Blog

imToken Annual Report | Every Connection in 2023

imToken Annual Report | Every Connection in 2023

In 2023, the cryptocurrency market saw rapid, chaotic changes. Amidst this, imToken stayed committed to its original mission of providing secure, user-friendly, developer-friendly products that meet challenges h ead-on. Upholding this mission, imToken continuously upgraded its products, incorporated user feedback, explored new use cases, and enabled seamless connections across the board.
2024-03-17
Unlock imToken’s Credit Card: Pre-register Now!

Unlock imToken’s Credit Card: Pre-register Now!

imToken is set to revolutionize digital payments with the upcoming launch of imToken Card, a groundbreaking credit card leveraging on-chain data. Pre-registration is now open, and we invite you to be among the first to experience a seamless integration of on-chain data with everyday payments. Enjoy a collateral-free credit limit and a low token top-up fee as we embark on a new chapter in the digital journey together. From your first wallet to your first card Over the last 7 years, imToken has grown in tandem with our users, observing the dynamic evolution of the digital assets sector. For many, imToken serves not only as their first digital wallet but also as a reliable companion in navigating Web3. Today, we are excited to unveil imToken Card, built on on-chain data. This card aligns with Mastercard standards, ensuring that wherever Mastercard is accepted by merchants, you can seamlessly enjoy the convenient payment services provided by imToken Card." Card offerings 1. Get instant credit for instant spendingimToken Card innovates with a new model, providing a credit limit of up to 500 SGD. No token top-up or complex setup before first use, users can effortlessly enjoy a variety of services such as everyday purchases, online shopping, and subscription by simply activating the card. 2. Top-up to lift spending limits, without limitsWith imToken, users can conveniently pay their bills or elevate their spending limits by simply topping up. Combining imToken and imToken Card provides increased flexibility in daily expenses and strengthens your purchasing power. 3. First-year annual fee waived, exclusive benefitsUsers enjoy waived annual fee for the first year, along with exclusive benefits such as discounts on products like imKey. How to pre-register? imToken Card is available in a limited quantity for the initial release. To increase your chances of passing the pre-registration review, please connect with the Ethereum wallet you used most frequently. <Pre-Register Now> If you have any questions, feel free to email us at [email protected]. imToken Team2023.12.25
2024-03-11
Beyond Boundaries: The Power of imToken's Connectivity

Beyond Boundaries: The Power of imToken's Connectivity

As a leading multi-chain wallet, imToken not only provides reliable Non-custodial wallet services but also enables users to seamlessly navigate various DApps and effortlessly connect to different types of wallets through its connecting feature. Multi-network, Cross-platform DApp Connections imToken supports Ethereum and all EVM-compatible chains such as Optimism, Arbitrum, and Polygon. Users can switch between networks with a single click at the top of the wallet or quickly add them through imToken's EVM Box without manually entering any parameters. Leveraging imToken's built-in DApp browser, users can access and use a variety of DApps on these networks without leaving the wallet. On the wallet page of mainstream Layer2s and EVM-compatible chains, imToken also provides a "DApp'' entrance, gathering popular DApps on the respective networks for users to easily explore and experience. By supporting WalletConnect, imToken achieves seamless cross-device connectivity. When users use a DApp on a computer, selecting imToken or WalletConnect to connect the wallet allows for smooth switching from the mobile to the computer. As long as the DApp supports WalletConnect, users can interact with imToken permissionlessly. When connecting to a DApp, users can see the connection request and easily authorize access to networks such as Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, Gnosis Chain, and others by simply tapping “Approve”. To address potential malicious signatures during DApp interactions, imToken has optimized the risk control system. imToken marks and bans DApps with identified risks to ensure the security of user tokens.  Additionally, the wallet page features an "Revoke" entrance where users can view authorization details on different chains, including authorized spender and approved amount. If any risky authorizations are identified, users can promptly revoke them. This design opens up infinite possibilities for secure and seamless interaction between users and DApps, truly achieving a borderless Web3 experience. Secure and Seamless Wallet Connections Effortlessly connecting to imToken is ensured through QR-based connection; users, whether with a hardware or extension wallet, need no additional permissions, as long as their wallet aligns with EIP-4527. QR code connection is a method based on the ERC-4527 protocol, facilitating the secure and convenient transfer of data between an offline wallet (hardware wallet or imToken in offline mode) and a watch-only wallet (extension wallet or imToken in online mode), ensuring the security of transaction signing by the offline wallet. Connecting Hardware Wallets For users seeking the highest level of security, imToken supports connecting to hardware wallets such as imKey and Keystone. The collaboration of hardware wallets with imToken provides dual protection for users' digital tokens. Hardware wallets store private keys offline through a dedicated security chip, ensuring that the private key is disconnected from the internet and preventing the possibility of hackers stealing the key through the network. Many hardware wallets support dual authentication mechanisms, such as PIN codes and fingerprint recognition, further strengthening the protection of private keys. Moreover, imToken enhances user experience by displaying transaction details before requesting a hardware wallet signature, ensuring users intuitively understand the transaction. This seamless process combines the user-friendly interface of imToken with the security of hardware wallet cold storage, offering a perfect balance of convenience and security.   Related Reading: How to Pair imKey with imToken? How to Use imToken with Keystone? How to use imToken with AirGap Vault? Connecting Extension Wallets Users can easily create a cold wallet by installing the latest imToken on an idle smartphone, ensuring that the network is disconnected. Subsequently, connecting this cold wallet to extension wallets such as MetaMask or Rabby allows users to track the wallet account on the chain. Taking the example of connecting with MetaMask, opening the account details page of the imToken wallet, clicking on "Connect with other wallets," imToken will display a QR code containing address information. Users can then use MetaMask to scan the QR code and import this information to start tracking their imToken wallet.   In the course of transactions, the extension wallet transforms unsigned transactions into QR codes. Users can simply use imToken to scan the QR code, revealing transaction details for confirmation. Should users approve the transaction and choose to sign it, imToken will execute the signature, producing a new QR code complete with the signed transaction. Finally, users can use the extension wallet to scan this QR code with the signature and send the signed transaction to the Ethereum network. Throughout this process, the private key remains offline, ensuring the overall security. This allows users to enjoy the security of offline storage for private keys and the convenience of transactions. Related Reading: How to Connect MetaMask to imToken in Offline Mode? How to Connect Rabby to imToken in Offline Mode? End imToken's powerful connectivity capabilities are not only evident in its seamless integration with the DApp ecosystem but also in its broad support and compatibility with various wallet types. Whether you're new to blockchain or an experienced player, imToken offers the most fitting solution for accessing your tokens.
2024-02-20
imToken 2.14.0: Support for connection with other hardware / extension wallets for enhanced security

