
The Ethereum Foundation has begun staking a portion of its treasury, [in line with](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/04/ef-treasury-policy#22-ether-deployments) its [Treasury Policy](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/04/ef-treasury-policy) announced last year.

Approximately 70,000 ETH is being staked with rewards directed back to the EF treasury.


Treasury Staking Initiative


DeFi isn't a speculative bet on the future. It's the inevitable evolution of finance, driven by a fundamental truth: financial autonomy is a right, not a privilege. And it's been a critical driver of Ethereum's growth and adoption.

We want to see DeFi thrive, but we're opinionated about what it should look like: permissionless, censorship-resistant, privacy-first, self-custodial, and open source. We recognize the challenges involved in fully getting to this point—our role is to advocate for these principles, support teams working toward them, showcase the ones doing it, and be clear about how to get there and why it matters.

The Ethereum Foundation believes in [Defipunk](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/04/ef-treasury-policy): not finance that's marginally better than TradFi, but finance that couldn't exist without Ethereum.


Supporting the builders shaping decentralized finance and strengthening Ethereum as the global financial settlement layer

The Ethereum Foundation's Commitment to DeFi


We [introduced Protocol](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/02/announcing-protocol) last June which organized our work around three strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX. A lot has happened since then! In this post, we want to share what we accomplished last year, how our thinking has evolved, and where Protocol is headed in 2026.


Protocol Priorities Update for 2026


Platform is a new team inside the EF with one goal:

Deliver the strongest possible Ethereum platform, where L1 and L2s are best positioned to support users, apps, and all organizations building on Ethereum. This requires improving the L1 \<\> L2 relationship, so that we grow as a mutually reinforcing system across each layer. 

Since the rollup-centric roadmap was first proposed 5 years ago, an ecosystem of chains has grown up around the Ethereum L1. The early mental model of rollups has given way to a network of differentiated L2s, each with distinct and valuable economies, extending Ethereum’s core properties to millions of users. 

As Ethereum matures, we must do more to deliver a cohesive platform that fully leverages the unique capabilities of Ethereum as a

Announcing the Platform Team at EF


*tl;dr*: Ethereum Protocol Studies returns for 2026 with new content tracks in cryptography, lean consensus and zkEVM, plus a new self-paced learning platform. The program [kicks off February 23rd](https://calendar.app.google/tgTi2sM2sXUAb3kV9). Visit [epf.wiki](https://epf.wiki) to get started.

Ethereum Protocol Studies (EPS) is back. Since launching as a 10-week study group ahead of EPF5, EPS has grown into the primary educational on-ramp for anyone looking to understand Ethereum's core protocol. Hundreds of participants have used the program to go from general Ethereum familiarity to reading specs, navigating client codebases, and contributing to protocol development.

This year's program expands in both depth and format. EPS 2026 introduces two new content tracks covering areas of the protocol that are increasingly central to Ethereum's roadmap, alongside a self-paced learning platform that makes the curriculum

Ethereum Protocol Studies 2026


Today, we are announcing a transition in the executive leadership team at the Ethereum Foundation.
After extensive contributions to the Foundation’s mission and operations, Tomasz Stańczak has decided to step down from his role as Co-Executive Director. The Foundation’s Board has appointed Bastian Aue to serve as interim Co-Executive Director, effective immediately.

Tomasz joined the management team during a critical period of growth and maturation for the Foundation. His strategic guidance helped expand our ability to reach out to broad groups of people and teams, and for the EF to understand businesses in the ecosystem more deeply. He also brought a sense of urgency and focus, helped organize EF teams to work more efficiently, and expanded enterprise community development. Through his quick execution, he achieved a remarkable

Executive Leadership Update


tl;dr

I am stepping down from my co-ED role at the EF at the end of February 2026. Bastian Aue is taking over the co-ED role alongside Hsiao-Wei. The future is bright for builders, for Ethereum, for the EF, and for me. 


An update from Tomasz


The EF's Academic Secretariat team is proud to announce the launch of the inaugural PhD Fellowship Program, a pioneering initiative aimed at empowering and expanding the frontiers of Ethereum-related academic research, by supporting Ethereum-related academic work led by PhD students. 



Introducing the EF Academic Secretariat 2026 PhD Fellowship


During Devconnect Buenos Aires, the Ethereum Foundation and [Secureum](https://x.com/TheSecureum) TrustX brought together Ethereum security practitioners for Trillion Dollar Security Day, a focused event exploring what it would take to securely support a trillion-dollar Ethereum economy.

The event brought together around eighty participants from across the Ethereum Security Ecosystem—spanning Infrastructure, Interoperability, Layer 1 & 2, Onchain, Offchain, Privacy, and Wallets—to assess the current security landscape, surface shared challenges, and identify concrete next steps across the stack.

The discussions and outputs from this event contribute to the Ethereum Foundation’s ongoing One Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative.


