nowadays, USDC transactions can also be settled through Algorand, Solana, and Stellar’s infrastructures.

Since the launch of USDC 2.0, the payment process is simplified, the gas fees being paid directly in USDC. 

Related Reading | Circle’s Stablecoin USDC Passes Independent Audit, Fully Backed by USD

Stablecoins Are Supposed To Rule The USA in 2021

The official love affair between the US government and stablecoins started last January, when Jeremy Allaire from Circle announced that, “the largest US banking regulator with new guidance allowing US banks to use public blockchains and dollar stablecoins as a settlement infrastructure in the US financial system.” According to him, “Decentralized, permissionless, open source and internet mediated software is literally becoming the foundation for not just the US financial system but for the global economy.”

Recently, Randal K. Quarles, the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chair for Supervision, considerably raised the stakes:

In my judgment, we do not need to fear stablecoins. The Federal Reserve has traditionally supported responsible private-sector innovation. Consistent with this tradition, I believe that we must take strong account of the potential benefits of stablecoins, including the possibility that a U.S. dollar stablecoin might support the role of the dollar in the global economy. For example, a global U.S. dollar stablecoin network could encourage use of the dollar by making cross-border payments faster and cheaper, and it potentially could be deployed much faster and with fewer downsides than a CBDC.

Will stablecoins like USDC and USDT substitute the Digital Dollar project? Could they be an alternative to CBDCs? We’ll have to wait and see.

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