imToken 2.14.0: Support for connection with other hardware / extension wallets for enhanced security

imToken 2.14.0 supports ERC-4527, enabling QR-based connections with other wallets, enhancing the security and convenience of transactions. Additionally, imToken's built-in swap feature now supports Polygon, offering users a more diverse token exchange experience. This update further strengthens the security risk control system, adds account permission verification when importing Tron wallets, and provides comprehensive security guidelines for imKey usage. This update is as follows 👇👇👇 Support for connection with other hardware / extension wallets for enhanced security Built-in swap feature supporting exchanges on Polygon Enhanced security risk control system Added account permission verification when importing Tron wallets Comprehensive imKey security usage guidelines Support for connection with other hardware / extension wallets for enhanced security imToken 2.14.0 now supports ERC-4527, allowing you to connect with other wallet products via QR codes. This method facilitates secure and convenient transaction experiences across different wallets. The update primarily provides two connection methods: 1. Connect imToken to extension wallets Keep your imToken offline, click ">" on the ETH wallet page and choose "Connect with other wallets" to present the QR code. In MetaMask, select "QR-based" for scanning. After successful connection, you can perform transfers, receive funds, and explore various DApps in MetaMask. This method ensures the offline storage of private keys and seamless connection with extension wallets. It is recommended to keep your imToken offline throughout the whole process. 2. Connect imToken to hardware wallets You can connect imToken to hardware wallets (e.g., Keystone) and use imToken as a watch-only wallet. Open the wallet page, click the menu bar in the top-left corner, click "+", then "Connect with other wallets," and select the wallet you want to connect to. After successful connection, you can initiate transfer with imToken, confirming transactions by signing on the hardware wallet. For hardware wallet owners, using imToken as a watch-only wallet facilitates convenient token access. Built-in Swap Feature Supporting Exchanges on Polygon imToken's built-in swap feature now supports token swap on Polygon, enhancing the token swap experience. Switch networks by clicking the top-left button on the market page to begin your exchange journey on the Polygon network. Additionally, to enhance exchange security on the Ethereum network, we have introduced swap protection, ensuring each transaction is MEV guarded. Note: Swap protection is currently available only on Ethereum. Enhanced Security Risk Control System Added account permission verification when importing Tron wallets The latest imToken version supports account permission verification when importing Tron wallets. If any changes in account permissions are detected, the import process will pause, prompting you to confirm its safety before proceeding. For more information, please refer to this blog: Beware of TRX wallet account permission change scams. Increased imKey Security Usage Guidelines imToken 2.14.0 automatically checks the status of the imKey hardware wallet during the binding process and provides security usage guidelines. This ensures a user-friendly and secure hardware wallet experience, making it easy and safe to access tokens using imKey. How to download For Android users New users: Go to the imToken official website (https://token.im) and download. Existing users: Update directly in the app. For iOS users: Go to App Store and download.Note: imToken is not listed in App Store in Mainland China. You can also send "Download" to [email protected] to get the link of the latest version of imToken. Finally, please always remember Make sure that all wallets are properly backed up before upgrading Never disclose your private key, seed phrase, or keystore Learn more: https://token.im
2024-03-07
The Ethereum Dencun upgrade is live! Here are the top Layer 2 projects to watch in 2024.

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade is live! Here are the top Layer 2 projects to watch in 2024.

