Ethereum (ETH) developers have recently introduced a new smart contract standard, ERC-7512, with the aim of enhancing transparency and accessibility to smart contract audits for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. This proposal, posted on the Ethereum Magicians forum by Richard Meissner, co-founder of Safe, has sparked lively discussions among developers, attracting notable contributors from various organizations including OtterSec, ChainSecurity, OpenZeppelin, Ackee Blockchain, and Hats Finance.
Improving Audits and Extracting Relevant Information
The primary objective of ERC-7512 is to establish an on-chain representation of audit reports that can be parsed by contracts, enabling users to extract relevant information about the audits performed. This includes details such as the auditors involved and the verified standards. The authors of the proposal explain, “The proposal aims to create a standard for an on-chain representation of audit reports that can be parsed by contracts to extract relevant information about the audits, such as who performed the audits and what standards have been verified.”
While the proposal has received widespread support from the community, developers are currently engaging in detailed discussions regarding the implementation of the standard. Dexara, the founder of Callisto Network, has suggested an alternative approach by utilizing a registry that organizes audits through non-transferable Soulbound Tokens instead of introducing a new Ethereum standard. Meissner, in response, proposes that the ERC can be used within the context of a registry, cautioning against an overly centralized approach. Shay Zluf adds that the focus of ERC-7512 is to standardize what auditors should sign, rather than defining the registry itself.
It is important to note that while security audits are valuable, they do not guarantee flawless code for protocols. To highlight this, the recent launch of the BANANA token, associated with a Telegram trading bot, encountered a bug in its smart contract shortly after deployment, despite claims of undergoing two audits by the team. Interestingly, a Twitter user named punk9059 ran BANANA’s code through the AI chatbot, ChatGPT, which quickly identified the problem.
Delays and Future Plans
Earlier this week, Ethereum developers had to delay the launch of the highly anticipated Holesky testnet due to a parameter mismatch, which caused the network to fail while operating. Nethermind, an Ethereum client team, has stated that a relaunch is expected to take place in one week’s time, indicating that Holesky could go live as early as this Friday. However, Barnabus Busa, a DevOps engineer for the Ethereum Foundation, published a GitHub pull request suggesting that the relaunch should occur on September 28. Paritosh, an Ethereum Foundation DevOps engineer, further adds, “It’s extremely likely that we relaunch the network with new genesis files and have the network up approximately two weeks from now.”
