US SEC securities laws application to crypto, fast confirmation rule, EF mandate
Ecosystem
- Ethereum Foundation:
- EF mandate (audiobook & printable artwork):
- Uphold CROPS: censorship resistance, open source & free (as in freedom), privacy and security
- Aims: decentralized & resilient tool for self-sovereignty and scale availability of self-sovereignty to users
- Protocol priority harden the L1 overview
- 3.4k ETH deposited into Morpho from EF treasury
- EF mandate (audiobook & printable artwork):
- ETHMumbai hackathon projects
- Devcon 8: $99 early bird vouchers for Indian residents
- ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 0.1 average, 0.0 - 1.6 (12.5 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply change: 19k net issuance
- ETHUSD: $2,067 - $2,362 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETH ETFs: 5.1% of ETH supply
- ETHBTC: 0.030 (0.166 for the Flippening)
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Enterprise
- PayPal USD stablecoin (PYUSD) expands to 70 markets
- Mastercard acquiring BVNK (stablecoin infrastructure)
- Amundi & Spiko launch tokenized sub-fund with shareholder register on Ethereum
- AWS x402 & agentic commerce in financial services guide
Applications
- $50M swapped for $36k of AAVE: Aave & CoW postmortems
- OpenSea token delayed
- Tally shutting down
- Etherscan proxy history: view proxy contracts upgrade history
- Ethereum Community Foundation Swapboard: bulletin board for peer to peer token trading
- Sign in with Ethereum Discourse plugin: UI rewrite, adds contract wallet support, server-side ENS resolution & security fixes
Developers
- Reminder: Synthesis AI + human hackathon, building ends March 22
- Hardhat v3.2.0 (dev framework): export gas stats report to JSON
- Nethereum 6.0.4 (.NET client library): adds nethereum-dapp Aspire template (Solidity, C#, Blazor & EIP6963 wallet)
- EVM chronicle (web tool): adds search contracts by pattern
- x402 (internet-native payments): adds support for any ERC20 token using Uniswap Permit2 & Coinbase gas sponsorship extensions
- ERC8004 trustless agents first 6 months: 97k+ agents
- Privy Earn: connect application balances to onchain lending markets
- Base OnchainKit sunsetting; migrate to wagmi/viem
- EF Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF) proof of concepts:
- DIY validium
- Private crosschain atomic swaps: using shielded pool, stealth addresses & TEE as the coordinator
- Application layer standards (ERCs):
Agents
- World AgentKit, verified humans can delegate their World ID to agents, beta
- Ottie: self-evolving agent purpose built for crypto
Security
- dTrinity $257k bad debt via first-deposit inflation attack
- Votemarket ~$175k exploit, campaign incentive rewards stolen on Arbitrum & Base
- Shutter DAO governance capture mitigation via two day timelock & security council veto
All core devs (main protocol calls)
All core devs - consensus (ACDC) #176
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- glamsterdam-devnet-0 targeting mid-April
- ePBS discussions: PTC look behind & missing parent beacon block roots
- Engine API discussions: optional SSZ, redesign & versioning
- Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026):
- Non-headliner EIPs can be proposed once execution layer headliner selected
- Proposed: EIP8148 Custom sweep threshold for validators
All core devs - testing (ACDT) #74
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- Devnets: epbs-devnet-0 & bal-devnet-2
- ePBS & Block-Level Access Lists breakout rooms
Layer 1
- Fast confirmation rule:
- Julian Ma fast confirmation rule explainer: assumes synchronous network & no adversary controls more than 25% of stake; falls back to finality; L2 & exchange deposit time reduces to 13 seconds, rolling out in next few months
- Fast confirmation rule info website
- Consensus-specs v1.7.0-alpha.3
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- Glamsterdam repricings #4: targeting April for final numbers
- Thomas Thiery: proposed upgrades to remove privacy protocol dependency on broadcasters that can see, frontrun & censor transactions: native account abstraction (EIP8141 Frame transactions), 2D nonces, encrypted frame transactions & FOCIL
- Ethproofs v3.2 (website): overhaul of metrics, visualization & coordination stack
- Feel your protocol v2 (website): protocol explorations of upcoming EIPs & research
- EIP8141 Frame transaction implementation & docs, vibe coded
- Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
Research
- Dynamic availability: proposal for next consensus protocol, two decoupled layers, heartbeat produced by small randomly-sampled committee & trailing finality gadget using full active validator set
- Binary tries optimal group depth benchmark: sweet spot is 5-6 bits
- Falcon signature aggregation for post quantum transaction pools: key recovery without aggregation most straightforward path to deployment due to lower storage costs & simplicity
- Post-quantum threats to app layer privacy, such as stealth addresses, zkID & zkTLS
Staking
- Client diversity:
- Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~52% (data may not be accurate)
- Execution layer: Geth ~41%, Nethermind ~38% (estimated from self reports)
- Staking marketshare: Lido 23.4% [Note: dual governance]
- Validators: 944k active (target 128k), 10k accumulating (0x02 withdrawal credentials)
- Client releases:
Regulation
- US SEC securities laws application to crypto
- Token taxonomy: Not securities: digital commodities (e.g. ETH), digital collectibles, digital tools (e.g. ENS), stablecoins (GENIUS Act payment stablecoins); Securities: digital securities
- Non-securities transactions: protocol staking, wrapping & airdrops
- Investment contracts: how a non-security crypto asset becomes/ceases to be subject to an investment contract
- US SEC: Nasdaq tokenized securities trading approved for pilot
- US CFTC: Phantom no action letter, allows self custodial wallet to connect users to regulated derivatives trading without broker registration
General
- Bitrefill cyberattack post mortem: initial access via compromised employee laptop
- Stripe & Paradigm alt-L1 Tempo live with machine payments protocol
- Vanity Fair: crypto believers including Danny Ryan
Editor: @abcoathup
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