Ethereum’s Ropsten testnet has successfully merged its Proof-of-Work execution layer with its Proof-of-Stake Beacon Chain, in a process identical to the one the main Ethereum network will undergo later this year.

Ethereum scaling startup Optimism has seen an attacker steal some 20 million OP governance tokens after interfering in a token recovery process involving market maker Wintermute.

South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit and Bithumb are delisting Litecoin, a cryptocurrency often referred to as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, over a recent update that enables greater privacy when conducting transactions.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Ethereum’s Ropsten Testnet Successfully Completes its Merge
• Attacker Steals 20 Million OP Tokens After Interfering in Recovery Process
• South Korean Exchanges Delist Litecoin Over Privacy Features
• What is Optimism (OP)?

Ethereum’s Ropsten Testnet Successfully Completes its Merge

Ethereum’s Ropsten testnet has successfully merged its Proof-of-Work execution layer with its Proof-of-Stake Beacon Chain, in a process identical to the one the main Ethereum network will undergo later this year.

The Ropsten Testnet was created in 2016 and is seen as one of the best replications of the Ethereum mainnet. Its resemblance allows developers to conduct realistic tests on it before implementing changes to the Ethereum network.

The Ethereum merge is a long-awaited milestone in Ethereum’s path towards its Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm. It will occur when the main Ethereum network, which currently uses a Proof-of-Work algorithm, merges with the Beacon Chain running in parallel to it.

The complexity of the merge requires developers to run multiple tests on various testnets. The Ropsten testnet merge is the first of its kind and will allow developers to gain information on the next steps necessary toward the mainnet merge.

Attacker Steals 20 Million OP Tokens After Interfering in Recovery Process

Ethereum scaling startup Optimism has seen an attacker steal some 20 million OP governance tokens after interfering in a token recovery process involving market maker Wintermute.

The OP token was launched at the end of May as part of a plan by the Ethereum scaling startup to decentralize how the protocol is governed. An airdrop was held to distribute OP tokens. Optimism “engaged Wintermute for liquidity provisioning services in an effort to facilitate a smoother experience for users acquiring OP to participate in Collective governance,” sending it a temporary grant of 20 million OP.

Things went awry after Wintermute mistakenly provided a multi-signature Ethereum address, a Gnosis safe, that hadn’t been deployed on Optimism yet. A recovery operation was started “with the goal to deploy the L1 multisig contract to the same address on L2.” Optimism’s team detailed that an attacker was then able to steal the tokens.

“Unfortunately, an attacker was able to deploy the multisig to L2 with different initialization parameters before the recovery operation was completed and took control of the 20 million OP tokens”

The address has since sold 1 million OP tokens, an amount Wintermute has purchased as well. The market maker has said it will “proceed to buy OP every time the attacker sells it to make the protocol whole eventually.”

South Korean Exchanges Delist Litecoin Over Privacy Features

South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit and Bithumb are delisting Litecoin, a cryptocurrency often referred to as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, over a recent update that enables greater privacy when conducting transactions.

In their notices, both cryptocurrency exchanges revealed they were set to stop supporting Litecoin over its newly activated Mimblewimble Extension Blocks (MWEB) upgrade, which conflicts with South Korean anti-money laundering (AML) regulations.

MWEB enables users to conceal transaction data with its confidentiality features while providing a foundation to improve a token’s usability. Through MWEB, transactions are only known between the sender and receiver.

The Litecoin Foundation notes that MWEB “can be seen as a literal extension from Litecoin’s main chain, or a parallel highway, via which you can send coins to the extension block and back to the main chain.”

Bithumb has already halted Litecoin deposits and is giving users until July 25 to withdraw their LTC from its platform. Upbit is moving to shut down Litecoin support on June 20, and is giving users until July 20 to withdraw.

What is Optimism (OP)?

Optimism (OP) is a layer-two smart contract network that aims to enable low-cost, near-instantaneous Ethereum transactions. Optimism speeds up Ethereum transactions and cuts their costs by settling them on another blockchain.

It uses a technique called optimism rollups, whereby multiple transactions are batched into one and settled on the Optimism layer, with data fed back to the main Ethereum network. Its rollups “optimistically” assume all transactions in them are valid.

Optimism was introduced in June 2019 and its testnet was released in October 2019. In January 2021, an alpha mainnet of Optimism was launched, but it took until October 2021 for Optimism to launch a network compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

68 hours of hacking: Premiere of the ZENCON Hackathon

Technology conference ZENCON attracted more than 200 innovative developers from around the world to compete for a total of USD 100,000 in prize money.

One thing is for sure: those who made their way to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, will continue to not get much sleep. The participants have already been fighting for victory in 24 different projects and five different challenges since Saturday.

The teams who arrived in Mexico have had 68 hours to come up with the best and most creative ideas to win one of the five grand prizes worth USD 20,000 each. They will be accompanied by professional mentors and judges who will watch their every move.

ZENCON is hosted by Dubai-based ZENIQ Technologies Ltd: "Our vision was to bring together some of the brightest minds in blockchain technology and challenge them to spend a weekend exploring the possibilities of our blockchain and building real-world use cases on our technology. Above all, we want people to learn from each other and share their experiences," says Erwin Dokter, Chief Executive Officer of ZENIQ.

Dokter and his team decided on Mexico as a location because the country's innovative strength has grown steadily in recent years. Topics such as blockchain are now also given a lot of space and time at universities and research institutions.

In total, more than 11,000 applications were received for the 200 coveted participant places. Over the past months, a team of ZENIQ developers and members of the management team selected the best 200 applications.

The main goal of the event is to bring the power of ZENIQ Smartchain to a wide range of developers from different backgrounds.  ZENCON will be presented by ZENIQ partners Avinoc and Tupan. Both companies will soon bring their projects to the ZENIQ Smartchain.

 

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