ZKsync Airbender Prime: real time proving on single GPU, Barnabé Monnot: faster finality coming, Ethereum Community Foundation: Swapboard v2
Ecosystem
- Barnabé Monnot (Ethlabs): Cambridge workshops takeaways, faster finality coming (research mature), post quantum finality performance improving & networking biggest opportunity
- Devcon 8 creator fellows, 10 creators will share stories & spotlight people shaping Ethereum over next 3 weeks
- ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 0.2 average, 0 - 2.2 (13.6 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply: 122.1M, 20k net issuance
- ETHUSD: $2,325 - $2,575 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETHBTC: 0.03 (0.165 for the Flippening)
Sponsor: MetaMask
MetaMask Agent Wallet
The agentic wallet that automates trades while staying inside your rules - powered by MetaMask’s trusted security, backed by Transaction Protection.
MetaMask Agent Wallet now plugs into: Grok Bot, Cursor and OpenClaw (via ClawHub).
Applications
- Ethereum Community Foundation: Swapboard v2, bulletin board for peer to peer token trading, adds support for native ETH, partial fills & batch orders
- Uniswap VolatilePair hook live on mainnet starting with ETH/USDC, separate dynamic fees for buying/selling, recalculated on every swap
- ENS Labs: ENSv2 activation draft proposal, freezes v1 registrations prior to migration
- Blur (NFT marketplace) deprecating frontend November 12
- Network School acquired Farcaster, becoming Network State Protocol, users vote to stay & accept AI moderated rules (includes past posts), otherwise account is read only, can use alternate client
- Reminder: Octant Epoch 13 (privacy round): 13 projects, 100 ETH matching, allocation closes October 21
Developers
- Argot Collective:
- Solidity (language): Core Solidity (new solc frontend) status update: prototype, syntax reworked to be closer to Classic Solidity, uses composition instead of inheritance; playground with examples
- Sourcify Onay (app): prototype, view only signing companion, displays transaction info, uses local Helios light client
- Nomic Foundation Hardhat v3.20.0 (dev framework): expands experimental Glamsterdam upgrade support (adds EIP2780 resource based intrinsic transaction gas & EIP8246 remove SELFDESTRUCT burn) and speeds up compilation
- Remix v2.6.6 (IDE): security review workflow revamped & adds new Solidity templates
- Taek Lee skim: app specific state client, follows chain via block level access lists, doesn’t require full node or RPC provider
- L2Beat privacy treasure hunt solutions: trace funds sent via privacy protocols
- Application layer standards (ERCs):
Security
- UNCX Vesting V2 incident included mainnet, Base & Robinhood Chain
- SEAL Labs: test ideas in time boxed collaborations with outside experts, first is with BlockThreat to improve SEAL Intel
Agents
- new eden: metaverse for agents
All core devs (main protocol calls)
All core devs - consensus (ACDC) #189
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
- glamsterdam-devnet-12 successfully tested builder deposits prior to upgrade
- Builder onboarding race condition should be handled at app layer
- Hegotá upgrade (targeting 2027):
- 4 EIPs Declined for Inclusion (DFI):
All core devs - testing (ACDT) #100 + consensus layer breakout
- Hegotá (Heze + Bogotá) upgrade (targeting 2027):
- Devnets being renamed from headliner to layer names
- heze-devnet-2 (spec): adds EIP8015 remove deposit & eth1data fields, EIP8365 disallow new 0x00 validators & EIP8198 quick slots (set to 12 seconds)
Layer 1
- Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting 2026):
- Reminder: Hoodi testnet activates Glamsterdam October 26
- Chase Wright (EF): ENRScout (crawler) Hoodi testnet readiness
- Hegotá (Heze + Bogotá) upgrade (targeting 2027):
- bogota-devnet-1 live, added EIP8250 keyed nonces, EIP8272 recent roots & EIP7906 transaction assertions
- FOCIL breakout #44: FOCIL EIP rebased to Heze but doesn’t yet include Frame transaction interaction
- Daisugi v0.3 (post quantum testnet): adds SPHINCS signature aggregation
- Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
- EIP8442: 64 bit opcodes for the EVM
Staking
- Client diversity: Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~51% (data may not be accurate)
- Data Always (Flashbots): no meaningful improvement in consensus layer client diversity over past quarter
- Staking market share: Lido 21.5% [Note: dual governance]
- Validators: 834k active (target 128k), 24k accumulating (0x02 withdrawal credentials)
- Validators with 0x02 withdrawal credentials passed 40% of staked ETH
- Client releases:
- Consensus layer:
- ChainSafe Lodestar v1.50.0 (recommended): Glamsterdam on Hoodi
- Consensys Teku 26.10.1 (recommended): Glamsterdam on Hoodi & bug fixes
- Status Nimbus v26.10.1 (medium): Glamsterdam on Hoodi, Glamsterdam improvements & fixes
- Execution layer:
- Besu 26.10.0 (upgrade promptly): security fixes, Bonsai database auto upgrades on first start, DiscV4 & DiscV5 concurrent discovery mode by default & Glamsterdam on Hoodi
- Consensus layer:
Layer 2
- ZKsync Airbender Prime: real time proving on single GPU (NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell), proved 99% of 7,200 mainnet blocks in under 10 seconds each
- Vitalik: zkEVM priority should shift to security now that speed has been won
- Aztec post quantum roadmap, protect against harvest now decrypt later attacks via hardening libraries & better contract development patterns by February 2027, select signature scheme by March 2027, public key encryption scheme by July 2027 & proving system by November 2027 and post quantum migration by 2030
- L2Beat blobs dashboard replaces data availability section, most alt DA projects never implemented DA verifier
Regulation
- European Banking Authority (EBA): USDC classified as first significant emoney token under MiCA
- European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA): cease services for non MiCA compliant stablecoins, wind down within 3 months
- US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC): debanking report on 9 largest banks, policies restricted financial services access for certain industries including crypto
General
- Ledger hardware implant attack via resellers in Southeast Asia, implant read seed phrase from screen during setup, sent over LTE using eSIM
- How to check Ledger hardware integrity
- Trezor: reducing number of resellers as preventive step
- Microsoft Research Magnetar (zkVM): general purpose, hash based security
- OpenAI: model used account derived from common dev seed phrase without authorization to fund deployment on Sepolia testnet
- Anthropic: small AI models may be months away from self replicating using IoT devices
Editor: @abcoathup
Permalink: ethereal.news/ethereal-news-weekly-43/
Markdown: ethereal.news/ethereal-news-weekly-43.md