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Ethereal news weekly #29

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Strawmap updated, Ethereum Foundation restructure, Ethlabs launched

Ecosystem

  • Strawmap (strawman roadmap) updated; includes proposed issuance change (snail issuance) potentially in I* upgrade
  • Ethereum Foundation restructure, five domain clusters: protocol, access, user, community & institutional layers; 54 fewer staff (~20%)
    • Vitalik: budget decreasing ~40%, transitioning to long term oriented endowment based organization; to accomplish Strawmap (third iteration of Ethereum) & increasing EF role in access layer, budget sacrifices include:
      • Clients: multi-client model shifting from redundancy to specialization, exploring security strategy of AI assisted formal verification
      • Privacy Stewards of Ethereum: PSE winding down; focus on implementing (rather than exploring) ZKP privacy & scaling
      • Devcon: likely to be smaller & more spartan
      • Beyond-Ethereum megaprojects: Vitalik funding some personally
      • EF institutional work: scope reducing
    • Tomasz StaĹ„czak (former co-Executive Director): strategically, list is good
    • Bastian Aue (interim co-Executive Director) execution of EF mandate:
      • EF is for eliminating weaknesses (e.g. EF dogfooding ETH/stablecoins & preventing toxic MEV) and seizing opportunities
      • Departures: mix of resignations & terminations due to strategy, role fit, normal change & best contribution elsewhere
      • Spinouts: mix of better homes, markets should decide worth, not mandate compatible & useful but not EF work
  • Ethlabs launched, non-profit R&D lab for Ethereum & ETH
    • Founding team (ex-EF protocol): Ansgar Dietrichs, BarnabĂ© Monnot, Caspar Schwarz-Schilling, Josh Rudolf & Julian Ma
    • Anchor funding by Bitmine, Sharplink & Joe Lubin
  • ETH metrics:
    • Gas (gwei): 0.3 average, 0 - 14.3 (13 for zero net issuance)
    • ETH supply change: 19.5k net issuance (7 days)
    • ETHUSD: $1,523 - $1,774 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
    • ETH ETFs: 5.2% of ETH supply
    • ETHBTC: 0.026 (0.166 for the Flippening)

MetaMask June Community Call

MetaMask Developer June Community Call. 🦊

On the agenda:

  • Embedded Wallets Mobile SDK releases + v9 deprecation updates
  • What’s new with MetaMask Connect v2
  • MetaMask Cook-Off Smart Accounts Kit winner presentation

đź“… Thursday, July 2
⏰ 12:00 PM ET

Community call registration


Enterprise

Applications

  • ENS DAO: Foundation expansion temp check, transfer treasury from DAO & expand board; protocol control remains with token holders
  • Propeller Heads Turbine: settle large trades at low spread, orders run for user selected deadline (minutes/days) & follow market price via oracles
  • Uniswap Auctions: configure & launch Continuous Clearing Auctions (CCA) for new & existing tokens directly from web app on mainnet, Arbitrum, Base & Unichain
  • Kain Warwick: Synthetix sUSD being wound down, redeemable for SNX with lockup
  • Reminder: Octant Epoch 12 (quadratic funding): 25 projects, 200 ETH matching pool, closes June 30

Developers

  • Fe v26.2.0 (language): adds immutable contract fields, assert! built-in, const items in impl blocks, bytecode & memory optimizations and defaults to faster compilation rather than optimization
  • Nomic Foundation Hardhat 2 being sunset (dev framework): will be updated for Glamsterdam upgrade and bug & security fixes until end of life (earlier of Hegotá upgrade & June 1, 2027); migrate to Hardhat 3
  • Leo Alt human readable contract specs in Lean for evm-smith (AI generated bytecode proven in Lean, experimental)
  • Application layer standards (ERCs):
    • ERC8312: Bounded agent actions
    • ERC8313: Protocol interaction manifest
    • ERC8314: Contract role naming & ERC8315: Contract role semantics
    • ERC8316: Programmable settlement locks
    • ERC8317: Contract storage layout descriptor format

Security

  • JaredFromSubway MEV bot ~$7.5M exploit via ERC20 allowance drain; banteg analysis
  • Gnosis Guild Zodiac post-mortem: ERC1271 signature check accepted signature based only on returned magic value
  • Zero Skills Symmetry Sniper (skill): finds asymmetric logic in functions that should mirror each other e.g. deposit/withdraw, mint/burn

All core devs (main protocol calls)

All core devs - consensus (ACDC) #181

  • Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
    • glamsterdam-devnet-6 (spec & Dora the explorer): launched with remaining EIPs (except EIP7688 forward compatible consensus data structures)
    • glamsterdam-devnet-7 (spec): targeting 2-3 weeks, adds EIP7688 & updated EIP8282 builder execution requests contracts (external security review required)
    • Declined for Inclusion:
      • EIP8080 let exits use consolidation queue, due to implementation complexity & time; potentially repropose for Hegotá upgrade

All core devs - testing (ACDT) #84 + execution layer & consensus layer breakouts

Layer 1

Staking

  • Client diversity:
    • Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~54% (data may not be accurate)
  • Staking market share: Lido 21.5% [Note: dual governance]
  • Validators: 886k active (target 128k), 15k accumulating (0x02 withdrawal credentials)
  • Client releases:
    • Consensus layer:
      • Sigma Prime Lighthouse v8.2.0 (high): security vulnerability fixes, beacon nodes append client info to graffiti by default, validators must specify fee recipient, Glamsterdam upgrade work & EIP8136 partial data column support (saves bandwidth, default on Hoodi & Sepolia testnets)
      • Status Nimbus v26.6.0 (medium): improves performance & resilience
    • Execution layer:
      • EF Geth v1.17.4 (maintenance): Clef removed to own repo, Glamsterdam upgrade work & performance improvements
      • Lambda ethrex v18.0.0: sync fixes, faster crypto, LEVM hot path optimizations & faster getLogs

Research

Layer 2

Regulation

General

  • OpenAI patch the planet, Trail of Bits working with maintainers to investigate & validate vulnerabilities, initial participants include cURL, Go & Python
  • LastPass Klue supply chain incident, CRM data (names, phone, email & physical addresses) may be affected; customer vaults unaffected
  • Succinct Flock: SNARK for proving batches of boolean computations (standard hashes) at less than 250x cost of computing them, research prototype
  • Vitalik: challenge to find document published not under his name, testing claims AI text analysis makes online anonymity untenable

Editor: @abcoathup
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