Trillion Dollar Security Day at Devconnect


Q4 2025 closed out the year with exciting growth across the ecosystem! Dive into the projects and community initiatives we supported this quarter and see what our grantees have been building:

|Category|Project|Recipient|Description|Contact|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Community & education|[Cal Hacks 12.0](https://www.calhacks.io/)||Collegiate hackathon organized at the University of California, Berkeley covering themes such as AI and web3.|
|Community & education|[Destino Devconnect](https://devconnect.org/destino)||Grants round focused on supporting community-led events and initiatives that help bring Argentina and the broader Latin America region onchain.|
|Community & education|[ETH Latam Hackathon Brasil 2025](https://taikai.network/ethsamba/hackathons/ethlatam25/overview)|[ETHSamba](https://x.com/ethsamba)|Hackathon hosted in São Paulo, Brazil prioritizing real-world Ethereum and onboarding new builders.|[Email](mailto:ethereumsamba@gmail.com)|
|Community & education|[Funding the Commons: Buenos Aires 2025](https://www.fundingthecommons.io/ba2025)||Conference hosted in Buenos Aires, Argentina revolving around RealFi: financial infrastructure designed for real-world coordination, access, and public goods funding.|
|Community & education|[High Assurance Crypto Software (HACS) Workshop 2026](https://www.hacs-workshop.org/)||Workshop organized

Allocation Update - Q4 2025


*Ethereum’s All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-8 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/11/15/checkpoint-7).*

![](https://notes.ethereum.org/_uploads/Bkr5AWaH-l.png)

If you enjoy reading core development updates, you may also be keen to learn that Forkcast now [publishes call summaries, chats and transcripts](https://forkcast.org/calls/) for each All Core Dev (ACD) call and some breakout calls, usually available within a couple hours of the call.


Checkpoint #8: Jan 2026


[Devcon](https://devcon.org/en/), the Ethereum community’s annual global gathering for builders, will take place from **3-6 November 2026 at the [JIO World Center](https://www.jioworldcentre.com/) in Mumbai, India**.

This Devcon 8 update is not a full vision, but will help organizers and the wider ecosystem plan. More details on programming, tracks, and participation will follow in the coming months.


Devcon 8 is coming to Mumbai, India in November 2026


Fusaka shipped [PeerDAS](https://x.com/ethereum/status/1998849926210678830) in addition to a myriad of minor features and Glamsterdam’s major features will include Block-level Access Lists and enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation.

Now we begin outlining the subsequent upgrade: [Hegotá](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8081).


Hegota Upgrade EIP Proposal Timelines


*Thanks to Arantxa Zapico, Benedikt Wagner, and Dmitry Khovratovich from the EF cryptography team for their contributions, and to Ladislaus, Kev, Alex, and Marius for the careful review and feedback.*

---

The zkEVM ecosystem has been sprinting for a year. And it worked! We crossed the finish line for real-time proving!

Now comes the next phase: building something mainnet-grade.


Shipping an L1 zkEVM #2: The Security Foundations

*Disclaimer: The following blog is a proposal from the Stateless Consensus team. Content may not imply consensus views, and the EF is a broad organization that includes a healthy diversity of opinion across Protocol and beyond that together strengthen Ethereum. Special thanks to Ladislaus von Daniels and Marius van der Wijden for reviewing this article.*

Ethereum has grown from a small experimental network into a critical piece of global infrastructure. Every day it settles billions of dollars in value, coordinates thousands of applications, and anchors an entire ecosystem of L2s.

All of this ultimately relies on a single underlying component: **state**.


The Future of Ethereum’s State


[Devconnect Buenos Aires](https://devconnect.org/) wrapped up as the largest Ethereum Foundation event yet, bringing together a global mix of developers, founders, creators, and curious newcomers.


The biggest global Ethereum gathering, a first-of-its-kind World’s Fair, and thousands of different experiences

Devconnect Argentina Recap


Q3 2025 brought an exciting wave of innovation and community energy! Explore the projects we funded this quarter and the work they’re advancing:

|Category|Project|Recipient|Description|Contact|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Community & education|[Bluechip25](https://conference.bluechip.org/past-event-bluechip25)||Conference hosted in Vienna, Austria dedicated to crypto safety, learning and sharing best practices, and setting new benchmarks for trust and transparency.|
|Community & education|[BuildETH](https://www.buildeth.io/)||Conference focused on Ethereum infrastructure, DeFi primitives and protocols, AI agents, and new financial rails for digital assets organized in San Francisco, USA.|
|Community & education|[DeFi Security Summit](https://defisecuritysummit.org/)||Technical conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina diving into the education and technical advances in securing dapps on top of blockchain technology.|
|Community & education|[Destino Devconnect](https://devconnect.org/destino)||Grants round focused on supporting community-led events and initiatives that help bring Argentina and the broader Latin America region onchain.|
|Community & education|[dEVMatch 2025](https://devmatch2025.apubcc.org/)|[APU Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Club (APUBCC)](https://apubcc.org/)|Student-run hackathon

Allocation Update - Q3 2025


*Disclaimer: The following blog is a proposal from the Account Abstraction team. Content may not imply consensus views, and the EF is a broad organization that includes a healthy diversity of opinion across Protocol and beyond that together strengthen Ethereum.*

---

Since the early days of Ethereum, the promise has always been bold: a global, permissionless, censorship-resistant computing platform. Today, that promise is more alive than ever. Ethereum has scaled through rollups, where blockspace is abundant and transactions are cheap. The challenge now is not just throughput, but **seamless user experience** across that multichain horizon.

What if all the L2s **felt like a single, unified Ethereum**?  

No bridges to think about, no chain names to recognize, no fragmented balances or assets.

That’s the vision of the **Ethereum Interop

Making Ethereum Feel Like One Chain Again


*Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-6 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/10/01/checkpoint-6).*

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/ethereum-hackmd/upload_daddf8d5241edd9225a27a16d78bb7ba.png)

If you enjoy reading core development updates, you may also be keen to learn that Forkcast now [publishes call summaries, chats and transcripts](https://forkcast.org/calls/) for each All Core Devs call, usually available within a couple hours of the call. 


