# Engineering Weekly Update - 2021-08-02

**URL:** <https://gov.near.org/t/engineering-weekly-update-2021-08-02/4076>\
**Category:** Engineering Updates\
**Tags:** weekly-updates\
**Created:** [August 2, 2021, 5:59pm UTC](https://gov.near.org/t/engineering-weekly-update-2021-08-02/4076 "2021-08-02T17:59:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nearmax](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/gov.near.org/nearmax/32/13344_2.png) [@nearmax](https://gov.near.org/u/nearmax)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2021, 5:59pm UTC](https://gov.near.org/t/engineering-weekly-update-2021-08-02/4076/1 "2021-08-02T17:59:28Z")

</div>

# Brief Summary

- Contract Runtime achieved 25-30% contract loading speedup, improved Wasmer 2.0 safety, and are cleaning up param estimator;
- Chain team started implementation of dynamic number of shards across the epochs;
- You can now send fungible tokens in wallet!

# Results

- Contract Runtime moved [weekly async updated to Zulip](https://near.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/295306-dev-contract-runtime/topic/weekly-sync);
- Contract Runtime improved loading of the contract by 25-30% by [switching deserialization to borsh](https://github.com/near/nearcore/pull/4448);
- Contract Runtime fixed one of [the Wasmer 2.0 bugs](https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer/issues/2329) which is important to allow transition to faster VM;
- Node Experience are making steady improvements for Nayduck and integration tests;
- Developer Platform prepared [4.0.0-pre.1 Rust SDK pre-release](https://github.com/near/near-sdk-rs/releases/tag/4.0.0-pre.1);
- Chain has added a support for making number of shards dynamic across epochs, several PRs are underway;
- Network team has investigated security concerns in Kademlia;
- Wallet disabled 2FA SMS for Vietnam;
- Wallet team are also experimenting with 8+2 days sprints;

# Challenges and Blockers

- Rust SDK release might be potentially delayed by introducing builder pattern that will make life of Contract Runtime and Transaction Runtime teams easier, see [here](https://near.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/295801-dev-developer-platform/topic/builder.20pattern.20SDK/near/247635348);
- We found out that new function call is dramatically more expensive than what we thought before. Investigation is underway. It is likely related to our new method of estimation;

# Full Reports

- [Contract Runtime](https://github.com/near/community/blob/master/meetings/contract-runtime-wg.md#07292021);
- [Node Experience](https://github.com/near/community/discussions/79);
- [Developer Platform](https://github.com/near/community/discussions/80);
- [Chain+Transaction runtime](https://github.com/near/community/blob/master/meetings/chain-wg.md#august-2nd-2021);
- [Network](https://github.com/near/community/blob/master/meetings/chain-wg.md#august-2nd-2021);
- [Wallet](https://github.com/near/community/discussions/81).