Daily Digest - 8 February 2023

Headlines

▌Ethereum test network successfully simulated ETH pledge withdrawal for the first time

The Ethereum zhejiang test network activated the Shanghai upgrade at 15:00 UTC (23:00 Beijing time) epoch 1350, successfully simulating the withdrawal of pledged ETH for the first time. On the zhejiang testnet, partial and full withdrawals, as well as BLS changes, are included in the execution load, said Barnabas Busa, a DevOps engineer at the Ethereum Foundation. The next testnet upgrade will be in Sepolia sometime next week, followed by the Goerli testnet. According to previous news, the core developers of Ethereum plan to activate the Shanghai upgrade on the Zhejiang testnet on February 7.

Cryptocurrency

▌Coinbase manager admits to insider trading on ICO

Former Coinbase product manager Ishan Wahi pleaded guilty in the case of insider trading. In July 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that ISHANWAHI, a former Coinbase product manager, was charged with leaking Coinbase listing information to his brother Nikhil Wahi and a friend. In September 2022, Nikhil Wahi pleaded guilty to insider trading charges at a virtual court hearing in the U.S. District Court, admitting that he traded based on Coinbase’s confidential information, and was then sentenced to 10 months in prison.

▌The U.S. judge rejected FTX founder SBF's request to modify the bail conditions, and the hearing is still scheduled for February 9

Court documents show that the U.S. judge rejected part of the request of FTX founder SBF to modify the bail conditions, and the hearing is still scheduled for February 9. On Monday, SBF's legal team and prosecutors reached an agreement to modify SBF's bail conditions regarding electronic communications, allowing SBF to use various messaging applications, including FaceTime, Zoom, iMessage, text messages, email, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (For WhatsApp, SBF’s mobile phone must be installed with monitoring software), but SBF will not be allowed to use encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal, etc. during the bail period.

▌SBF appeals judge's disclosure of bond co-signers

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is working hard to keep the names of the two people who co-signed his bond under wraps. In a court filing Tuesday, the former FTX CEO appealed the judge's decision to unblock the names of two co-signers. SBF is under house arrest for holding $250 million in bonds and is facing criminal charges for allegedly mishandling FTX client funds. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan last month granted a motion to unblock the names of co-signers after a group of media outlets asked the court to release the names. Attorneys for Bankman-Fried said the co-signers could face privacy and security concerns if their names were leaked. The motion to unseal the name was stayed until Tuesday to prevent an appeal and will now be stayed until February 14.

▌Saudi Arabia and The Sandbox Agree to Collaborate on the Metaverse Project

Sebastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of Metaverse game platform Sandbox, announced that Sandbox and Saudi Arabia have reached some kind of consensus. Borget and Saudi Arabia's DGA signed the memorandum while attending the Leap Tech conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh. Borget said in an email that he could not disclose any further information about his company's deal with the Saudi Arabian government, but details would be released in the coming weeks. While Sandbox has yet to achieve mass adoption, many executives and investors consider it an early leader in Metaverse development. The digital platform is a virtual space where users can create their own mini-universes in the game. The company, which raised $93 million in a Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund in 2021, is said to be trying to raise an additional $400 million less than six months later, valuing it at $4 billion.

▌Arbitrum development team Offchain Labs will launch Stylus, a programming environment with performance surpassing EVM for Arbitrum

Arbitrum development team Offchain Labs announced that it will launch Stylus, a next-generation programming environment for Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova later this year. Stylus allows users to use their favorite programming languages (including Rust, C and C++) to deploy applications to run with EVM programs on Arbitrum. Stylus is an order of magnitude faster, lowers fees, and is fully interoperable with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Offchain Labs calls Stylus EVM+, and Stylus will not replace EVM.