Checkpoint #7: Nov 2025


Fusaka follows this year's [Pectra upgrade](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/04/23/pectra-mainnet), representing a major step forward in Ethereum's scaling roadmap that improves L1 performance, increases blob throughput, and enhances user experience.

The Fusaka network upgrade is scheduled to activate on the Ethereum mainnet at slot `13,164,544` (December 3, 2025, 21:49:11 UTC). Fusaka also introduces Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks to safely scale blob throughput after PeerDAS activation. These are minimal, config-only upgrades that adjust the blob target/max and fee update fraction. See the [activation table](#fusaka-activation) below for further details.

The Fusaka mainnet client releases are listed [below](#client-releases).


Fusaka Mainnet Announcement


In two weeks, we open the doors to [the first-ever Ethereum World’s Fair](https://devconnect.org/) at La Rural in Buenos Aires.

This year isn’t about someday. It’s about now. On Ethereum today you can pay, play, vote, save, borrow, lend, and chat, all onchain — and at Devconnect you’ll experience that shift hands-on, IRL.  
Buenos Aires is the right backdrop for this moment: a city where crypto is part of daily life and where builders are ready to show what’s live.

Below is your guide to what’s inside the fairgrounds, how to plan your week, and what to do before you arrive.




2 weeks to Devconnect: Everything you need to know


Over the past few years, the Ethereum ecosystem has grown in depth, diversity, and maturity. Builders and communities worldwide have pushed the boundaries of what’s possible, creating new tools, protocols, and public goods that strengthen the network as a whole. As the ecosystem grows, our approach to supporting it must adapt as well.

Today, we’re excited to share the next step in that journey: the [Ecosystem Support Program](https://esp.ethereum.foundation/)’s (ESP) new grants program.

This announcement builds on our earlier [update](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/08/29/esp-next-chapter), where we temporarily paused open grant applications to reassess our priorities and funding approach. During this time, we focused on designing a more targeted, impactful, and sustainable model that evolves alongside Ethereum’s growth.



Unveiling ESP's New Grants Program


Starting with the upcoming **[Fusaka](https://ethereum.org/roadmap/fusaka/) hard fork**, **[EIP-7825](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7825)** introduces a **per-transaction gas limit cap of 2²⁴ (≈ 16.78 million gas)**.

This change is **already live on Holesky and Sepolia**, and will activate on **mainnet with Fusaka**.

Developers and users who rely on very large transactions should verify that their contracts and transaction builders conform to the new cap.

---


Fusaka Update – Transaction Gas Limit Cap arrives with EIP-7825


tl;dr: Over the last couple of days, some L2s noticed that their deployments on Sepolia didn't work properly anymore. This is due to **[EIP-7594](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7594) which changes the format for proofs**. In anticipation of Fusaka, we urge all blob originators to update their software to create **Cell Proofs** instead of blob proofs.


Fusaka Update - Information for Blob users


The Ethereum Foundation has opened applications for the 2026 Internship Program: a paid, full-time opportunity to work directly with teams advancing the Ethereum protocol and ecosystem.

Interns will join EF teams for 12 weeks over the summer, contributing to active R&D and ecosystem-oriented projects across a wide range of focus areas. The internship is open to candidates worldwide and can be completed remotely or from EF’s offices. A summer meetup will bring the cohort together to connect in person.


Announcing the 2026 EF Internship


The Funding Coordination team is excited to announce a joint initiative with Keyring Network that introduces a new approach to impact funding in the Ethereum ecosystem.


Supporting privacy with new funding mechanisms


Privacy is the freedom to choose what you share, when you share it, and who you share it with. We all take this for granted in daily life: closing the door to a room, casting a secret ballot, or speaking privately with a friend. But online and onchain, these protections are often missing. 

Ethereum was created to be the foundation of digital trust, one that is worthy of civilizational scale. For that trust to remain credible, privacy must be part of its core, the EF, along with dozens of Ethereum teams focused on privacy, are proud to support this cause.. 


Privacy is for everyone

The Ethereum Foundation’s Commitment to Privacy


*Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-5 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/07/29/checkpoint-5).*

![](https://notes.ethereum.org/_uploads/rJqnaQ93ge.png)


Checkpoint #6: Oct 2025


Today we are proud to announce a new leadership structure for privacy-related efforts at the Ethereum Foundation:

* [**Igor Barinov**](https://x.com/barinov) joins as coordinator of **Privacy @ EF**, guiding strategy and alignment across privacy-focused efforts including PSE and more. Igor has over a decade of experience in the Ethereum ecosystem as founder of Blockscout, Gnosis Chain, and zkBob, and is a strong advocate for open-source and privacy.

* [**Andy Guzman**](https://x.com/AndyGuzmanEth) will now serve as coordinator of the [**(PSE)**](https://pse.dev/) **team**, taking over from [Sam Richards](https://x.com/samonchain) and leading applied cryptography, research, and development. Andy has been with PSE/EF since 2022 and has led various key product & strategy initiatives since. 

Together, Igor and Andy will help ensure Ethereum’s privacy work is impactful, coherent, and accountable. 


Organizing for scale and impact

Privacy Cluster Leadership Announcement


Fusaka follows this year's [Pectra upgrade](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/02/14/pectra-testnet-announcement), representing a major step forward in Ethereum's scaling roadmap by introducing PeerDAS and key improvements that enhance blob throughput, L1 performance, and user experience.

