WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Dec 14

Welcome back to this week's edition of our WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter!

Fun fact: The price of crypto assets can differ depending where in the world you are. Coin Metrics published their research about this on their State of the Network this week.

Does quantum computing threaten encryption?

Crypto is not only short for ‘cryptocurrency’ but also for ‘cryptography’, the encryption technology that powers and secures blockchains. Different blockchains use different types of encryption to achieve security, decentralization and scalability. With the computing technology we have publicly available right now, these encryption schemes are essentially impossible to hack. But quantum computing, if powerful enough, has the potential to break encryption, possibly allowing bad actors to “break into” crypto wallets and steal all the funds. Good news: the technology isn’t there yet, and what is available is exorbitantly expensive. Updating wallet and blockchain tech to make it “quantum proof” might be pretty simple. Bad news: some people are worried about the older technology, like Bitcoin’s early system, not being secure enough, and have proposed hard forks to solve the problem.

Learn more here.

Solana could be faster

Blockchains work by organizing data into sequential groups called blocks (watch our video explaining blockchains). Each block can carry a maximum amount of data; bigger blocks means there is space for more transactions in each block, which could lead to faster transaction times. But bigger blocks also means the hardware needed to maintain or mine the blocks needs to be hardier. Solana devs are considering increasing the blockchains’ block limit, but will likely do so in small increments to see how the hardware handles it. Activity on Solana has soared lately, largely thanks to the spike of interest in memecoins. So, this block limit increase is meant to allow for greater scalability.

Learn more here.

Devs also flock to Solana

Electric Capital is a venture firm that released their 2024 developer report this week. The report shows that more new developers are working in the Solana ecosystem than the Ethereum ecosystem for the first time this year. It also shows that the distribution of developers across the world is evening out, with Asia having the most devs. While monthly active developers have dropped in the past year, the number of active developers who have more than 2 years of experience in crypto has grown 27%. This shows that while there are 7% fewer devs, the ones that are still here are increasingly dedicated and knowledgeable.

Learn more here.

Optimism created a new token standard

A common concern people have lately is that the Ethereum ecosystem is too fragmented across the variety of layer 2s and layer 3s that are not fully interoperable - meaning you can’t take your assets from one chain to the other very easily. Optimism is a layer 2 on Ethereum that is creating the Superchain, a set of interconnected networks that are meant to combat this problem. In order to do that, they’ve created a token standard called SuperchainERC20 that allows for the tokens using that standard to move across the Superchain without the need for wrapped tokens or bridges.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore