Frame transactions added as Hegotá upgrade headliner, Nomic Foundation slang-solx, Consensys splitting into two companies
Ecosystem
- Ethereum Foundation Protocol cluster:
- Priorities: quantum resistant by December 2029, minimum viable post quantum in J* upgrade, Strawmap may swap K* & L* upgrades with full post quantum readiness in K* upgrade
- AMA on r/ethereum September 16 2pm UTC, submit questions in advance
- Hegotá upgrade preferences:
- EF: Protocol cluster & Protocol architecture team
- Execution layer client teams: EF Geth, Lambda ethrex, Besu, Nethermind, Paradigm Reth & Status Nimbus EL
- Consensus layer client teams: ChainSafe Lodestar
- Ethlabs (updated), Lido, Serenita & L2Beat research team
- Devcon 8:
- Devcon travel guide
- Community hubs: privacy, security, EIP, P2P networking, token rights, prediction markets, open source builders, onchain art, DeSci, resilient networks, katta (India) developers, fragmentation, agentic & ZuZone
- Creator fellowship: 10 fellows will complete storytelling missions (September 28 to November 2), free Devcon ticket, apply by September 20
- ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 0.1 average, 0 - 2.1 (13.4 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply: 122M, 20k net issuance
- ETHUSD: $2,410 - $2,533 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETHBTC: 0.032 (0.165 for the Flippening)
Sponsor: MetaMask
MetaMask’s Chairman and CEO Joseph Lubin maps out our Open Money future.
MetaMask’s next chapter.
Applications
- Morpho Midnight expands to mainnet, fixed term & fixed rate credit
- Uniswap StablePair hook (v4 dynamic fee) live on mainnet with USDC/USDG & USDC/USDT pools
Developers
- Argot Collective Solidity 0.8.37 (language):
- Amsterdam EVM version support for EIP7843 SLOTNUM opcode
- Experimental features: SSA CFG code generator greedy stack shuffler replaced with planning shuffler; removed: language server protocol mode & generic Solidity prototype
- Fixes for low/medium severity bugs (memory byte array element delete clears 32 bytes & spill slot collision across mutual recursion), fix for very low severity bug (misordered named parameters in require with custom errors) and fixes for miscompilations (uninitialized function pointers in packed storage & constants read in checked/unchecked contexts)
- Nomic Foundation slang-solx (Solidity compiler backend):
- LLVM based backend, enables parallel multithreaded compilation, ~1.7x faster than solc (legacy mode) & ~5x faster than solc (via-IR mode) & no stack too deep errors in 99.85% of test cases
- hardhat-slang-solx (Hardhat plugin): uses solc frontend, supports Solidity 0.8.34 only, not ready for mainnet deployments
- banteg EVM compiler bench: adds Nomic Foundation solx & Paradigm Solar
- EthSystems sealring (library): generic sealed note envelope for shielded pools
- Application layer standards (ERCs):
Agents
- Aave MCP server: read live data, simulate actions & prepare transactions for users to sign, supports V3 & V4, built on Aave Kit
Security
- Notional ~$1.7M exploit of legacy V1 contract (deprecated January 2022) via integer overflow
- yAudit yBorg: 4 week AI + blockchain security fellowship, applications open September 14 (short window)
All core devs (main protocol calls)
All core devs - execution (ACDE) #245
- Hegotá upgrade (targeting 2027):
- EIP8141 Frame transactions set as headliner
- Non-headliner scoping used EIPs by category & average client rating
- 14 EIPs Declined for Inclusion (DFI):
- Account abstraction: EIP7819 SETDELEGATE instruction & EIP7851 code controlled EOA delegation
- EVM features: EIP2488 deprecate CALLCODE opcode, EIP8219 checked arithmetic opcodes, EIP8182 private ETH & ERC20 transfers, EIP7645 alias ORIGIN to SENDER & EIP7923 linear page based memory costing
- EVM pricing: EIP8115 batch priority fees at end of block, EIP8188 last written block for accounts & slots, EIP8358 net gas metering for account changes & EIP8200 EVMification