This post announces the testnet activation schedule for the first three testnets, beginning with Holesky at slot `5,283,840` (October 1, 2025, 08:48:00 UTC). See the [activation table](#fusaka-activation) below for the complete Sepolia and Hoodi timeline. Fusaka also introduces Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks to safely scale blob throughput after PeerDAS activation. These are minimal, config-only upgrades that adjust the blob target/max and fee update fraction. 

The Fusaka testnet client releases are listed [below](#client-releases). Once all three testnets have successfully upgraded, a mainnet activation slot will be chosen.


Fusaka Testnet Announcement


World’s Fairs have historically showcased the biggest innovations of their time like telephones, televisions, photography, and light bulbs. In this spirit, [Ethereum gets its own World’s Fair this November in Buenos Aires.](https://devconnect.org/) A week where the ecosystem doesn’t just talk about innovation, but showcases what’s being built now, and what’s next. We’re creating a space to see, touch, and experience the frontier of technology. A World’s Fair that showcases what Ethereum can do today.


Announcing the districts of the Ethereum World’s Fair


Today, we are excited to announce the start of the Fusaka audit contest, co-sponsored by [Gnosis](https://www.gnosis.io/) and [Lido](https://lido.fi/), hosted on [Sherlock](https://sherlock.xyz/ethereumfusakacontest), and running for four weeks from September 15th. The goal is simple: maximize scrutiny of the Fusaka upgrade and surface vulnerabilities before they can impact the network.

To raise the stakes, valid findings reported in the first week have a **2x multiplier** applied to their points rewarded, and those in the second week have a **1.5x** multiplier. To help security researchers, we’ve prepared a [Fusaka auditor guide](https://notes.ethereum.org/@fredrik/fusaka-auditor-guide).


Fusaka $2,000,000 Audit Contest!


As [previously announced](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/03/18/hoodi-holesky), the Holešky testnet has reached its planned end-of-life date and will be sunset shortly. **The vast majority of remaining validator nodes will be shut down 2 weeks after the Fusaka upgrade has finalized on Holešky. After this, Holešky will no longer be supported by client, testing or infrastructure teams.**

Following the launch of the [Hoodi testnet](https://hoodi.ethpandaops.io/) in March 2025, infrastructure providers and staking operators have had the opportunity to migrate their testing operations.


Holešky Testnet Shutdown Announcement


The EF’s Grants Program launched in 2018 and has evolved over time to become the [Ecosystem Support Program](https://esp.ethereum.foundation/) (ESP), providing grants and support to builders that help the Ethereum ecosystem thrive. Our mission is to enable work that strengthens Ethereum’s foundations and empowers future builders, in domains such as developer tooling, research, community building, infrastructure, and open standards.

In 2024 alone, ESP awarded close to $3M in funding to 105 projects and initiatives that came through our open grants program webforms. These grants, which are one part of ESP’s larger portfolio, supported a diverse range of work, such as [Commit-Boost](https://github.com/Commit-Boost) (developer tooling), [BundleBear](https://www.bundlebear.com/eip7702-overview/all) (data and analytics), [Web3Bridge](https://www.web3bridgeafrica.com/) (education), [ZK Playbook](https://docs.attest.org/docs/category/zk-playbook) (research), and [Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress](https://congress.web3privacy.info/) (community event).

Over the past three years, we have streamlined our processes

The Ecosystem Support Program's Next Chapter


A few months ago, we [announced](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/02/announcing-protocol) a renewed focus of Protocol on three strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale blobs, Improve UX. Following previous updates on [Scale L1](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/08/05/protocol-update-001) and [Scale blobs](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/08/22/protocol-update-002), this note relates to our “Improve UX” track, and its mission:

**Seamless, secure and permissionless experience across the Ethereum ecosystem, for individuals and institutions.**

We see interoperability, and related projects presented in this note, as the highest leverage opportunity within the broader UX domain over the next 6-12 months, in our position as a public, core Ethereum R\&D group.

The near-term strategy focuses on areas we believe will continue to be fundamental components of interop: Intent-based architecture and general message-passing. For both, our aim is to focus on clear, measurable protocol metrics to drive down latency and cost,

Protocol Update 003 — Improve UX


Following up from [Protocol Update 001](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/08/05/protocol-update-001), we’d like to introduce our approach to blob scaling. The L1 serves as a robust foundation for L2 systems to scale Ethereum, and a necessary component of secure L2 solutions is data availability provided by the L1. Data availability ensures that updates L2s make back to the L1 can be verified by anyone. Blobs are the unit of data availability in the protocol today, so scaling the blob count per block is a key requirement to usher in a wave of L2 adoption for use cases like real-time payments, DeFi, social media, gaming, and AI/agentic applications.

Our work is structured as a series of incremental changes to Ethereum’s blob architecture. To accelerate our rate of scaling, we are expanding from

Protocol Update 002 - Scale Blobs


Since announcing the [Trillion Dollar Security project](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/05/14/trillion-dollar-security), we have surveyed the ecosystem to understand which improvements are highest priority to every layer of the Ethereum stack and community.

Now it is time to begin the next phase of this initiative: acting on the highest priority issues we face. 

For this first wave of actions, we will mostly focus on UX issues. Our research showed these to be the most urgent issues facing both individual and institutional users of Ethereum and Ethereum-based applications.