Ethereum has completed another successful network upgrade! The Dencun upgrade went live on the Ethereum mainnet at epoch 269568, which occurred on March 13, 2024 at 13:55 UTC. This upgrade is a key step for Ethereum to further scale, as it will increase the transaction throughput per second and enhance Ethereum's data storage and retrieval capabilities. imToken now supports all Layer 2 networks and EMV-compatible chains. After the Dencun upgrade, users can enjoy a more cost-effective experience with lower gas fees on Layer 2s through imToken. Impact of Dencun upgrade​ For users: After the Dencun upgrade, the gas fees required for transactions on Layer 2s will significantly decrease. About 90% of the fees paid by users for initiating transactions on Layer 2s are due to data storage. These fees may decrease to only one-tenth of the current amount following the upgrade. According to IntoTheBlock, transaction fees on Arbitrum are estimated to decrease from $2.02 to $0.4, on Optimism from $1.42 to $0.28, and on Base from $0.58 to $0.01. Source: Dune▲ Source: I2fees.info on 8 December 2023Data after Dencun upgrade is speculative For developers: After the Dencun upgrade, it is necessary to promptly upgrade the client, check the Ethereum technical protocols included in the upgrade, and determine whether these EIPs will affect related projects. The Dencun upgrade introduces many exciting new features for both the execution layer and consensus layer of Ethereum. EIPs with backward compatibility impacts are EIP-6780, EIP-7044, and EIP-7514. Additionally, Goerli will be shut down. For the blockchain ecosystem: Following the Dencun upgrade, the Layer 2 ecosystem is poised for accelerated growth as gas fees see substantial reductions. Beyond cost savings, the upgrade promises enhanced data processing speed, potentially boosting transaction speeds by up to 100 times. Such advancements intensify competition within Layer 1 platforms, while for Layer 2, it marks just the inception of a competitive landscape with the emergence of numerous promising projects in the pipeline. Presently, the total value locked (TVL) in the prominent Layer 2 platform Arbitrum falls just shy of Layer 1s like Tron and BSC. Meanwhile, the TVL of OP Mainnet (previously known as Optimism) slightly trails behind Arbitrum's, yet it has already exceeded that of certain notable Layer 1s such as Solana. How do Layer 2s stand to gain substantial advantages from the Dencun upgrade? The most important feature implemented in the Dencun upgrade is EIP-4844, which is also the primary contributor to help Layer 2 reduce the cost and improve the efficiency. In the Layer 2 ecosystem, it has been common to use the Ethereum mainnet as the Data Availability Layer (DA Layer). This is done to fully leverage the security and data integrity of the Ethereum mainnet and avoid malicious attacks or tampering to transactions which are processed on Layer 2. However, due to the limitations of Ethereum mainnet in terms of block capacity and transaction throughput, it is actually difficult for Ethereum to support all the Layer 2 transactions, which generated data in every second is tens of times greater than Ethereum mainnet. It has been an ongoing issue, which led to a situation where, prior to the Dencun upgrade, many Layer 2 transactions often require a significant amount of time for confirmation or necessitate the payment of higher gas fees in order to expedite confirmation. Therefore, in the long run, if Layer 2 can only rely on the Ethereum mainnet as the data availability layer, there is certainly an obvious bottleneck in the future development of Layer 2. During the Dencun upgrade, EIP-4844 introduces a new transaction type known as blob, enabling the temporary storage of transaction data in a blob when transactions occur. The existence of the blob is akin to introducing an external parallel data storage pathway to the Ethereum mainnet. In operational terms, blob data is stored by nodes on the consensus layer. This segregation of data addresses the previous challenge, prior to the Dencun upgrade, where Layer 2 transactions were queued for verification against Ethereum mainnet data, resulting