FOCIL is Hegotá consensus layer headliner, EF protocol priorities: Scale, Improve UX & Harden the L1, Base moving to own stack
Ecosystem
- Ethereum Foundation:
- Protocol priorities:
- Scale: unify scale L1 & scale blobs efforts
- Improve UX: native account abstraction & interoperability
- Harden the L1: security, censorship resistance and network resilience & testing
- Tomasz Stańczak stepping down as co-Executive Director at end of February
- Bastian Aue stepping in as interim co-Executive Director (previously co-steward in management team)
- Tomasz Stańczak: 5 steps to make Ethereum driven by LLMs
- Platform team: new EF team to deliver cohesive platform (L1 + L2s)
- Ethereum protocol studies: study group starts February 23, adds self-paced learning platform and tracks on cryptography & lean consensus/zkEVM
- Protocol priorities:
- Conference videos: EthDenver & EthBoulder
- ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 0.1 average, 0.0 - 0.8 (12.4 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply change: 19k net issuance
- ETHUSD: $1,919 - $2,098 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETH ETFs: 5% of ETH supply
- ETHBTC: 0.029 (0.166 for the Flippening)
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Enterprise
- Apollo x Morpho, Apollo may acquire up to 90M Morpho tokens over 4 years
- Harvard Management Company (university endowment) purchased $87M worth of Blackrock iShares ETH ETF
Applications
- DefiLlama search: search for DeFi websites, curated by DefiLlama
- Privacy Pools adds Liquity BOLD stablecoin
- Supernova ve(3,3) DEX live on mainnet
- EY Nightfall (zk privacy protocol) deployed on Starknet
- Octant epoch 11 (public goods funding): allocate to Protocol Guild or yourself & migrate to v2
- Vitalik: prediction markets + LLMs as replacement for fiat currency
Developers
- Solidity v0.8.34 (language): patch for high severity transient storage clearing helper collision bug, impacts contracts that used delete on a transient state variable & compiled with IR pipeline, 3 deployed contracts found
- Foundry (dev framework):
- Forge-std v1.15.0 (helpers): adds cheatcodes to get recorded logs as JSON & execute RLP-encoded signed transaction
- Hardhat (dev framework):
- Hardhat-deploy 2.0 (plugin): write deploy scripts in TypeScript/JavaScript, hot reload, reproducible deployments & easy export; rewritten for Hardhat v3
- Sol2uml v2.5.25: (tool) class diagrams show which functions are called on dependencies
- Uniswap developer portal: API & Agent skill to integrate swap & LP functionality, beta
- ERC7984 confidential fungible token:
- Zama implementation explainer & create via OpenZeppelin Contracts Wizard
- Anet: build an agent that is discoverable (ERC8004), callable (ERC8128 auth & x402 payments), messageable (XMTP) & reputable (calls submit reputation feedback)
- Application layer standards (ERCs):
Agents
- Austin Griffith ETHSkills (skill): Ethereum knowledge for agents
- Cyfrin Solskill (skill): write production grade Solidity
- QuillShield security skills: 10 skills for contract security
- Fileverse API & Agent skill: collaborate on dDocs, generate a key pair, multisig & content hash registry isolated from main account
Security
- OpenAI & Paradigm EVMbench: benchmark on agent ability to detect, patch & exploit contract vulnerabilities
- Moonwell cbETH $1.8M bad debt, oracle config error, change coauthored by Claude
- OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities found in contracts
All core devs (main protocol calls)
All core devs - consensus (ACDC) #175
- Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026)
- Consensus layer headliner selected: EIP7805 Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL)
All core devs - testing (ACDT) #70
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- bal-devnet-3 (spec): planned for March 4
Layer 1
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- EIP7928 Block-level Access Lists annotated execution specs
- Gas repricing:
- Gas repricing info site & stakeholder survey (takes 10 minutes)
- Glamsterdam repricings #2
- Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026):
- Ethstaker Hegotá proposed headliners community call
- Vitalik: FOCIL & EIP8141 frame transactions synergies; EIP8141 is proposed execution layer headliner
- Encrypt the transaction pool #0
- ethPandaOps consensoor: Python consensus layer client for local testing & prototyping
- Ben Edgington: fast finality input wanted
- Flashbots:
- Decentralized block building update
- Flashnet: anonymous broadcast using TEEs for liveness & cryptography for anonymity
- L1-zkEVM:
- zkVM standards v0: RV64IM+Zicclsm common ISA, C interface for precompiles & C interface for guest IO
- Ethereum protocol intelligence: agentic RAG system, data sources: EIPs, ERCs, consensus/execution specs, client code, research papers, Eth research & Eth Magicians
- Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
Staking
- Rocket Pool Saturn One upgrade live, 4 ETH validators, megapools & RPL fee switch
- Vibe coded clients:
- Client diversity:
- Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~51% (data may not be accurate)
- Execution layer: Geth ~41%, Nethermind ~38% (estimated from self reports)
- Staking marketshare: Lido 23.2% [Note: dual governance]
- Validators: 965k active (target 128k)
- Client releases:
- Consensus layer:
- Execution layer:
- Geth:
- Reth v1.11.0 (high): sparse trie as cache, state root performance improvements & experimental hot/cold storage saves 23-50%; OP-Reth moved
Layer 2
- Base moving to own stack; objectives: faster shipping (6 upgrades a year), simpler design & deploy features ahead of L1 + transition to TEE/ZK proofs for faster finality
- Response from Jing (OP Labs)
- L2Beat new stage 1 requirements, proving systems must be fully reproducible within 6 months or L2s will be downgraded to stage 0
- Polynomial shutting down, withdraw funds before February 24
Regulation
- US CFTC asserts jurisdiction over prediction markets in amicus brief
General
- Nexus Mutual crypto kidnap & ransom cover
- Skipping class: algebraic attacks on Poseidon2 & Poseidon2b hash functions
- Pinnacle architecture: 2048-bit RSA integers can be factored with less than 100k physical qubits
Editor: @abcoathup
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