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Ethereal news weekly #36

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US SEC Regulation Crypto Assets proposed rules, Glamsterdam upgrade on public testnets proposed for late September & October, focil-devnet-0 targeting August 31

Ecosystem

  • Ethereum Foundation:
    • EF Formal Verification better.codes: autoresearch challenge raising proven lower bound for koalaIRS12 to 128 bits, to advance hash based SNARKs
    • EF Ecosystem Support Program Q2 allocations, 70 projects shared $5.5M; ZK proofs, client diversity, formal verification, tooling & internship program
  • Ethlabs (R&D lab): Binji (ex-EF) joined as founding member
  • Devcon 8:
  • ETH metrics:
    • Gas (gwei): 0.2 average, 0 - 11.0 (13.3 for zero net issuance)
    • ETH supply change: 20k net issuance
    • ETHUSD: $1,868 - $2,444 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
    • ETH ETFs: 5.2% of ETH supply
    • ETHBTC: 0.031 (0.166 for the Flippening)

Consensys

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consensys.io

Enterprise

Applications

  • Osero app live: stablecoin yield via Sky Savings Rate
  • Joseph Delong Deepstate (central limit order book) live on Robinhood Chain, launch market NVDA/USDG, experimental
  • Ross zSwap (meta DEX) live on mainnet
  • The Interfold (formerly Enclave) Network Alpha (confidential coordination), committees support up to 19 ciphernodes with threshold of 9
  • Farcaster, Clanker & Neynar seek new home

Developers

  • EthereumJS 10.1.3 (libraries): experimental Glamsterdam support updated to glamsterdam-devnet-8 spec
  • Ronan Sandford webevm (execution only browser node): EthereumJS (default) or revm (optional)
  • Kassandra kohaku-cli (privacy focused terminal wallet) onboarding guide
  • Poidh (pics or it didn’t happen) POIDHverse React app stored onchain over 24 contracts
  • Wintermute Alpha Challenge: 8 self paced case studies, no 2026 leaderboard due to LLMs brute forcing solutions & trained on historical incidents
  • Remix AI bootcamp top projects
  • Application layer standards (ERCs):
    • ERC8380: Unclonable agent execution credentials
    • ERC8381: AI agent security framework for DeFi
    • ERC8382: Private referable NFTs

Security

  • AI:
  • Coinspect Security Unlukey, check public address for seed generation vulnerabilities, Coldcard (firmware used software PRNG) & Ill Bloom (CryptoJS)

All core devs (main protocol calls)

All core devs - consensus (ACDC) #185

  • Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
    • PlatĂĄberget (glamsterdam-devnet-8): Glamsterdam upgrade activated, builder deposit caching issue at upgrade transition caused non-finality
    • Non-finality devnet: targeting week after next, ~1000 nodes
    • Public testnets: proposal to upgrade Sepolia September 28 & Hoodi October 26
    • Declined for Inclusion: EIP7610 revert creation in case of non empty storage, superseded by EIP8253 bump nonce of zero nonce storage accounts (already Proposed for Inclusion in Hegotá)
  • Hegotá upgrade (targeting 2027):
    • Non-headliners proposed for inclusion (client preferences due mid September):
      • Cayman Nava (Lodestar): presentation for EIP8333 align checkpoint with epoch boundary block
      • Dustin Brody (Nimbus): EIP8379 top up sync
      • Kev Wedderburn (EF): EIP8383 reduce CL block retention window

All core devs - testing (ACDT) #92

Layer 1

Research

Staking

  • EthCoordinate staker console live on Hoodi testnet, mid security review, adds batch deposits & top ups, simpler consolidation & withdrawal flow and support for WalletConnect & offline wallets
  • Obol Charon & Nethermind Pluto, 4 node Distributed Validator cluster running on Hoodi testnet
  • Client diversity:
    • Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~51% (data may not be accurate)
  • Staking market share: Lido 21% [Note: dual governance]
  • Validators: 902k active (target 128k), 18k accumulating (0x02 withdrawal credentials)
  • Client releases:
    • Consensus layer:
    • Execution layer:
      • LF Decentralized Trust Besu 26.8.0: fixes security vulnerabilities, adds cap for snap requests & cap for DiscV4 inbound packets
      • Paradigm Reth v2.5.1 (medium): finalizes pending payload builds when resolved early & handles whole storage trie wipes during batched persistence

Layer 2

  • Arbitrum ArbOS 61 Elara upgrade live:
    • Arbitrum One: base fee tuning (Offchain can adjust within 0.01 - 0.10 gwei) & Stylus contract capacity increased to 96KB
    • Dedicated blockchains: protocol level compliance filtering, priority fee support & alternative data API
  • GnosisDAO voted to transition Gnosis Chain from L1 to Ethereum Economic Zone (ZK rollup), sunsetting validator set & targeting genesis late 2026/early 2027

Regulation

  • US SEC Regulation Crypto Assets proposed rules, 60 day comment period: startup exemption (offerings up to $5M over 4 years), fundraising exemption (offerings up to $75M a year, requires financial statements & ongoing reporting), investment contract safe harbor (promised managerial efforts completed/ceased) & qualified purchaser definition (preempt state registration & qualification requirements)

General

Editor: @abcoathup
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Ethereal news weekly #35