EthCC, short for Ethereum Community Conference, is the most prominent European event for Ethereum advancement and community growth. It’s a 4-day conference where Ethereum developers, researchers, and enthusiasts gather to showcase innovations, build networks, and learn from experts.
This year, the event was held in Paris from July 17 to July 21, where over 5,000 attendees participated and 350 speakers shared their knowledge. It was an exceptional showcase of the Ethereum ecosystem, unveiling several noteworthy projects and updates that showcased Ethereum's development in the blockchain space.
Edward Ryall, co-founder of Neptune Mutual, attended the event and spent a very valuable few days networking, attending presentations, and promoting our cover marketplace and the importance of security in DeFi.
EthCC was so useful in many ways: firstly, and it was a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with many of the DeFi teams that we have been talking to over the last year, and secondly, it was a great opportunity to learn, which is really important given the pace of innovation and change in the industry; and finally, it was an opportunity to raise awareness of Neptune Mutual, the value of projects creating cover pools to protect their communities. It is very clear from the feedback I received that projects understand that lowering risk with audits is not enough and that their communities are starting to expect projects to take action to mitigate risk in the event that audits are not sufficient to prevent hacks.
said Edward.
Image of Co-Founder Edward Ryall attending EthCC 2023
For those who were not there, we are going to summarize some key points. In this article, we’ll point out the most important announcements that happened at EthCC 2023.
1. Chainlink Announced Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP)#
Another major event in EthCC 2023 was the announcement of the launch of the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) by Chainlink.
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that connects blockchains with off-chain data, enabling users to bring real-world data to smart contracts on the blockchain.
With the launch of CCIP, projects will have a seamless and secure exchange between several blockchain networks like Ethereum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon. That is to say, users can transfer tokens and data between these blockchains securely with low slippage.
With the CCIP’s locked gas fee payment feature, transactions can be executed despite network congestion or a gas price increase. In addition to that, it offers many use cases like cross-chain swaps, deposits to open liquidity positions, borrowing stablecoins in other chains, etc.
Moreover, an additional layer of risk management is deployed in CCIP that detects potential risks in cross-chain activities.
2. Uniswap Announced the UniswapX Launch#
Uniswap, one of the top DEXes, introduced the open-source protocol UniswapX at the recent EthCC event. The protocol is designed to revolutionize crypto trading and improve the trading experience with several innovative features.
The protocol aims to address the usual trading inconveniences of DeFi trading and swaps. It has the features of providing users with the best trading prices by aggregating liquidity sources from various DEXes, gas-free swapping, protection against the maximal extractable value (MEV), and no costs for failed transactions.
UniswapX has employed a working procedure called Dutch Orders, which depends on the Dutch auction-based mechanism. This means that the trader’s order price starts off higher than the market price and gradually decreases over time until it matches the market price.
Moreover, UniswapX also introduces Fillers, the entities that help traders find the best prices. The Fillers are responsible for using on-chain liquidity so that users can place orders off-chain without consuming gas until the trade orders are fulfilled.
3. The Launch of Lens V2#
Lens Protocol is a social layer for Web3 built on Polygon. It lets you create your identity on Web3, claim your profile, and take your profile and social data to other dApps and platforms.
At EthCC, Lens announced their upgrade to version 2, which is aimed at making social networking decentralized. The protocol introduced new functions, among which "Open Actions" was among the notable ones. Lens V2 enables smart contracts to interact with posts on the Lens platform. With that, users can interact with any Lens publication with external smart contracts and use it for several activities, such as creating NFTs on OpenSea using Lens content.
Another prominent update in Lens V2 is in the way of associating NFT, i.e. NFT ownership can now be determined with profile pictures.
4. Starknet Announced Appchains Framework#
Starknet is a decentralized layer 2 solution for Ethereum that offers scalability and security for transactions. The network announced the release of a framework called Appchain, which allows developers to build custom dApps within Starknet.
