Devcon 2024: Ethereum Unveils Beam Chain Proposal, Arbitrum Embraces ERC-7683, and More

The Devcon conference is an important event hosted by the Ethereum Foundation, primarily aimed at developers, artists, makers, and other types of ecosystem builders within the Ethereum ecosystem.

The Devcon conference, hosted by the Ethereum Foundation, is an important event that brings together developers, artists, makers, and other types of ecosystem builders within the Ethereum ecosystem. Since its inception in 2014, Devcon has been held eight times and has become one of the largest promotional windows for the Ethereum ecosystem. Devcon 2024 will take place from November 12 to November 15, 2024, in Bangkok, Thailand. During this week, many Ethereum ecosystem projects will choose to announce their latest achievements or project progress. PANews has summarized the main project developments during Devcon 2024.

Many interesting updates were released on the Ethereum mainnet in the past week. First, on November 7, the Ethereum Foundation announced the launch of a short-term testnet called "Mekong," aimed at testing for the upcoming Pectra upgrade. The main changes in the test include: improving the user experience for crypto wallets and account abstraction; raising the maximum validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH; updating deposit and exit mechanisms, etc.

On November 12, at the Devcon conference in Thailand, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake proposed a new consensus layer upgrade proposal called "Beam Chain," referred to by the community as "Ethereum 3.0." This proposal aims to achieve several key goals: 1. Faster block times. 2. Lower validator staking requirements. 3. "On-chain snarkification." 4. Improvements in quantum security. The core of Beam Chain lies in the introduction of technologies such as zkVM to significantly enhance the scalability of the Ethereum mainnet, potentially without relying on Layer 2 solutions. However, Justin Drake also stated that this proposal may begin construction in 2026, followed by at least two years of thorough testing before it can be deployed on the mainnet.

Some believe this is the largest upgrade since Ethereum's merge, but there are differing opinions in the market. José Maria Macedo, founding partner of Delphi Ventures, stated, "I was excited about the vision for ETH 3.0, but Justin Drake's actual proposal is disappointing. It is essentially a restructured codebase that achieves a 4-second block time and quantum resistance, which will be realized in 2029-2030. These upgrades alone are not enough to make Ethereum Layer 1 competitive, and they do not even instill confidence in its competitiveness. The Ethereum Foundation needs to have bigger dreams."

Additionally, at Devcon 2024, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also attended and delivered a keynote speech, describing Ethereum as a "world computer," outlining the progress of the Ethereum network and its future vision, with a focus on decentralization, scalability, and inclusivity.

On October 7, the Arbitrum Foundation announced the "Road to Devcon" plan, aimed at increasing investment in the Asian market. This plan includes hosting in-person events called ArbiLink in Vietnam and Indonesia to connect with the rapidly growing local developer communities. On November 13, during the Devcon event, Arbitrum announced support for the ERC-7683 standard to facilitate cross-chain intentions. ERC-7683 was proposed by Uniswap Labs and Across in May 2024, aiming to enhance interoperability between different blockchains by standardizing the order structure for cross-chain transactions.

During Devcon, Coinbase also launched several strategic initiatives in the on-chain payment sector. On November 13, Coinbase announced the acquisition of the Utopia Labs team, which focuses on stablecoin technology and on-chain payment solutions. Jesse Pollak, head of Coinbase Wallet and founder of Base, stated, "We hope to see 50 countries integrated into the Coinbase wallet by the end of 2025." On the 14th, Coinbase Wallet announced that it would soon launch a "tap-to-pay" crypto payment solution, and Base would achieve Layer 2 interoperability within months. Currently, Base is the second hottest public chain project in this bull market, just behind Solana, and these initiatives from Coinbase are expected to further enhance its leading position in the cryptocurrency payment sector.

As a recently popular Layer 2 project, Unichain's progress is also one of the main highlights of this Devcon event. On November 10, Unichain released an access guide for early developers, detailing how to bridge Ethereum (ETH) on its network and perform withdrawal operations.

On November 12, Circle announced that its USDC stablecoin would soon support the Layer 2 network Unichain launched by Uniswap Labs. However, in response to the community's premature enthusiasm, Unichain's official statement on the 12th indicated that the mainnet has not yet gone live, the bridge specifications have not been finalized, and the RPC for developer access has