During this first wave we will kick off a range of work targeting crucial areas in UX security. The work we begin today is a combination of high leverage short-term actions and long-term projects that we expect will continue for years. We intend to regularly

Trillion Dollar Security - Phase 2


Since January 2019, the Ethereum Foundation has held a tradition of engaging directly with the community through our "Ask Us Anything" (AMA) series on Reddit, occurring roughly every six months. These AMAs, previously hosted by the EF Research team, have provided a forum for deep dives into the protocol's evolving landscape, direct Q\&A with core contributors, and a transparent look into the ongoing work shaping Ethereum.

We are excited to announce the continuation of this tradition. The next AMA will be hosted by the **EF Protocol** cluster teams, reflecting the evolution of our organizational structure. While "EF Research" accurately described our focus on foundational research, "EF Protocol" encompasses both the cutting-edge research that explores Ethereum's future as well as the critical development efforts that bring these

Join Us: EF Protocol Reddit AMA - August 29th, 2025


In June, we introduced [Protocol](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/02/announcing-protocol), reorganizing the Ethereum Foundation’s research & development teams to better align on our current strategic goals, **Scale L1**, **Scale Blobs**, and **Improve UX** without compromising on our commitment to Ethereum's security and hardness.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll publish updates on each work stream, covering their ongoing progress, new initiatives, open questions and opportunities for collaboration. We start today with Scale L1 --- expect follow-ups about Scale Blobs and Improve UX soon!


Protocol Update 001 – Scale L1


Yesterday Ethereum turned 10. Today, *lean Ethereum* is unveiled as a vision—and personal mission—for the next 10 years.

We stand at the dawn of a new era. Millions of TPS. Quantum adversaries. How does Ethereum marry extreme performance with uncompromising security and decentralization?

**TLDR**: next-generation cryptography is central to winning both offense and defense.

*Disclaimer: This is a Drake take™ aimed at a broad audience. A technical deep dive into hash-based post-quantum signatures and SNARKs will follow. A healthy diversity of views across Protocol, the EF, and the broader Ethereum community is expected and welcome. It strengthens us.*


lean Ethereum


On July 30, 2025, the Ethereum community marked a major milestone: ten years since the Ethereum’s genesis block and mainnet launch. 

What began as a [whitepaper](https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/) has evolved into a decentralized platform now powering thousands of applications, tools, and communities around the world.


Celebrating 10 Years of Ethereum


*Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-5 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/19/checkpoint-4).*

![we-are-here.png](https://notes.ethereum.org/_uploads/HJBWzfIPxg.png)


Checkpoint #5: July 2025


From grassroots gatherings to breakthrough projects, here's what we supported in Q2 2025! Scroll down to explore the work happening across the Ethereum ecosystem:

|Category|Project|Recipient|Description|Contact|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Community & education|[Appcon](https://appcon.org/)|[Slice](https://slice.so/)|Event designed to introduce Ethereum applications and experiences to a non-crypto audience, hosted during Milan Design Week in Italy.||
|Community & education|[Bhutan Dev Fest](https://bhutandevfest.com/)|[GovTech Agency](https://tech.gov.bt/)|Hackathon in Paro, Bhutan uniting local and global innovators to develop solutions leveraging decentralized technology, including Bhutan's self-sovereign [National Digital Identity](https://www.bhutanndi.com/) (NDI) that empowers citizens to control and selectively share personal data.||
|Community & education|[Blockchain Days](https://www.bdays.org/)|[ODTÜ Blockchain](https://x.com/odtublockchain)|Student-run conference organized in Ankara, Türkiye, covering topics such as cryptography, governance, and DeFi.||
|Community & education|[Blockfuse Labs](https://blockfuselabs.com/) IRL Bootcamp Cohort 3||Blockchain developer training program in Jos, Nigeria designed to transition web2 developers to web3 builders through deep technical instruction in Solidity and

Allocation Update - Q2 2025


Ethereum stands at a pivotal moment. Interest in Ethereum has expanded beyond technologists and enthusiasts, bringing enterprises, governments, and everyday users who seek practical solutions and tangible benefits. The Ethereum ecosystem is adapting to meet these needs, and the Ethereum Foundation is ready to play its part.

As outlined in the [Ethereum Foundation’s recent vision statement](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/04/28/ef-vision), we have two key goals:

1. Maximizing the number of people who (directly or indirectly) use Ethereum, in such a way that they benefit from Ethereum’s underlying values.
2. Maximizing the resilience of Ethereum’s technical and social infrastructure.

Ecosystem Development (EcoDev) refers to teams that help achieve these goals at an ecosystem or social level, rather than a technology level. These teams help remove bottlenecks to real-world use, help users get onboarded to

The Future of Ecosystem Development at the EF


*Thanks to Kevaundray Wedderburn, Alex Stokes, Tim Beiko, Mary Maller, Alexander Hicks, George Kadianakis, Dankrad Feist, and Justin Drake for feedback and review.*

Ethereum is going all in on ZK. Eventually we expect to migrate to using ZK proofs at all levels of the stack, from consensus layer signature aggregation to onchain privacy with client side proving, and [upgrade the protocol to be simpler and more zk-friendly](https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/05/03/simplel1.html). But the first step will be an L1 zkEVM.


Shipping an L1 zkEVM #1: Realtime Proving


As of today, all Ethereum execution clients support partial history expiry in accordance with [EIP-4444](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4444). While work on full, rolling history expiry is ongoing, users can expect to reduce the disk space required for an Ethereum node by 300-500 GB by removing the block data prior to the Merge. This will allow a node to fit comfortably on a 2 TB disk. See below for information on each specific client.


