Scroll Launches Alpha Testnet On Goerli

Quick Take

• Scroll launches its Alpha Testnet on Goerli.
• Offchain Labs proposes a PoW block delivery mechanism.
• The EF announces Account Abstraction grants.
• Shapella activates on the Sepolia testnet.

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Scroll Launches Alpha Testnet On Goerli

Scroll, an EVM-Equivalent ZK-Rollup, deployed the alpha version of its zkEVM on the Goerli testnet. Scroll also released a bridge, which is a fork of Hop Protocol, for transferring tokens between Goerli and Scroll. Users are recommended to remove any previous Scroll networks before adding the latest release to their wallet.

Scroll first released a pre-alpha testnet in August, which has processed over 15 million transactions and 1.8 million rollup blocks to date. The pre-alpha testnet underwent a reset in January. Scroll plans to deploy its zkEVM to mainnet later this year. Afterward, the rollup plans to work on building a decentralized prover and sequencer network.

Offchain Labs PoW Block Delivery Mechanism

Offchain Labs developers proposed a solution that aims to minimize the load on the Arbitrum sequencer. Currently, MEV searchers are incentivized to open numerous connections to the sequencer in an effort to increase their chance at being first to retrieve blocks. The searcher that accesses a block first is the one that captures the MEV. The relay is currently serving over 100,000 connections,

To reduce the load, Offchain Labs proposed a solution akin to PoW, which rewards priority access to blocks for the first 25 feed subscribers that mine the lowest nonce. Community members called the design “economically wasteful” and proposed alternative mechanisms such as auctions. Offchain Labs later made changes to the relay and will hold off on its proposed solution for now.

Vitalik On Crypto Wallet User Experience

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin published a new blog summarizing his personal experience with crypto wallets. Vitalik says he often encounters unpredictable delays between sending a transaction, getting the transaction accepted in a block, and having a service provider acknowledge the transaction as received.

Transaction delays are also caused by improper base fees during gas spikes. Transactions also fail if the gas limit is insufficient. Vitalik suggests for wallet providers to make stuck transactions more obvious in the UI. Vitalik also notes that EIP-1559 improved delays by ensuring most transactions get accepted into the next block within seconds.

EF Announces Account Abstraction Grants

The Ethereum Foundation is accepting proposals for its Account Abstraction grant round. A total of $300,000 is available for projects looking to improve the infrastructure surrounding Account Abstraction on Ethereum. Projects are required to make their work open-source and accessible by a URL in order to be eligible for a grant.

The foundation suggests for grantees build solutions around web auth transaction validation, p2p messaging, sequencer RPCs, bundlers, and an account abstraction block explorer. The foundation is accepting proposals between now and March 31st. Proposals will then be considered for approval on a rolling basis.

Shapella Activates On Sepolia

The Shapella upgrade was successfully activated and finalized on the Sepolia testnet. Shapella is the combination of the Shanghai and Capella upgrades which are set to unlock withdrawals for validators. Shapella also introduces five new EIPs. Goerli will be the testnet set to undergo the upgrade ahead of Ethereum Mainnet.