weekly #28 | Ethereal news

Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down, 1M lifetime developers, Glamsterdam upgrade adds separate builder deposit & exit contracts

Ethereum Foundation:
- Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down as EF co-executive director & board member
Joseph Chalom (Sharplink CEO): 1M lifetime developers, ~232k active in last year
DappCon videos
ETHGlobal New York finalists from 232 hackathon projects
Devcon 8 programming requests, suggest themes, tracks, talks & speakers
ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 0.2 average, 0.0 - 11.8 (12.9 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply change: 19.5k net issuance (7 days)
- ETHUSD: $1,656 - $1,843 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETH ETFs: 5.2% of ETH supply
- ETHBTC: 0.027 (0.166 for the Flippening)

Consensys

A complete suite of trusted products to build anything in web3.
consensys.io

AWS WAF adds AI traffic monetization, settlement via Coinbase x402 Facilitator, chains include Base

LlamaLend v2 live on OP Mainnet, non-crvUSD markets & Curve LP tokens as collateral
Zama Morpho integration, deposit Confidential USDC (cUSDC) into Steakhouse USDC Prime vault
ScopeLift Cactus (formerly Tally) governance platform
MetaMask address poisoning detection: warns when pasting lookalike address
Safe Workspace: security hub, passwordless email login & shared address book
pcaversaccio Etherveil: proposal for privacy browser with embedded Kohaku wallet
Octant Epoch 12 (quadratic funding): 25 projects, 200 ETH matching pool, closes June 30

Walnut x Argot Collective Solidity debugging effort: implementing ethdebug into Solidity compiler, phased approach, Argot funding groundwork, seeking co-sponsors
ethers.js v6.17.0 (client library): ENSv2 support & rate limiting for a provider
Protofire solhint v6.2.2 (Solidity linter): adds no-unchecked-calls
Paul Miller micro-eth-signer 0.19.0 (library): adds ERC7730 clear signing support
Application layer standards (ERCs):
- ERC8300: Invariant first reserve receipt token
- ERC8301: AI agent execution & orchestration
- ERC8302: Private fungible tokens
- ERC8303: Contract version
- ERC8305: Time delayed access control
- ERC8306: Role based timelock operation
- ERC8307: Contract emergency state
- ERC8308: Contract emergency response
- ERC8309: Gateway mesh sync protocol for CCIP Read

Deprecated contracts exploited:
- Aztec Connect ~$2.19M exploit & Aztec 2.0 Rollup ~$2.2M exploit; unrelated to Aztec Network
- Thetanuts Finance legacy ETH vault $105k exploit
Aragon EVM Mirror: compare source using verify (deployed contract against local), diff (compare deployed contracts) or clone (deployed contract); multi-chain & proxy support
Sigma Prime: AI as force multiplier for security engineers, overview of what AI is good at & where it currently struggles

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
- Considered for inclusion:
  - EIP8282 Builder execution requests
- glamsterdam-devnet-6 (spec): targeting mid next week, adds EIP8282 & remaining execution layer EIPs
- Repricing: EIP7904 compute gas cost, converted to informational as clients exceed 100Mgas/sec target so no compute repricing needed
Hegotá upgrade (targeting 2027):
- Non-headliners proposed for inclusion:
  - EIP8304 Trustless log & transaction index
  - EIP7645 Alias ORIGIN to SENDER

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
- Separate builder deposit & exit contracts correct design (EIP8282 Builder execution requests), estimated 1-2 months for security review of new system contracts

Hegotá upgrade (targeting 2027):
- FOCIL breakout #36: Lodestar & Lighthouse rebased on top of glamsterdam-devnet-5, IL bitlists being removed as can be faked
- Maria Inês Silva: Hegotá proposed repricing for gas limit scaling
Encrypted transaction pools:
- 3 ETH bounty to provide feedback on EIP8105 & EIP8184
Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
- Forkcast EIP directory: adds FAQ section (piloting with EIP8025)
- EIP8304: Trustless log & transaction index

Client diversity:
- Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~54% (data may not be accurate)
- Data Always: Flashbots relay data, Lighthouse increasing (~50% exclusively), Prysm trending down and Nimbus & Lodestar upticks in multi client setups
Staking market share: Lido 21.7% [Note: dual governance]
Validators: 889k active (target 128k), 15k accumulating (0x02 withdrawal credentials)
Client releases:
- Consensus layer:
  - Consensys Teku 26.6.0 (recommended): requires Java 25+, security fixes; 26.6.1 (optional): fixes issue with Snappy native libraries
  - Offchain Prysm v7.1.5: Glamsterdam upgrade work, performance & memory optimizations, additional Beacon API event & endpoint support and gossip validation & concurrency hardening
- Execution layer:
  - Besu 26.6.1 (optional): bug fixes and adds RPC to look up transaction by sender & nonce
  - Erigon v3.4.4 (recommended): fixes for post-reorg gas used mismatch and Caplin Beacon API responses
  - Lambda ethrex v17.0.0 (maintenance): improvements to logs, hardening decode paths & minor performance improvements
  - Nethermind 1.38.1 (patch): OP Karst upgrade, OP Superchain registry refresh & removes Base from chain config & node profiles

SPHINCS-: EVM optimized variants derived from SPHINCS+ (replaces SHAKE256 with KECCAK256), Solidity implementation can verify post-quantum signature for ~150K gas

Base B20 native token, Rust precompile, ERC20 compatible, asset & stablecoin variants, in upcoming Beryl upgrade

Roman Storm: SDNY pretrial schedule for retrial before acquittal motion ruled on
- Free Roman Storm campaign
SBF: 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld conviction & 25-year sentence

Paradigm Kryptos, fourth encrypted message from Jim Sanborn sculpture available to solve, alongside ten capture the flag style puzzles

Ethereal news weekly #28