in substantial gas expenses and wait times. Meanwhile, the data in a blob will be deleted after 18 days in order to reduce the data pressure on the Ethereum mainnet. In addition, EIP-4844 sets a limit on the amount of storage space added to each beacon block, restricting it to approximately 0.5 MB of data (about 4 blobs), but this limit is expected to increase in the future. The primary concern tackled by the Dencun upgrade for Layer 2 remains centered around the data challenge. Before the Dencun upgrade, there was a growing interest in solutions that relied on third-party chains to act as the data availability layer. The most well-known of these is Celestia, which is capable of handling a large transaction volume. This enables it to assist in verifying transactions on Layer 2 and then batch-upload transaction states back to the Ethereum mainnet. It is a highly modularized data availability solution. Currently, many application chains within the Cosmos ecosystem use Celestia as their data availability layer. In the short term, relying on third-party chains to tackle Layer 2 data capacity issues may not gain as much trust as Ethereum mainnet serving as the data availability layer. As a result, the temporary storage introduced by EIP-4844 in the Dencun upgrade, known as blob, has become the more advantageous solution for the current Layer 2 ecosystem. Outlook for well-known Layer2 projects in 2024 The Dencun upgrade will benefit all Layer 2 projects, whether developed using Optimistic Rollup or ZK Rollup. As mentioned by the founder of Ethereum in his blog post "The Three Transitions", Ethereum needs to go through three major technical transitions, which are: The L2 scaling transition - everyone moving to rollups; The wallet security transition -everyone moving to smart contract wallets; The privacy transition - making sure privacy-preserving funds transfers are available, and making sure all of the other gadgets that are being developed (social recovery, identity, reputation) are privacy-preserving. After the Dencun upgrade, which Layer 2 projects warrant our attention? Arbitrum and OP Mainnet, boasting the highest user counts and the largest Total Value Locked (TVL) in the blockchain landscape, hold significant first-mover advantages. Following the implementation of the Dencun upgrade, these networks are likely to emerge as the top choices for new users and capital entering the Layer 2 ecosystem. Polygon zkEVM, shifting its focus from the public blockchain market to embracing Ethereum Layer 2, enjoys inherent market momentum compared to other Layer 2 projects. The 10-day timelock for the mainnet Beta upgrade of Polygon zkEVM has commenced. Transaction details for the Elderberry proposal and upgrade contracts are available on GitHub and Etherscan. The mainnet launch is anticipated around early March 2024. Metis: Initially deployed in 2021 using Optimistic Rollup, it will evolve into a Hybrid Rollup architecture combining Optimistic Rollup with Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZK) in 2024. The sequencer for Metis has been live on the Holesky testnet since January 3, 2024, enabling community testing. Moreover, Metis plans to introduce a liquidity staking project, enabling community users to participate in node staking and earn rewards. Base: In 2024, Base prioritizes accelerating decentralization, improving network availability, significantly reducing network fees, and bringing Coinbase's existing and new users, assets, and products onto the chain. The 2024 roadmap also emphasizes achieving inter-chain communication among OP chains to strengthen interoperability, refining and enhancing chain rules and optimistic RPGF, and fostering a dynamic decentralized on-chain economic ecosystem. Linea: Launched in July 2023 and built on ZK Rollup, Linea may have a lower Total Value Locked (TVL) compared to other Layer 2 projects. However, its robust development team background, rapid growth in transaction volume post-launch, and substantial funding have led many industry experts to believe that it could become one of the largest airdrop projects in 2024.
2024-03-18
Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again

Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again

Reposted from:https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/12/28/cypherpunk.htmlAuthor:Vitalik Buterin One of my favorite memories from ten years ago was taking a pilgrimage to a part of Berlin that was called the Bitcoin Kiez: a region in Kreuzberg where there were around a dozen shops within a few hundred meters of each other that were all accepting Bitcoin for payments. The centerpiece of this community was Room 77, a restaurant and bar run by Joerg Platzer. In addition to simply accepting Bitcoin, it also served as a community center, and all kinds of open source developers, political activists of various affiliations, and other characters would frequently come by. Room 77, 2013. Source: my article from 2013 on Bitcoin Magazine. A similar memory from two months earlier was PorcFest (that's "porc" as in "porcupine" as in "don't tread on me"), a libertarian gathering in the forests of northern New Hampshire, where the main way to get food was from small popup restaurants with names like "Revolution Coffee" and "Seditious Soups, Salads and Smoothies", which of course accepted Bitcoin. Here too, discussing the deeper political meaning of Bitcoin, and using it in daily life, happened together side by side. The reason why I bring these memories up is that they remind me of a deeper vision underlying crypto: we are not here to just create isolated tools and games, but rather build holistically toward a more free and open society and economy, where the different parts - technological, social and economic - fit into each other. The early vision of "web3" was also a vision of this type, going in a similarly idealistic but somewhat different direction. The term "web3" was originally coined by Ethereum cofounder Gavin Wood, and it refers to a different way of thinking about what Ethereum is: rather than seeing it, as I initially did, as "Bitcoin plus smart contracts", Gavin thought about it more broadly as one of a set of technologies that could together form the base layer of a more open internet stack.   A diagram that Gavin Wood used in many of his early presentations. When the free open source software movement began in the 1980s and 1990s, the software was simple: it ran on your computer and read and wrote to files that stayed on your computer. But today, most of our important work is collaborative, often on a large scale. And so today, even if the underlying code of an application is open and free, your data gets routed through a centralized server run by a corporation that could arbitrarily read your data, change the rules on you or deplatform you at any time. And so if we want to extend the spirit of open source software to the world of today, we need programs to have access to a shared hard drive to store things that multiple people need to modify and access. And what is Ethereum, together with sister technologies like peer-to-peer messaging (then Whisper, now Waku) and decentralized file storage (then just Swarm, now also IPFS)? A public decentralized shared hard drive. This is the original vision from which the now-ubiquitous term "web3" was born. Unfortunately, since 2017 or so, these visions have faded somewhat into the background. Few talk about consumer crypto payments, the only non-financial application that is actually being used at a large scale on-chain is ENS, and there is a large ideological rift where significant parts of the non-blockchain decentralization community see the crypto world as a distraction, and not as a kindred spirit and a powerful ally. In many countries, people do use cryptocurrency to send and save money, but they often do this through centralized means: either through internal transfers on centralized exchange accounts, or by trading USDT on Tron. Background: the humble Tron founder and decentralization pioneer Justin Sun bravely leading forth the coolest and most decentralized crypto ecosystem in the global world.   Having lived through that era, the number one culprit that I would blame as the root cause of this shift is the rise in transaction fees. When the cost of writing to the chain is $0.001, or even $0.1, you could imagine people making all kinds of applications that use blockchains in various ways, including non-financial ways. But when transaction fees go to over $100, as they have during the peak of the bull markets, there is exactly one audience that remains willing to play - and in fact, because coin prices are going up and they're getting richer, becomes even more willing to play: degen gamblers. Degen gamblers can be okay in moderate doses, and I have talked to plenty of people at events who were motivated to join crypto for the money but stayed for the ideals. But when they are the largest group using the chain on a large scale, this adjusts the public perception and the crypto space's internal culture, and leads to many of the other negatives that we have seen play out over the last few years. Now, fast forward to 2023. On both the core challenge of scaling, and on various "side quests" of crucial importance to building a cypherpunk future actually viable, we actually have a lot of positive news to show: Rollups are starting to actually exist. Following a temporary lull after the regulatory crackdowns on Tornado Cash, second-generation privacy solutions such as Railway and Nocturne are seeing the (moon) light. Account abstraction is starting to take off. Light clients, forgotten for a long time, are starting to actually exist. Zero knowledge proofs, a technology which we thought was decades away, are now here, are increasingly developer-friendly, and are on the cusp of being usable for consumer applications. These two things: the growing awareness that unchecked centralization and over-financialization cannot be what "crypto is about", and the key technologies mentioned above that are finally coming to fruition, together present us with an opportunity to take things in a different direction. Namely, to make at least a part of the Ethereum ecosystem actually be the permissionless, decentralized, censorship resistant, open source ecosystem that we originally came to build. What are some of these values? Many of these values are shared not just by many in the Ethereum community, but also by other blockchain communities, and even non-blockchain decentralization communities, though each community has its own unique combination of these values and how much each one is emphasized. Open global participation: anyone in the world should be able to participate as a user, observer or developer, on a maximally equal footing. Participation should be permissionless. Decentralization: minimize the dependence of an application on any one single actor. In particular, an application should continue working even if its core developers disappear forever. Censorship resistance: centralized actors should not have the power to interfere with any given user's or application's ability to operate. Concerns around bad actors should be addressed at higher layers of