Partial history expiry announcement


Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/06/03/checkpoint-3).

This is a special edition of the series! 

Kicking off [Berlin Blockchain Week](https://blockchainweek.berlin/), ethereum core devs and researchers got together for an interop hacking week to make progress both on long-term research directions and short-term implementation of the Fusaka upgrade and gas limit increases. Two of these days solicited feedback on longer-term research directions from L2 and zk teams.

![](https://notes.ethereum.org/_uploads/rJeRALbExl.png)

The most recent in-person interop was in [Bangkok](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/tree/master/Breakout-Room-Meetings/DevconSEA/R%26D-workshop) prior to [Devcon](https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/01/03/devcon-sea-announcement) but previous interops focused on Pectra & PeerDAS ([Nyota](https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/05/22/nyota-interop-recap)), Shapella & Protodanksharding ([Edelweiss](https://blog.ethereum.org/2023/02/07/edelweiss-interop-recap)), the Merge ([Amphora](https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/10/15/amphora-merge-milestone)), and [Eth2](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/blob/master/Breakout-Room-Meetings/interop/meetups/collection.md) ([Ontario](https://blog.ethereum.org/2019/09/19/eth2-interop-in-review))


Checkpoint #4: Berlinterop


> _This is an update from the Next Billion Fellowship Program. Applications are rolling and open for cohort 6 beginning in October 2025._

Individuals interacting with an application have a _user experience_. Collectives interacting with a protocol have a _world experience_. There are many worlds that the Ethereum protocol touches; places where organizations, communities, or institutions experience trust through coordination. The Next Billion Fellowship is a program to support individuals working on new use cases and improving trust experience within the world computer.

The stories of a global protocol are as diverse and varied as the humans that use it. In this update five Next Billion Alumni share stories about their Fellowship experience, and four new Next Billion Fellows are introduced.

<a href="https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/fellowship/Devansh" style="text-decoration: none; display: block;">
<div style="


Next Billion Fellowship Program Update - New Stories, New Fellows

World Experience: Updates from the Next Billion Fellowship


We’re thrilled to announce that internship applications are now open for the first-ever Ethereum Season of Internships!

The Ethereum Season of Internships is a collection of paid, fully-remote summer internships offered across the Ethereum ecosystem. It is designed to help establish more paths for the next generation of contributors to connect with Ethereum projects and apply their skills – whether in development, research, design, marketing, operations, or more. Our long-term goal is to make Ethereum an even more welcoming place for new talents.

Over the past few weeks, 19 teams from across the ecosystem have created over 30 internship opportunities. Each position is paid, remote-friendly, and designed to offer real-world experience and mentorship. Whether you’re a developer, researcher, designer, or community builder, this is your invitation to

Now accepting interns - Join the Ethereum Season of Internships


It's happening: [Devconnect](https://devconnect.org/) is coming to Buenos Aires, 17–22 November 2025. And **we are bringing the first-ever Ethereum World’s Fair to the city**.

The Ethereum World’s Fair is for the Ethereum community and anyone curious about what Ethereum can do in the real world. We’re starting in Argentina, one of the most active crypto hubs, to show how Ethereum can bring a nation onchain with stablecoins, DeFi, decentralized identity, prediction markets, games, and more.


Tickets are live for the Ethereum World’s Fair! And we're launching the Supporter Program


*Thank you to the EFers that provided valuable input and feedback to the draft document: Bastian Aue, Vitalik Buterin, Bogdan Popa, Tomasz Stańczak, Fredrik Svantes, Yoav Weiss, Dankrad Feist, Tim Beiko, Nicolas Consigny, Nixo, Alex Stokes, Ladislaus, and Joseph Schweitzer.*

*Thank you to kpk, Steakhouse Financial, and pcaversaccio for providing valuable and insightful input and the final review of this document.*

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) exists to strengthen Ethereum’s ecosystem and uphold its **long-standing** **non-negotiable objectives:** enabling "[*applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud, or third-party interference*](http://web.archive.org/web/20150807141725/https:/ethereum.org/)". EF Treasury supports EF's long-term agency, sustainability, and legitimacy. Capital deployments should be balanced between seeking returns above a benchmark rate and extending EF's role as a steward of the Ethereum ecosystem, with a

Ethereum Foundation Treasury Policy


*Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-5 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/04/29/checkpoint-2).*

![](https://notes.ethereum.org/_uploads/HJWc2R2Glg.png)



Checkpoint #3: June 2025


We are excited to announce the Devconnect Scholars Program, as part of [Devconnect ARG 2025](https://devconnect.org/)! The Scholars Program will welcome 100 leaders who are expanding Ethereum's reach by connecting it to new communities, industries, and ideas. Scholars will co-learn and co-create, building bridges between Ethereum and other worlds. The 2025 cohort will include five categories: (1) Ethereum Community Organizers, (2) Legal & Public Sector Professionals, (3) Journalists, (4) Artists, and (5) Developers & Other Builders of any kind.

[Applications are now open](https://devconnectargscholars.paperform.co/), until Monday, June 30th!


Announcing the Devconnect ARG Scholars Program


Ethereum stands at the edge of major breakthroughs. zkEVMs have rapidly accelerated, enabling us to rearchitect L1 to simultaneously support scale, verifiability, security and censorship-resistance. L2s are hardening, meeting users where they are, and eager to double down on using Ethereum as their root of trust. In short, the world is ready for the world computer.