Appchain is a dedicated blockchain designed for creating applications and processing transactions for those applications rather than executing them across the entire Ethereum blockchain.
The Starknet native developers can use Starknet Stack, the native development toolkit, to develop these apps and leverage STARK proof of technology for security.
Several layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, and zkSync have already initiated using their native developer’s toolkit and dedicated blockchains for their chain-specific apps. With the launch of Starknet Appchains, Starknet catches up with this industry trend.
5. Launch of Gnosis Pay and Gnosis Card#
Gnosis is a community-driven DAO that offers decentralized prediction of events. It has also been providing other services, such as Gnosis Chain and Gnosis Safe.
At EthCC 2023, Gnosis announced the launch of two prominent technologies: Gnosis Pay and Gnosis Card. These two revolutionary developments will transform the way conventional and Web3 transactions and interchange take place.
Gnosis Pay is set to be the world’s first decentralized payment network that will allow developers to incorporate traditional payment methods like Visa into their platform. This offers a seamless connection between traditional and blockchain-based transactions.
Similarly, Gnosis Card completes the functionality of Gnosis Pay by allowing connecting Visa debit cards to link with self-custodial on-chain wallets. The Gnosis Card will allow users to spend their cryptocurrencies on stores and services that accept Visa.
6. Mantle Launched Mainnet Alpha#
Mantle Network, a layer 2 blockchain on Ethereum, announced the launch of their significant development, the mainnet alpha, in the EthCC 2023. Mantle Network has left its mark on the Ethereum scaling sphere with its features like a modular approach, transaction execution at a lower cost, and high security.
The initial phase of the network provides blockchain developers with a platform for developing and testing dApps before launching them later. The project shared that the network has been evaluated after six months of attentive testing.
Mantle Network offers modular components that allow development, testing, and upgrades, with a module swap that makes the testing easy.
Numerous partners, including web launcher HyperPlay and game accelerator Game7, have supported the launch of the alpha mainnet. The project has also gotten contributions from dApps like LayerZero, The Graph, Bullieverse, Covalent, etc.
7. Linea Launched Mainnet Alpha#
Similarly, Linea also announced the launch of their mainnet alpha for all users at the recent EthCC event. Linea is a layer 2 solution developed by ConsenSys, and it has now launched the mainnet alpha version of the network.
A 3-month-long testing period was carried out before the launch, during which over 46 million transactions were conducted with over 5.5 million wallets.
Linea has gone through some significant upgrades, like new infrastructure technology utilization, a dynamic fee mechanism, and batch trading integration. These upgrades enable Linea to reduce transaction costs.
The mainnet alpha also aims to improve its users’ experience by introducing an ecosystem of over 100 protocols, partners, and dApps. Besides that, Linea is also set to announce its major NFT collection available for minting for Linea Voyage users.
8. Solana Labs Released Solang#
Solana Labs is the creator of Solana, a popular blockchain technology that enables creating dApps and supporting cryptocurrencies. It’s widely accepted for its high performance, low fees, and scalability.
At the EthCC event, Solana Labs announced the release of their new development, Solang. It enhances web3 developers’ experience by easing developers migration of chains from the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) to their Solana environment.
Solang enables developers familiar with Solidity to learn and develop applications on the Solana network. Moreover, the introduction of Solang enables Solana developers to create dApps through Solidity and EVM rather than just Rust or C (Solana smart contract languages).
In essence, the launch of Solana is aimed at attracting Ethereum developers to the Solana environment and utilizing the Ethereum environment for the development of dApps in their ecosystem.
Overall, EthCC was a reminder that no matter everything that happened in the last few years, the industry is #buidling and innovating more than ever. The event itself was filled with attendees, speakers, and enthusiasts, and over 200 side events were happening in the same week, which is quite impressive.
At Neptune Mutual, we were thrilled to partake in such an experience and are looking forward to attending, speaking and meeting the community in events to come. Make sure you are following us on Twitter and join our Discord for information on our next event where we can meet in person. See you in the next one, Neptunites!
