Merge delays, new Coinbase listings, and some sleuthing

GM, and welcome to RollCall by Rollfi! 

The top stories from the week in 10 minutes or less.  Here's what we have on deck for today:

• 😒Ethereum merge delays

• 📈New Coinbase listings

• 🕵️Ronin hack updates

Ethereum Merge Delayed

While no official date has ever been set for the Ethereum Merge, past statements have indicated that it will happen this spring. That is, however, until a few days ago when Tim Beiko, an Ethereum Foundation developer, mentioned on Twitter that it will not likely happen until a "few months after" that.

Now, Ethereum.org has updated their official Merge page to reflect that tweet, stating the expected transition will happen in Q3 or Q4 of this year.

Ok, but what does that mean? And what's taking so long?

The Merge is Ethereum's transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Essentially, this transition will help Ethereum become more scalable, secure, and sustainable - the three main points of the Ethereum vision. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's founder, wrote more on why they chose PoS back in 2020.

As far as what is causing the delay, an Ethereum DevOps engineer gave a more in depth look at what the testing team has been up to:

Coinbase Transparency Leads to Questions

In an attempt to "increase transparency for new asset listings" on the Coinbase exchange, Coinbase released this blog post, announcing assets that could be listed on the exchange in the 2nd quarter.

Because Coinbase is one of the leading crypto exchanges and buying assets on Coinbase's exchange  hosted wallet is much more simple than using a decentralized exchange and an un-hosted wallet to buy tokens, Coinbase automatically provides loads of liquidity to any asset listed on their platform. So when new tokens become available, the price tends to shoot up. This is known as the Coinbase effect.

That's why when Cobie posted this tweet, eyebrows started to raise:

People have been speculating about insider trading at Coinbase and other crypto exchanges for a while now. The problem is, that unless un-hosted wallet users are required to disclose their personal information, there is not really a way to identify them. This could change in the future, however, if know-your-customer rules continue to expand like they have recently in Europe.

Checking In With The Ronin Hacker

Speaking of anonymity...

A couple of weeks ago, we broke down the Ronin Hack. This week, the FBI and US Treasury Department are alleging that the hack is tied to a North Korean hacker group called "Lazarus" and Treasury Department has sanctioned the wallet address. 

Out of curiosity, (and because we feel like we're in a detective movie when we do it) we've been keeping our eyes on the wallet to see what they've been up to (you can view the wallet too, here.) And it seems like our friend 0x098B716B8Aaf21512996dC57EB0615e2383E2f96  has been up to no good.

The wallet has been drained of about 30k ETH since the hack took place, in increments of 1k-3k ETH. Every transaction out of the wallet has gone into another wallet that is seemingly washing the funds, 100 ETH at a time through a protocol called Tornado.Cash, where users can mask their addresses to withdraw funds. We'll continue to update on this as things prog

Tweets, reads, and more:

As always, before we leave, here are the best things we've seen/heard this week across the web3 universe. 

• Bruno Lulinski (@BLulinski) wrote one of the most comprehensive, yet simple guides to understand Ethereum we've read to date.

• Axios wrote about the growing number of employees taking paychecks in crypto. If you're looking to get paid in crypto, we know a platform that might work for you.

• Yellen's tone seems to be changing slightly on the value crypto provides.

• HBR's article on how DAO's could change how we work.

Glossary

We're confused too. We're here to help decrypt the crazy world of crypto.

• Merge - A multi-phased upgrade to the Ethereum protocol that will see a transition in consensus mechanisms from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

• Proof-of-work (PoW) - a system that requires a not-insignificant but feasible amount of effort in order to deter frivolous or malicious uses of computing power (investopedia).

• Proof-of-stake (PoS) - consensus mechanisms for blockchains that work by selecting validators in proportion to their quantity of holdings in the associated cryptocurrency (Wikipedia)

• Hosted wallet - A hosted wallet is a digital account hosted by a third-party financial institution, which allows the account-holder (the user) to store, send, and receive cryptocurrency (source)

• Un-hosted wallet - not hosted by a third-party financial system. It can be very difficult or impossible to determine who is accessing or in control of the use of cryptocurrencies in an unhosted wallet.

• Decentralized exchange - peer-to-peer marketplace where transactions occur directly between crypto traders (Coinbase)

At Rollfi, we're building the payroll & HR platform for the modern workforce. Give your employees the power to choose exactly how and where they want to get paid.

We'll keep you updated on our progress as we continue to build. In the meantime, if you haven't already, sign up for early access to our crypto enabled payroll platform at the link below.

Let us know what you thought of this week's email!

• 👍 Groovy

• 😑 Meh

• 💩 Pls fix