- Performance engineering: EIP7862 delayed state root
- Miscellaneous: EIP7807 SSZ execution blocks & EIP8094 eth/vhash - blob aware transaction pool
- Next ACDE to review:
- Highest rated EIPs as Considered for Inclusion (CFI)
- Declined for Inclusion delayed decisions (default to DFI): EIP7979 call & return opcodes (will Solidity/Vyper integrate), EIP8163 reserve EXTENSION opcode (need L2 input), EIP8372 normalized state gas limit and EIP8304 trustless log & transaction index
All core devs - testing (ACDT) #95 + consensus layer breakout
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
- glamsterdam-devnet-10: decoupled consensus networking benchmarks (I* upgrade candidate)
- glamsterdam-devnet-11: test successful upgrade transition
Layer 1
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
- Maria Inês Silva (EF): simulating fee market first day as gas limit increases to 200M
- Feel Your Protocol: EIP8037 state creation gas cost increase interactive explainer
- Hegotá upgrade (targeting 2027):
- EIP8141 Frame transactions:
- Account abstraction breakout #4: test specs v0.3.0, 3 clients ready for frames-devnet-0
- lightclient (Geth) Frames are all you need: extensibility & observability, extensions without new transaction types: expiry, recent roots, transaction assertions, account sweeping & signature aggregation
- soispoke (EF) transaction pool account transaction capacity from historical activity: bound DoS risk so users can share one sender without needing allow list for applications, paymasters or proof systems
- EIP8141 Frame transactions:
- I* upgrade (targeting 2027/2028):
- Vitalik: recursive STARK transaction pools explainer (EIP8288), unlocks quantum safe signatures (SPHINCS-), quantum safe privacy protocols, new signature & proof scheme support without EVM changes and private account abstraction
- Vitalik: partitioned binary trees can simplify code delegation using codehash as canonical identifier
- Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
Research
- Csaba Király: fast payload broadcast by splitting into fixed size segments, reduces median receiver completion time from 4.9s to 0.73s & cuts payload bytes each node receives from 4.4 copies to 1.4
Staking
- ChainSafe Lodestar: Lodekeeper (AI contributor)
- Client diversity:
- Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~51% (data may not be accurate)
- Staking market share: Lido 21.6% [Note: dual governance]
- Validators: 910k active (target 128k), 18k accumulating (0x02 withdrawal credentials)
- Client releases:
- Execution layer:
- Erigon v3.6.1 (recommended): fixes downloader regression, peer ban bypass, index build defect & bumps grpc dependency for two high severity CVEs
- Lambda ethrex v26.0.0: adds Platåberget devnet, eth/72 sparse blobpool (EIP8070), sync robustness fixes, RPC correctness fixes & bumps database schema to v4 (no rollback)
- Execution layer:
Regulation
- US Senator Lummis: Clarity Act updated text, ahead of September 15 Senate vote
General
- Hardware wallets:
- Trezor adds clear signing
- Ledger Device Management Kit (DMK) replaces LedgerJS, supports clear signing, multiple Ledgers & more reliable connections
- Austin Griffith (EF) CELL prototype (requires pulse or blood to sign) based on Ross specs
- Consensys splitting into two companies, MetaMask (consumer platform, Joe Lubin CEO) & Consensys (protocols & institutional infrastructure, includes Linea L2, Besu execution layer client & Teku consensus layer client, Mike Kriak CEO), separation expected by end of 2026
- a16z crypto Lattice Jolt (zkVM): Jolt changed from elliptic curves to lattices, post quantum and 2x - 3x faster prover & verifier
- Brevo (email provider) breach used for phishing attempts: Trezor & CoinTracking
- Freedom 0.8.5 (browser): includes experimental Ethereum light client, Chromium based, now usable as daily browser
Editor: @abcoathup
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