<\/p>\n
Gratitude to all the developers and project leads who participated in the sections regarding their projects<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Over the past six weeks, the Ethereum network experienced an astounding surge in usage, culminating in it processing as many transactions per second as Bitcoin. To handle the heightened demand, which at times has hit the network\u2019s full capacity for several hours, the community united and miners voted to <\/span>raise the gas limit to 6.7 million<\/span><\/a>. At the Foundation, we have been swiftly allocating additional resources toward enhancing the network\u2019s efficiency while also devising long-term modifications that will significantly improve the network\u2019s scalability.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Metropolis testing is progressing quickly. We are actively searching for further assistance to complete the testing. See:<\/span> Ethereum core developer meetings #15-#19 were conducted. Notes and audio\/video recordings of the meetings can be accessed here: <\/span><\/a>https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\/pm\/tree\/master\/All%20Core%20Devs%20Meetings<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n During May-June, the Mist team held a team gathering: for one week, the team engaged in face-to <\/span>face meetings<\/span><\/a>, with some members meeting in person for the first time, during which we collaborated to discuss details on projects we were working on and to deliberate on the current codebase and future plans. Although we have an extensive list of attributes on which we are focused, we realized that the majority of the concerns raised on GitHub were tied to two key issues: slow synchronization and lost account private keys\/passwords. We identified features that we could implement to assist in minimizing user errors and related challenges, which include more alternatives for node switching (with Infura support) and improved choices for account management (such as HD wallets and mnemonic seeds – but with a twist). <\/span> <\/p>\n Web3.js is progressing well. The new whisper API has recently been incorporated into both the old 0.x.x and the new 1.0.0 version. Whisper v5 is presently only available in <\/span>geth<\/span><\/i> and needs to be initiated using <\/span>–shh<\/span><\/i>. We are currently in the process of adding swarm.js and finalizing the JavaScript account management. If all goes smoothly, an alpha release will occur soon.<\/span> You can already experiment with the new web3.js 1.0 here: <\/span>https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\/web3.js\/tree\/1.0<\/a>, a<\/span>nd review the new documentation at\u00a0<\/span><\/a>http:\/\/web3js.readthedocs.io\/en\/1.0\/<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We have received several bounty submissions for vulnerabilities in EthereumJS, Solidity, and Cpp-ethereum. Refer to the <\/span>leaderboard<\/span><\/a> for the current statistics.<\/span> “`html <\/p>\n In anticipation of Metropolis, a benchmarking suite for the Geth EVM has been established to confirm that the gas prices for new opcodes and precompiles remain within reasonable ranges, thereby avoiding their potential use as DoS vectors later on.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The \u201cEVM 1.5\u201d proposals are now EIP drafts for \u201cSubroutines and Static Jumps for the EVM #615,\u201d and \u201cSIMD Operations for the EVM #616.\u201d Inputs and critiques are encouraged at the <\/span>https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\/EIPs\/issues\/615<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\/EIPs\/issues\/616<\/span><\/a> discussions.<\/span> The ethereumJS team is still <\/span>searching for community contributors<\/span> <\/a>to assist the Ethereum Javascript client in attaining Metropolis compatibility. A video guide titled \u201c<\/span>Introduction to Core Development with Ethereumjs-vm<\/span><\/a>\u201d has been made available.<\/span> New algorithms have been devised and implemented to enhance log searching efficiency in the upcoming version of the LES protocol. Encouraging R&D efforts have been directed towards achieving rapid and trustless initial syncing without hardcoded checkpoints. We have been working on finalizing the topic discovery protocol, which aids clients in locating appropriate LES servers, currently a somewhat vulnerable aspect of the experimental light client service.<\/span> The primary Remix innovation in the past month is the alpha launch of Remixd: <\/span>https:\/\/github.com\/ethereum\/remixd<\/span><\/a> The advancements in the eth-isabelle project were primarily due to external contributions. Specifically, the improved separation logic tactics, which were contributed externally, allow for significantly shorter proofs concerning Ethereum contracts.<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Solidity project has been quite dynamic in recent months, although many of the updates are not yet directly apparent to users. We have seen significantly greater community involvement and have volunteers consistently contributing to both the core code and documentation, including translations, primarily into <\/span>Spanish<\/span><\/a>.<\/span> \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We introduced a feature that facilitates the <\/span>exporting of the complete abstract syntax tree<\/span><\/a> with all type annotations, which significantly eases the process of creating tools that would otherwise require a custom parser. The subsequent feature will also be to <\/span>re-import<\/span><\/a> this data after modifications, which would enable functions like mutation testing.