These significant innovations both unlock massive benefits for our users and will allow us to onboard many, many more. The stakes are high: This moment may be Ethereum’s best shot at deploying not only our technology, but our values, at planetary scale. 

As a response, we must rethink our current approach to designing, developing and stewarding the protocol. This process of “shipping protocol” is messy, asking us to respond proactively

Announcing Protocol


Ethereum is the most secure blockchain ecosystem. This is the result of 10 years of progress and iteration across every level of Ethereum’s technology stack, from wallet UX to developer tooling to consensus protocol security.

But being the most secure platform in the crypto ecosystem isn’t enough. Ethereum’s ambition is far greater: to be civilization-scale infrastructure that securely underpins the internet and global economy, surpassing the safety and trustworthiness of the world’s legacy systems.

Today we are announcing the **Trillion Dollar Security** initiative, an ecosystem-wide effort to upgrade Ethereum’s security to help bring the world onchain.

Reaching “Trillion Dollar security” means a world where:

- Billions of individuals are each comfortable storing more than $1000 onchain, collectively amounting to trillions of dollars secured on Ethereum.
- Companies, institutions or governments

Announcing the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative


A new year means new momentum, and new grants! Take a look at the projects that received support in Q1 2025, listed below:

|Category|Project|Recipient|Description|Contact|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Community & education|[Account Abstraction Afterhours](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMf-2qLTukXr5lUmbmMlIlsX-lJIoIKcf) - Season 2|[Mirko Garozzo](https://x.com/mirkogarozzo) & [Francesco Andreoli](https://x.com/francescoswiss)|Producing educational videos with thought leaders in the [account abstraction](https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/account-abstraction/#account-abstraction) ecosystem, with Season 2 focusing on the application layer and how [dapps](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/dapps/) are using [account abstraction](https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/account-abstraction/#account-abstraction).||
|Community & education|[ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC)](https://ec25.sigecom.org/)||Scientific conference on advances in theory, empirics, and applications at the interface of economics and computation.||
|Community & education|[A General Forum on Ethereum Localism (GFEL): Boulder 2025](https://opencivics.substack.com/p/ethereum-localism-goes-cosmo-local)|[OpenCivics](https://www.opencivics.co/)|Event in Boulder, USA that explored Ethereum's real-world use cases in the realm of social impact and public goods through talks, unconference sessions, and a quadratic funding allocation to local community groups.||
|Community & education|[Arabic

Allocation Update - Q1 2025


*Thanks to Marius Van Der Wijden for creating the test case and statetest, and for helping the Besu team confirm the issue. Also, kudos to the Besu team, the EF security team, and Kevaundray Wedderburn. Additionally, thanks to Yuxiang Qiu, Justin Traglia, Marius Van Der Wijden, Benedikt Wagner, and Kevaundray Wedderburn for proofreading. If you have any other questions/comments, find me on twitter at [@asanso](https://twitter.com/asanso)*

**tl;dr**: [Besu Ethereum execution client](https://besu.hyperledger.org/) version 25.2.2 suffered from a **consensus issue** related to the [EIP-196](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-196)/[EIP-197](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-197) precompiled contract handling for the elliptic curve `alt_bn128` (a.k.a. bn254). The issue was fixed in release [25.3.0](https://github.com/hyperledger/besu/releases/tag/25.3.0).
[Here](https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-30147) is the full CVE report.

**N.B.**: Part of this post requires some knowledge about elliptic curves (cryptography).


The Real Slim Shady

CVE-2025-30147 - The curious case of subgroup check on Besu


Every year, the Ethereum ecosystem welcomes thousands of builders through community events, hackathons, courses, bootcamps, and campus clubs. However, many newcomers struggle to remain engaged, as they face challenges securing structured early-career opportunities. The Ethereum Season of Internships directly addresses this retention gap by creating a coordinated collection of internship opportunities across the ecosystem.


Host a Summer Intern and Help Build the Next Generation of Ethereum Contributors

Announcing the Ethereum Season of Internships


Are you part of a university blockchain club eager to dive deeper into the world of Ethereum? We want to connect with you!

The Ethereum Foundation is sponsoring a global University Tour in partnership with [BuidlGuidl](https://tour.buidlguidl.com), designed to activate student communities and grow the next generation of Ethereum builders. This tour includes:

 🧑‍💻 Virtual sessions with Ethereum educators and builders  
 🏫 In-person workshops on campuses across the globe  
 🏆 A cross-university club competition, culminating in a live finals at Devconnect 2025

Whether your club is just getting started or already deeply embedded in the Ethereum ecosystem, this is your chance to:
- Plug into the global Ethereum community  
- Learn directly from builders and researchers  
- Showcase your ideas, research, or prototypes

Ethereum University Tour


*Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://chatgpt.com/share/680db778-2778-8013-9792-c61b55d4627c)" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-5 calls, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update [here](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/03/25/acdcheckpoint-001).*

![](https://notes.ethereum.org/_uploads/SyZClNCJxl.png)


Checkpoint #2: Apr 2025


The recent appointments of the two Co-Executive Directors and President are part of a broader effort to strengthen the Ethereum Foundation, and this structure is designed to ensure our vision, strategic and balanced execution, technical direction, and ecosystem development. This blog is intended to clarify the structure of the management team and the board.