the stack. Auditability: anyone should be able to validate an application's logic and its ongoing operation (eg. by running a full node) to make sure that it is operating according to the rules that its developers claim it is. Credible neutrality: base-layer infrastructure should be neutral, and in such a way that anyone can see that it is neutral even if they do not already trust the developers. Building tools, not empires. Empires try to capture and trap the user inside a walled garden; tools do their task but otherwise interoperate with a wider open ecosystem. Cooperative mindset: even while competing, projects within the ecosystem cooperate on shared software libraries, research, security, community building and other areas that are commonly valuable to them. Projects try to be positive-sum, both with each other and with the wider world. It is very possible to build things within the crypto ecosystem that do not follow these values. One can build a system that one calls a "layer 2", but which is actually a highly centralized system secured by a multisig, with no plans to ever switch to something more secure. One can build an account abstraction system that tries to be "simpler" than ERC-4337, but at the cost of introducing trust assumptions that end up removing the possibility of a public mempool and make it much harder for new builders to join. One could build an NFT ecosystem where the contents of the NFT are needlessly stored on centralized websites, making it needlessly more fragile than if those components are stored on IPFS. One could build a staking interface that needlessly funnels users toward the already-largest staking pool. Resisting these pressures is hard, but if we do not do so, then we risk losing the unique value of the crypto ecosystem, and recreating a clone of the existing web2 ecosystem with extra inefficiencies and extra steps. It takes a sewer to make a ninja turtle   The crypto space is in many ways an unforgiving environment. A 2021 article by Dan Robinson and Georgios Konstantiopoulos expresses this vividly in the context of MEV, arguing that Ethereum is a dark forest where on-chain traders are constantly vulnerable to getting exploited by front-running bots, those bots themselves are vulnerable to getting counter-exploited by other bots, etc. This is also true in other ways: smart contracts regularly get hacked, users' wallets regularly get hacked, centralized exchanges fail even more spectacularly, etc. This is a big challenge for users of the space, but it also presents an opportunity: it means that we have a space to actually experiment with, incubate and receive rapid live feedback on all kinds of security technologies to address these challenges. We have seen successful responses to challenges in various contexts already: Everyone wants the internet to be safe. Some attempt to make the internet safe by pushing approaches that force reliance on a single particular actor, whether a corporation or a government, that can act as a centralized anchor of safety and truth. But these approaches sacrifice openness and freedom, and contribute to the tragedy that is the growing "splinternet". People in the crypto space highly value openness and freedom. The level of risks and the high financial stakes involved mean that the crypto space cannot ignore safety, but various ideological and structural reasons ensure that centralized approaches for achieving safety are not available to it. At the same time, the crypto space is at the frontier of very powerful technologies like zero knowledge proofs, formal verification, hardware-based key security and on-chain social graphs. These facts together mean that, for crypto, the open way to improving security is the only way. All of this is to say, the crypto world is a perfect testbed environment to take its open and decentralized approach to security and actually apply it in a realistic high-stakes environment, and mature it to the point where parts of it can then be applied in the broader world. This is one of my visions for how the idealistic parts of the crypto world and the chaotic parts of the crypto world, and then the crypto world as a whole and the broader mainstream, can turn their differences into a symbiosis rather than a constant and ongoing tension. Ethereum as part of a broader technological vision In 2014, Gavin Wood introduced Ethereum as one of a suite of tools that can be built, the other two being Whisper (decentralized messaging) and Swarm (decentralized storage). The former was heavily emphasized, but with the turn toward financialization around 2017 the latter were unfortunately given much less love and attention. That said, Whisper continues to exist as Waku, and is being actively used by projects like the decentralized messenger Status. Swarm continues to be developed, and now we also have IPFS, which is used to host and serve this blog. In the last couple of years, with the rise of decentralized social media (Lens, Farcaster, etc), we have an opportunity to revisit some of these tools. In addition, we also have another very powerful new tool to add to the trifecta: zero knowledge proofs. These technologies are most widely adopted as ways of improving Ethereum's scalability, as ZK rollups, but they are also very useful for privacy. In particular, the programmability of zero knowlege proofs means that we can get past the false binary of "anonymous but risky" vs "KYC'd therefore safe", and get privacy and many kinds of authentication and verification at the same time. An example of this in 2023 was Zupass. Zupass is a zero-knowledge-proof-based system that was incubated at Zuzalu, which was used both for in-person authentication to events, and for online authentication to the polling system Zupoll, the Twitter-lookalike Zucast and others. The key feature of Zupass was this: you can prove that you are a resident of Zuzalu, without revealing which member of Zuzalu you are. Furthermore, each Zuzalu resident could only have one randomly-generated cryptographic identity for each application instance (eg. a poll) that they were signing into. Zupass was highly successful, and was applied later in the year to do ticketing at Devconnect. A zero-knowledge proof proving that I, as an Ethereum Foundation employee, have access to the Devconnect coworking space. The most practical use of Zupass so far has probably been the polling. All kinds of polls have been made, some on politically controversial or highly personal topics where people feel a strong need to preserve their privacy, using Zupass as an anonymous voting platform. Here, we can start to see the contours of what an Ethereum-y cypherpunk world would look like, at least on a pure technical level. We can be holding our assets in ETH and ERC20 tokens, as well as all kinds of NFTs, and use privacy systems based on stealth addresses and Privacy Pools technology to preserve our privacy while at the same time locking out known bad actors' ability to benefit from the same anonymity set. Whether within our DAOs, or to help decide on changes