weekly #10 | Ethereal news

Vitalik: role of L2s has changed, Hegotá upgrade headliner proposals, Lido v3 live

Vitalik: role of L2s in Ethereum ecosystem has changed
- mainnet is scaling (low fees & gas limit increasing)
- L2s progress to stage 2 & interoperability is slower & more difficult than expected
- L2s should bring something new & vibes should match substance
- Response from L2s: Steven (Offchain Labs), Jesse (Base), Jing (OP Labs), Eli (Starknet), Declan (Linea), Alex (ZKsync) & Hayden (Unichain)
Ethereum Foundation:
- Trillion dollar security dashboard: overview of security across 6 dimensions
- PhD fellowship program, $24k stipend, April 1 deadline
ETHChiangmai hackathon winners
ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 1.0 average, 0.0 - 49.7 (12.4 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply change: 17.5k net issuance
- ETHUSD: $1,825 - $2,739 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETH ETFs: 5% of ETH supply
- ETHBTC: 0.029 (0.166 for the Flippening)

MetaMask Developer AI agents can now use the MetaMask Smart Accounts Kit with OpenClaw. 🦊🦞

This OpenClaw skill teaches agents how to:

Blockscout (block explorer) Tor native version
Privacy Pools wen withdraw (dashboard): view deposit/withdrawal volume & timing
Aave Labs: Family (wallet) iOS app winding down, Avara brand no longer in use
wei names (name service) live on mainnet; wei.limo web gateway for .eth & .wei names
Small Brain merch store uses maybe pay, live on Abstract, amount overpaid increases chance of a full refund
Vitalik proposes creator DAOs to incentivize quality content creation, DAOs earn proceeds from content & burn creator coins of new members using a portion of proceeds

Hardhat (dev framework) v3.1.7: adds getProof support; v3.1.6: adds build hook for plugins
act v0.2.0 (formal specification language): reimplementation of v0.1 prototype
Paul Berg
- Effect EVM (client library): Effect-TS, built on viem, beta
- Effect EVM Safe: Effect-TS for Safe multisig apps, beta
Voltaire (client library): production ready: Zig & TypeScript; beta: Python, Rust, Go & Swift
Brane (client library): type-safe Java 21 SDK
Walletbeat wallet test playground: test transactions, signatures & EIP support
Interoperable addresses SDK & playground: ERC7930 (binary format for use in contracts) & ERC7828 (human readable)
ERC4337 (account abstraction) censorship & griefing vector, fixed in EntryPoint v0.9
create-8004-agent (CLI): scaffold ERC8004 & x402 v2 AI agents
Farcaster agent (skill): create account for $1, add signer key for posting & post casts
Argot Collective Q3/Q4 transparency report: $2.4M in expenditure for Solidity, Sourcify, hevm, Fe, ethdebug & Act
Application layer standards (ERCs):
- ERC8143: Smart credential resolution interface
- ERC8144: Multi-chain GS1 product identifier resolver
- ERC8147: Locality-preserving storage layout for binary trie
- ERC8150: Zero-knowledge agent payment verification

Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026)
- Proposed headliners (consensus layer):
  - EIP7805 Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL)
  - Partial reconstruction & 2D PeerDAS
- Consensus layer headliner to be selected at next ACDC
- FOCIL most likely headliner with strong support from client teams
Blobs:
- EIP8136 cell-level deltas: exchange missing cells rather than full data columns, client teams implementing, backwards compatible, enable via a feature flag & doesn’t need a network upgrade

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- EIP7732 ePBS:
  - epbs-devnet-0: still targeting late February, based on subset of consensus spec v1.7.0-alpha.2

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- EIP7928 Block-level Access Lists:
  - bal-devnet-2 planned to launch this week
- Potuz’s annotated Gloas spec: fork choice
- Glamsterdam repricings breakout #1
Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026)
- Headliner proposals (create your ranking):
  - Consensus layer:
    - EIP7805 Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists
    - Partial reconstruction & 2D PeerDAS
  - Execution layer:
    - EIP8141 frame transaction (post-quantum security, native account abstraction & gas sponsorship)
    - EIP8105 encrypted transaction pool
    - EIP7807 SSZ execution blocks
    - LUCID encrypted transaction pool
Post quantum transaction signatures #1
Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
- EIP8145: Namespaced storage in binary trie
- EIP8146: Block access list sidecars
- EIP8148: Custom sweep threshold for validators
- EIP8149: Multi KZG point evaluation precompile

Vitalik: new forms of state for 1000x scaling, add temporary storage with resurrection or UTXOs, keeping existing state mostly as is (but relatively more expensive)
Jordi Baylina: synchronous composability between rollups via realtime proving
- Martin Köppelmann: synchronous rollup proof of concept

Lido v3 live, adds modular staking vaults (stVaults), vault owners define staking setups & staked deposits can mint stETH
Staking marketshare: Lido 23% [Note: dual governance]
Validators: 971k active
Client releases:
- Consensus layer:
  - Lighthouse v8.1.0 (recommended): performance optimizations, validator client improvements & bug fixes
  - Lodestar v1.39.1: arm64 docker image was missing a dependency
- Execution layer:
  - Besu 26.1.0 (recommended): performance improvements for getBlobsV2 & getPayload and adds getBlobsV3

EF dAI: setup OpenClaw (AI assistant) on a Raspberry Pi with reduced attack surface; Risks: prompt injection, trust AI provider, physical access & user error
Notepad++ auto-updater compromised from June to December 2 by state-sponsored group targeting specific high-value organizations

Ethereal news weekly #10