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We enhanced the inline assembly language with <\/span>structured components (for, switch, and functions)<\/span><\/a> and deprecated manual jumps. This newly structured inline assembly language will evolve into a new intermediate language (alongside type information), allowing Solidity to be more transparent in its compilation, more efficient (we will be capable of implementing much more sophisticated optimization routines), and more portable (it can already compile to EVM, EVM1.5, and some eWASM). Currently, we are <\/span>reworking the ABI encoder<\/span><\/a> in this intermediate language which will comprise structs and nested dynamic entities.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ultimately, we are incorporating an <\/span>automated compile-time overflow and assertion verifier<\/span><\/a> which will also include an SMT solver for the more intricate scenarios. And naturally, we have focused on numerous <\/span>bug fixes and minor enhancements<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The swarm group has welcomed new participants and conducted an in-person Swarm Summit in Berlin in June, 2017. The week-long gathering united Ethereum team members, community contributors, and special guests representing ventures and organizations interested in swarm. Over twenty presentations and tutorial sessions were documented. The edited recordings will soon be available on the swarm summit website. Our public alpha assessment received a positive community reaction, enabling us to collect more insights into potential user base requirements and typical usage tendencies. The swift turnover of nodes necessitates a clear differentiation between nodes that can and cannot promise to remain available for an extended duration to furnish adequate storage and bandwidth resources for the network. To accommodate non-committing nodes and mobile clients, swarm will provide various light operational modes.<\/span> We have crafted a collection of example applications showcasing the architectural and implementation distinctiveness of Swarm-hosted distributed web applications that diverge significantly from the conventional client-server paradigm. Specifically, the foundational elements for a distributed functional equivalent of Dropbox are under development, including a web interface that presents a file system view of swarm-hosted volumes, ENS integration, Mist integration, FUSE mounting of swarm volumes, and privacy safeguards.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We introduced a new protocol, pss (bzz whispered), enabling internode communication with deterministic routing grounded in the relaying Kademlia network topology of swarm. This protocol employs whisper envelopes and facilitates udp-like protocol interactions between nodes that are not directly linked. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moreover, we have established a network testing and simulation framework that allows us to model and assess a wide array of scenarios arising from the interaction of a potentially large quantity of nodes. This framework encompasses both scripting and visualization functionalities.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In collaboration with the Remix team, the development of a fully distributed integrated contract development environment is currently in progress.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The upcoming major version, POC 0.3 is anticipated to launch around Metropolis and will include obfuscation support for <\/span>plausible deniability<\/span><\/i>, a complete overhaul of the swap peer-to-peer accounting for bandwidth incentivization, among other features. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nResearch<\/h3>\n
\nThe pyethereum client has undergone a significant overhaul, and version 2.0 has been launched. For download, see <\/span>https:\/\/pypi.python.org\/pypi?:action=display&name=ethereum&version=2.0.4<\/span><\/a>; on Ubuntu, you can also execute \u201csudo pip install ethereum\u201d. Furthermore, we have incorporated experimental versions of:<\/span>
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\n<\/p>\nMetropolis testing<\/h3>\n
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\nWe have initiated an extensive cross-client benchmarking initiative to pinpoint areas that most urgently require performance enhancements. Review some initial outcomes for opcode benchmarking in geth here: <\/span>https:\/\/gist.github.com\/holiman\/7b157e4074707f6ba3196d46ad3745af<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/p>\nMist team<\/h3>\n
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Web3.js<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\nSecurity<\/h3>\n
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\nWe currently have pyethereum integrated into the cross-client blackbox consensus evaluation in Hive, which consistently executes over 10K assessments on each client. Refer to <\/span><\/a>http:\/\/hivetests.ethereum.org<\/a>. As a lighter alternative to Hive, we have also initiated a project to conduct fuzz testing directly on the virtual machines, commencing with Geth, Parity, and Python. Equally, we’ve established an automated <\/span>AFL<\/span><\/a>-based fuzzing of Solidity.<\/span><\/p>\nEVM 1.5<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\nEthereumJS<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\nLight Client<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\nRemix<\/h3>\n
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\n<\/p>\nFormal Verification<\/h3>\n
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Bamboo<\/h3>\n
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Solidity<\/h3>\n
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\n“““html<\/p>\nSwarm<\/h3>\n
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