to the Ethereum protocol, or for any other objective, we can use zero-knowledge voting systems, which can use all kinds of credentials to help identify who has standing to vote and who does not: in addition to voting-with-tokens as done in 2017, we can have anonymous polls of people who have made sufficient contributions to the ecosystem, people who have attended enough events, or one-vote-per-person. In-person and online payments can happen with ultra-cheap transactions on L2s, which take advantage of data availability space (or off-chain data secured with Plasma) together with data compression to give their users ultra-high scalability. Payments from one rollup to another can happen with decentralized protocols like UniswapX. Decentralized social media projects can use various storage layers to store activity such as posts, retweets and likes, and use ENS (cheap on L2 with CCIP) for usernames. We can have seamless integration between on-chain tokens, and off-chain attestations held personally and ZK-proven through systems like Zupass. Mechanisms like quadratic voting, cross-tribal consensus finding and prediction markets can be used to help organizations and communities govern themselves and stay informed, and blockchain and ZK-proof-based identities can make these systems secure against both centralized censorship from the inside and coordinated manipulation from the outside. Sophisticated wallets can protect people as they participate in dapps, and user interfaces can be published to IPFS and accessed as .eth domains, with hashes of the HTML, javascript and all software dependencies updated directly on-chain through a DAO. Smart contract wallets, born to help people not lose tens of millions of dollars of their cryptocurrency, would expand to guard people's "identity roots", creating a system that is even more secure than centralized identity providers like "sign in with Google".   Soul Wallet recovery interface. I personally am at the point of being more willing to trust my funds and identity to systems like this than to centralized web2 recovery already. We can think of the greater Ethereum-verse (or "web3") as creating an independent tech protocol stack, that is competing with the traditional centralized protocol stack at all levels. Many people will mix-and-match both, and there are often clever ways to match both: with ZKEmail, you can even make an email address be one of the guardians of your social recovery wallet! But there are also many synergies from using the different parts of the decentralized stack together, especially if they are designed to better integrate with each other. One of the benefits of thinking about it as a stack is that this fits well with Ethereum's pluralist ethos. Bitcoin is trying to solve one problem, or at most two or three. Ethereum, on the other hand, has lots of sub-communities with lots of different focuses. There is no single dominant narrative. The goal of the stack is to enable this pluralism, but at the same time strive for growing interoperability across this plurality. The social layer It's easy to say "these people doing X are a corrupting influence and bad, these people doing Y are the real deal". But this is a lazy response. To truly succeed, we need not only a vision for a technical stack, but also the social parts of the stack that make the technical stack possible to build in the first place. The advantage of the Ethereum community, in principle, is that we take incentives seriously. PGP wanted to put cryptographic keys into everyone's hands so we can actually do signed and encrypted email for decades, it largely failed, but then we got cryptocurrency and suddenly millions of people have keys publicly associated to them, and we can start using those keys for other purposes - including going full circle back to encrypted email and messaging. Non-blockchain decentralization projects are often chronically underfunded, blockchain-based projects get a 50-million dollar series B round. It is not from the benevolence of the staker that we get people to put in their ETH to protect the Ethereum network, but rather from their regard to their own self-interest - and we get $20 billion in economic security as a result. At the same time, incentives are not enough. Defi projects often start humble, cooperative and maximally open source, but sometimes begin to abandon these ideals as they grow in size. We can incentivize stakers to come and participate with very high uptime, but is much more difficult to incentivize stakers to be decentralized. It may not be doable using purely in-protocol means at all. Lots of critical pieces of the "decentralized stack" described above do not have viable business models. The Ethereum protocol's governance itself is notably non-financialized - and this has made it much more robust than other ecosystems whose governance is more financialized. This is why it's valuable for Ethereum to have a strong social layer, which vigorously enforces its values in those places where pure incentives can't - but without creating a notion of "Ethereum alignment" that turns into a new form of political correctness. There is a balance between these two sides to be made, though the right term is not so much balance as it is integration. There are plenty of people whose first introduction to the crypto space is the desire to get rich, but who then get acquainted with the ecosystem and become avid believers in the quest to build a more open and decentralized world. How do we actually make this integration happen? This is the key question, and I suspect the answer lies not in one magic bullet, but in a collection of techniques that will be arrived at iteratively. The Ethereum ecosystem is already more successful than most in encouraging a cooperative mentality between layer 2 projects purely through social means. Large-scale public goods funding, especially Gitcoin Grants and Optimism's RetroPGF rounds, is also extremely helpful, because it creates an alternative revenue channel for developers that don't see any conventional business models that do not require sacrificing on their values. But even these tools are still in their infancy, and there is a long way to go to both improve these particular tools, and to identify and grow other tools that might be a better fit for specific problems. This is where I see the unique value proposition of Ethereum's social layer. There is a unique halfway-house mix of valuing incentives, but also not getting consumed by them. There is a unqiue mix of valuing a warm and cohesive community, but at the same time remembering that what feels "warm and cohesive" from the inside can easily feel "oppressive and exclusive" from the outside, and valuing hard norms of neutrality, open source and censorship resistance as a way of guarding against the risks of going too far in being community-driven. If this mix can be made to work well, it will in turn be in the best possible position to realize its vision on the economic and technical level.
2024-03-13
Dencun Mainnet Announcement

