The concept of “restaking” on Ethereum, which involves sharing a blockchain’s security among other protocols and networks, was discussed in a previous article published in The Protocol. In this week’s issue, an interview with Sreeram Kannan, the founder of EigenLayer, the most well-known among restaking pioneers, sheds light on this innovative concept. Kannan acknowledges the systemic risks flagged by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Additionally, Google’s cloud-computing division, Google Cloud, has been making its presence felt in the blockchain space. Last week, the company announced the addition of 11 networks, including Polygon, Optimism, and Polkadot, to its ‘BigQuery’ program for public datasets. James Tromans, Google Cloud’s global head of Web3, emphasized that the company’s investment in the blockchain space is not short-lived and that they are actively hiring and expanding their product and engineering capabilities.
While Ethereum’s energy consumption has decreased significantly since the shift to a proof-of-stake network, JPMorgan analysts note that the increase in network activity has been disappointing. Daily transaction counts have fallen by 12%, and daily active addresses are down 20%. However, Akash Mahendra, director of Haven1 Foundation, argues that focusing solely on Ethereum fails to consider the rapid growth of layer-2 networks built on top of Ethereum. These layer-2 networks have improved scalability and reduced congestion on the mainnet.
Criticism of Ethereum also stems from the apparent delay in the development of the next major upgrade, known as Dencun. Developers have cautioned that the upgrade might not be activated this year if it is not launched on a test network before Devconnect, an Ethereum-focused conference taking place in mid-November.
In other news, the Arbitrum Foundation has transferred $59 million worth of unclaimed ARB tokens to the network’s treasury after the claim period ended. The median pay for blockchain engineers globally is $120,000, with North American engineers receiving $193,000, according to a Pantera study.
Lastly, several blockchain projects and startups have secured over $100 million in funding each week for the past three weeks. This trend indicates that projects are emerging from stealth development and announcing product updates or new fundraises, as they see potential opportunities in the market.
