Blockchain Developer Monthly Newsletter ⛓

The 3rd Edition of Blockchain Developer Monthly!

Hey everyone! Markus here. If you've been here before, you can skip this section. If it's your first time, keep reading.

What's this all about?!

Well there are lots of blockchain newsletters out there that will hype you up on the latest NFT project or predicting some new token that's going to the moon. Maybe not so much in the last few months given NFT volumes have fallen off the cliff... but you get the idea!

But it's hard to find any that actually go deep into things that are relevant for developers working in the space.

That's why I created this - a newsletter dedicated to developers who want to stay up-to-date and excel in the world of web3.

In case you aren't already convinced... Being a solidity, blockchain, & ethereum developer is a fantastic career option.

Regardless of whether you love or hate crypto, there's no denying blockchain is an exciting technology with tons of job opportunities. You can work around the world, you get to work on solutions to big problems, and you're on the cutting edge of the tech sector.

But things move FAST.

So staying up-to-date with the constantly evolving ecosystem can be tough. If you're still reading this, maybe you want to be a top-performing developer within the web3 landscape, but probably don’t have time to find, read, and synthesize all the articles, videos and podcasts that come out each month.

So this monthly Blockchain Developer Newsletter was born.

I keep you up-to-date with what's happening within the web3 industry, without wasting your valuable time, by curating the most important articles, guides, news, resources, podcasts and videos from the past month.

This newsletter was inspired by Andrei's Web Developer Monthly + Python Monthly and Daniel's Machine Learning Monthly.

Ok, let's dive into this issue. I hope you enjoy!

Let's dive in. Here's what you missed in September 2022 as a Blockchain Developer…

1. ‘The Merge’ has happened!

It finally happened. Ethereum has successfully transitioned to Proof of Stake on September 15th. 🎉🎉🎉

Ethereum no longer operates with Proof of Work.

Unfortunately for her, the Queen never got to experience this joy.

But as a result of this shift, the merge “will reduce worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2%" - @drakefjustin).

You can now also order Vitalik’s Proof of Stake Book. All proceeds will go to support open-source public goods through Gitcoin Grants.

2. Tools & Interesting Finds

• Check out Vitalik’s thoughts on Layer-3.

• Mockthereum: A tool to build a fake Ethereum node to inspect and mock all interactions.

• execTransaction: A useful pattern for NFT smart contracts.

• The Etherscan Rinkeby and Ropsten testnet explorers will be deprecated on October 5th.

3. Global Crypto Events

September has been pretty eventful for crypto, not only in terms of news, but also events around the world.

Personally I made it to EthBerlin and was mentoring projects. It was a lot of fun. Congrats to all the winners.

A few days later in NYC was the Messari Mainnet conference, followed by Cosmoverse in Medellin. It was my first Cosmos conference and I was impressed.

There were two major announcements at Cosmos that were particularly interesting:

1. Project X by Injective, a new paradigm shift for decentralized market-making strategies on order books that I’ve personally been involved with. It won the best launch award.

2. ATOM 2.0 was announced which will reduce the inflation rate and make the Cosmos hub a major provider of Interchain Security.

And here's the big events coming up in October:

• HackWasm: First ever hackathon about CosmWasm, the smart contract language for web assembly on Cosmos. And I’ll be joining it. If people want to learn more in this area, please reach out to me so that I know there is interest for it!
• EthBogota: A big hackathon just before Devcon.
• Devcon: The largest crypto conference world-wide with focus on Ethereum. And many side events. If you’re around, feel free to reach out to me. If you can’t make it, there are also satellite events.

4. Abitrum Nitro: Blockchain on a Blockchain?

Arbitrum is already one of the most successful Layer 2s so far, and the new Nitro is a major upgrade for it.

Basically, it works by running a blockchain on a blockchain.

The new virtual machine enables Plasma but for smart contracts in a super efficient way! It enables having a side chain with guarantees of the Ethereum mainnet chain.

The core idea here is actually quite simple. Just like in Plasma you have a Layer 2 chain which is running all transactions and you update only the Merkle root within Layer 1 occasionally. The Merkle root in this case is not for UTXO transactions as for regular plasma, but for the full state of a smart contract (or to be more precise, for the full state of all smart contracts being used).

If that sounds confusing and you want a deeper dive into how the tech works and how to use it as a Solidity Developer, check out this post for more details: How Ethereum scales with Arbitrum Nitro and how to use it.

Note: knowledge of Merkle Trees is required to follow the explanations.

See you next month!

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Blockchain Developer Monthly.

Something missing? Have an idea of what to include in a future post? Let me know.

See you next month, Markus

By the way, I teach people how to code in Solidity and get hired as a Blockchain Developer in the most efficient way possible. Come check out a few of our Blockchain & Web3 Courses below and try out some of the free preview lessons.