Dencun Mainnet Announcement

Reposted from https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/02/27/dencun-mainnet-announcement Dencun Mainnet Announcement Mainnet blobs are coming .oO: Two years after its ETHDenver inception, dozens of testing calls and devnets later, protodanksharding is finally going live on mainnet! Dencun will activate on the Ethereum mainnet at epoch 269568, occuring on March 13, 2024 at 13:55 UTC. Node operators & stakers must upgrade their software to releases listed in this announcement. To receive email alerts for future network upgrade announcements, subscribe here. The Dencun network upgrade has successfully activated on all testnets. It is now set for deployment on the Ethereum mainnet and will activate on the network at epoch 269568, occuring on March 13, 2024 at 13:55 UTC. The upgrade, which follows last year's Shapella upgrade, includes several changes, most notably the introduction of ephemeral data blobs with EIP-4844, also known as "protodanksharding", which will help reduce L2 transaction fees. If you'd like to follow the upgrade as it happens, please join the community livestream. Upgrade Specification The Dencun upgrade combines changes to both Ethereum's consensus and execution layers. The full list of protocol changes can be found in EIP-7569. For reference, they are: EIP-1153: Transient storage opcodes EIP-4788: Beacon block root in the EVM EIP-4844: Shard Blob Transactions EIP-5656: MCOPY - Memory copying instruction EIP-6780: SELFDESTRUCT only in same transaction EIP-7044: Perpetually Valid Signed Voluntary Exits EIP-7045: Increase Max Attestation Inclusion Slot EIP-7514: Add Max Epoch Churn Limit EIP-7516: BLOBBASEFEE opcode Deneb Complete python specifications for changes affecting Ethereum's consensus layer can be found in the deneb folder of the ethereum/consensus-specs repository. Cancun The EIPs linked above contain the full specifications for changes affecting Ethereum's execution layer.Additionally, a python specification for these is being implemented in the ethereum/execution-specs repository. Lastly, Deneb requires changes to the Engine API, used for communication between the consensus and execution layer nodes. These are specified in the cancun.md file of the ethereum/execution-apis repository. Client Releases The following client releases support Dencun on the Ethereum mainnet. When choosing which client to run, validators should be especially mindful of the risks of running a majority client on either the execution layer (EL) or consensus layer (CL). An explainer of these risks and their consequences can be found here. An estimate of current EL and CL client distribution and guides for switching from one client to another can be found here. Consensus Layer Mainnet ReleasesNote: when running a validator, both the Consensus Layer Beacon Node and Validator Client must be updated. Execution Layer Mainnet Releases Notes: While Reth supports Dencun, the client is undergoing a full audit and is not yet recommended for production use. See the Reth README for more context. While Geth v1.13.13 fully supports Dencun, v1.13.14 contains performance improvements to the transaction pool's handling of blob transactions and is thus recommended. FAQ As an Ethereum user or Ether holder, is there anything I need to do?In short, no. You can join us on the livestream to watch it all happen live!If you use an exchange, digital wallet or hardware wallet you do not need to do anything unless you are informed to take additional steps by your exchange or wallet provider. If you run your own Ethereum node, see the next question. As a non-staking node operator, what do I need to do?To be compatible with the mainnet Dencun upgrade, update your node's execution and consensus layer clients to the versions listed in the table above. As a staker, what do I need to do?To be compatible with the mainnet Dencun upgrade, update your node's execution and consensus layer clients to the versions listed in the table above. Make sure both your beacon node and validator client are updated.Additionally, stakers who want to run through the upgrade process more times before mainnet are encouraged to use ephemery.dev, which now supports Dencun. What happens if I am a staker or node operator and I do not participate in the upgrade?If you are using an Ethereum client that is not updated to the latest version (listed above), your client will sync to the pre-fork blockchain once the upgrade occurs. You will be stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules and will be unable to send Ether or operate on the post-Dencun Ethereum network. As an application or tooling developer, what should I do?Review the EIPs included in Dencun to determine if and how they affect your project --- there are many new exciting features being introduced across both the execution and consensus layers! The only EIPs with backwards compatibility implications are EIP-6780, EIP-7044 and EIP-7514. Why "Dencun"?Upgrades to the consensus layer use star names, and those to the execution layer follow Devcon city names. "Dencun" is the combination of Deneb, a first-magnitude star in the Cygnus constellation, and Cancun, the location for Devcon 3. Thank you to everyone who helped bring the blobs into existence, (nearly) rid us of SELFDESTRUCT and generally deliver one more major overhaul to the Ethereum network .oO!Original cover image by Darren Lawrence, with modifications by Tomo Saito.
2024-03-17
imToken 2024 New Year Campaign

imToken 2024 New Year Campaign

Hello, imToken friends! Happy New Year! 🧨 We are excited to share with you the Red Packet Campaign in collaboration with Lido, imKey, Tokenlon, Feee.io, Orbiter, GMX, Galxe, PoolTogether, DODO and Dopex on the imToken App. The event kicks off at 8:00 PM on February 9th, as we express our gratitude for your support throughout 2023. 📅Time: Feb 9, 2024, 8 PM - Feb 14, 2024, 11:59 PM (SGT) Rules: Red packet amounts are randomized, putting your luck to the test. Prizes are claimed first-come, first-served. The event will be hosted on the Arbitrum network. Ensure you have a small amount of ETH on the Arbitrum network for transaction fees. This campaign is exclusive to the imToken App. Twitter Bonus Activity: Follow/Retweet imToken's event tweet on Twitter. Share the Red Packet you received in the comments for a chance to win an imKey Pro (valued at $99.99). imToken X(Twitter):https://twitter.com/imTokenOfficial Thank you for your continued support, and best of luck in the red packet campaign👫🏻 The red envelope activity is for entertainment purposes only, not investment advice.
2024-02-20
Tron - Zero Transaction Fees, Limited to 500 Daily Slots!

Tron - Zero Transaction Fees, Limited to 500 Daily Slots!

Hello imToken Fam 🎉, Now, using imToken on Feee.io for energy rental allows you to enjoy zero transaction fees. Limited to 500 slots daily – first come, first served! Once the quota exceeds 500, the energy rental fee will adjust to 3.76 TRX (Save up to 89% in transaction fees ) 🚗How to: Switch to the TRON wallet within the imToken App, click “Rent” to enter Feee.io, and click “Get Energy” to participate. ⏰ Event Period: 2024/01/18 2:30 PM - 02/18 00:00 AM (SGT) 💪🏻 Details: Each wallet address can claim energy once daily, the claimed energy is valid for 10 minutes.Transactions within the valid time are fee-free. However, the claimed energy will expire upon timeout. According to the TRON transfer mechanism, if the recipient address has no USDT, a 50% fee applies. Each wallet address can claim a maximum of 15 times per month. The activity is only open to imToken users 👉 Check the detailed tutorial for energy rental. If you have any questions, please contact us through “Support and Feedback” within the imToken App.
2024-03-17

Load more