Issue 36: A new Era has dawned upon us!
Issue 36: A new Era has dawned upon us!
The latest updates from the Ethereum, L2 & DeFi ecosystem
gm everyone - welcome to our newsletter, where we summarise the latest updates in the Ethereum ecosystem.
TLDR:
zkSync Era has launched!
Another Layer 2 dropped a token; this time, it was Arbitrum
Scalability and security updates for Starknet
Read all this and more in this week's newsletter!
🎉 It's here. It's finally here!
Last week the news dropped: zkSync Era Alpha is now live. This is a huge achievement resulting from years of work from the Matter Labs team. We're excited to be one of the early supporters of the network and can't wait to see it take off.
zkSync Era is different from zkSync Lite, which we launched with back in December 2021, as this version of the network supports smart contracts, allowing you to do everything you love on Ethereum at a fraction of the price.
But wait, there's more. zkSync Era also supports native account abstraction, when combined with the scaling capabilities of the network, we believe this can bring the benefits of crypto to many more people.
Both the network and our zkSync Era account are in Alpha (make sure you sign up for our waitlist!), which means there are a limited amount of dapps on the network and features in our wallet…
With that being said, we're in contact with over 100 teams on the network who plan on launching over the coming weeks! So stay tuned and watch this new Era of Ethereum unfold.
🪂 Layer 2s are airdropping tokens
Arbitrum surprised everyone by launching their token and rewarding their community for helping grow the network. This is also known as an “airdrop” and follows the first Layer 2 to do this - Optimism, last year. The tokens given to active community members are used for governance and building the ecosystem through incentives and grants.
What the Arbitrum airdrop has resulted in is a huge increase in users exploring zkSync and Starknet, both networks we support and also have yet to launch a token.
Does it pay to be early? Maybe…
📈 One step closer to the masses
The final story in this week's newsletter covers the latest upgrade to Starknet - Starknet v0.11. As Starknet is in Alpha, it undergoes breaking changes in order to make huge improvements to the network, with the latest update focusing on improving scalability and security.
Here are 3 things you need to know about it:
Allows developers to deploy Cairo 1.0 contracts which offer a much greater programming experience for Starknet developers
Marks the beginning of Regenesis, which is when Starknet transitions away from being in Alpha
Introduces Sierra, which ensures that all contract executions are proven to prevent attacks on the network, like DOS, thereby keeping Starknet secure
We're very excited about this network upgrade as it makes Starknet more secure and easier to use. If you want to learn more about it, check out StarkWare's blog.
📚 What we're reading
STARK: Endgame - StarkWare
Kaiseki - Arthur Hayes
How paymasters work - John Rising
💭 What's happening at Argent
Next week we've got an exciting Twitter Space with two of our co-founders: our CEO, Itamar, and our CSO, Julien. Join them for an unfiltered conversation about building Argent, some of their biggest challenges, what excites them both in the industry and much more. There's also room for your to get your questions answered!
Find all the details below:
📰 A few random things we've found interesting
In every issue, we share 3 things that we found interesting. The catch? We don't give you any context to the link. But we promise you it's something we found interesting within the crypto ecosystem.
📚 Learn more with Argent
Getting Started With Cairo 1.0
Learn everything you need to know about the new and improved Cair
🚀 We're hiring!
Anthony Sassano, Ethereum educator, influencer, and all-around great person, recently said that the best way to get a job in crypto is to get involved with Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem.
We're building on zkSync and Starknet, two very exciting Layer 2s at the cutting edge of our industry, and we're hiring!
Social Media and Content Manager (Remote, Europe)
Lead Software Engineer (Node/React)(Remote, Europe)
Know someone who might be a good fit? We pay a referral fee for each successful hire.
📰 Enjoyed reading the Argent newsletter?
Thank you for reading Issue #36 of the Argent Newsletter. If you enjoyed reading this issue, we'd love for you to share it with friends and family or on social media.
Have a great week, and if you have any feedback, ideas, or insights to improve our newsletter, please email edward@argent.xyz.
🤔 About the Argent Newsletter
The Argent newsletter is our answer to a question friends and family frequently ask us: what articles, podcasts, and news do you recommend?
We curate our top picks and hope there's something for everyone.
Perfect, great, very strong team, thank you all for your hard work around the clock
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