Ethereum Foundation's Management and Board Structure


_Ethereum’s strength lies in its decentralization — not just technically, but socially and structurally. This blog articulates the EF's vision, its role, and priorities as one of the ecosystem's stewards. We use this moment as an opportunity to restate our vision, principles and values which we continue to uphold as we welcome the new management team. These priorities are not a rigid plan and are reflected in the [strategies described by EF’s Co-EDs](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/04/28/next-chapter). By defining our approach and focus, we also aim to clarify where we direct our efforts — and where we intentionally step back — so that the ecosystem can continue to thrive with everyone's participation._


The Ethereum Foundation’s Vision


Hi! This is Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz co-writing this blog post. We've now been in our new Co-Executive Director roles for almost a month. The honeymoon is over, it's time to get moving.


The Ethereum Foundation's Next Chapter


On July 30th at 3:26:13 PM +UTC, Ethereum will celebrate 10 years since the genesis block. 

_Ethereum has come a long way. It came to life, survived and thrived against all odds, and led to breakthroughs in tokenization, fundraising, DeFi and digital ownership. It's bootstrapped entire industries, and is now reshaping how we now think about money, identity, and coordination. What began as a whitepaper and a great experiment is transforming into the global settlement layer for the world. And 10 years in, Ethereum is still just getting started._

Working together with the community, the Ethereum Foundation will be supporting a series of global meetups, onchain artifacts, and a livestream to ring in the next decade of Ethereum together.

If you have your own ideas or visions

Join us for a global celebration of Ethereum’s first decade!

10 Years of Ethereum


The Pectra network upgrade is scheduled to activate on the Ethereum mainnet on May 07, 2025 at epoch `364032` (10:05:11 UTC)! Mainnet client releases are listed [below](#Client-Releases).


Pectra Mainnet Announcement


We’re kicking off the road to Devconnect in Buenos Aires (Nov 17–22) with [Destino Devconnect](https://devconnect.org/destino), a community-powered push to bring Argentina onchain. From now until November, we’re inviting local builders, organizers, and enthusiasts to unite under one banner to accelerate Ethereum adoption in Argentina and across Latam.


Join us on the road to Devconnect ARG in Buenos Aires.

Destino Devconnect - A local grant round to bring Argentina onchain


_**TL;DR:**_

 - _Review the [program details for EPF6](https://github.com/eth-protocol-fellows/cohort-six/tree/main/program-guide) 🔎_
 - _[Applications](https://efdn.notion.site/1d0d98955541805481b6da8786883bb3?pvs=105) for EPF6 are open until April 30 📝_
 - _An introductory [town hall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0evZ6NX9J0) will be held for an overview and questions on April 21 at 4PM UTC 🎙️_


We are excited to announce that the applications are now open for the sixth cohort of the [Ethereum Protocol Fellowship](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGTCqBACAXg) (EPF6).

The EPF provides a pathway for aspiring protocol developers to make meaningful contributions to Ethereum. In each cohort, a diverse group is assembled to work toward [advancing Ethereum's roadmap](https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/) during the fellowship. This includes the development of client implementations, testing and specifications, and participating in the latest core protocol research.

With an overarching goal to find eventual placement for fellows in R&D teams working on core protocol development,

Announcing Ethereum Protocol Fellowship Cohort 6


_TL;DR: The EPF successfully concluded the fifth cohort, Study Group 2025 and is preparing for cohort six (EPF6). Applications will be announced soon, keep an eye on the [EF blog](https://blog.ethereum.org/)! In the meantime, get ready by enhancing your Ethereum protocol knowledge at [EPF.wiki](https://epf.wiki/) and [sign up for the newsletter](https://groups.google.com/a/ethereum.org/g/protocol-fellowship-group) to get notified about announcements._

The Ethereum Protocol Fellowship completed its fifth cohort, culminating with EPF Day at Devcon in Bangkok. Its completion marked 5 months of immersive learning, research and contribution to the Ethereum core ecosystem from a group of talented and dedicated fellows. Client devs and researchers welcomed new contributors, some of which stayed working with them long-term. 

Additionally, the second iteration of the Protocol Study Group concluded after 2 months of intensive learning about

Ethereum Protocol Fellowship Cohort 5 Recap


Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "[Checkpoint](https://github.com/ethpandaops/checkpointz?tab=readme-ov-file#what-is-checkpoint-sync)" series aims for brief high-level updates with a target cadence of every 4-5 calls, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the initial update [here](https://mirror.xyz/nixo.eth/axmTo0OGG_kr6G3DeA5IODGQdW9aRIXUpSkiGmqkdMc). All subsequent updates will be hosted here on the Ethereum Foundation blog.

The past month of calls have been focused on Pectra’s testnet upgrades in anticipation of the [Pectra mainnet fork](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7600) with development of the following fork, [Fusaka](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7607), pushing forward in parallel.


Checkpoint - March 2025


The [Pectra testnet activation](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/02/14/pectra-testnet-announcement) revealed issues in clients with deposit contract configurations changes on Ethereum testnets. While [Sepolia's recovery](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/03/05/sepolia-pectra-incident) was straightforward and the network has since fully recovered, Holesky experienced extensive inactivity leaks as part of its recovery mechanism.

The Holesky network has since then finalized, but the exited validators would take approximately one year to fully be removed from the validator set ([¹](https://hackmd.io/@mikeneuder/eli5-ethereum-validator-exits)). While stakers can test deposits, consolidations and all other Pectra features, the size of the exit queue prevents Holesky from being used to test the full validator lifecycle within a reasonable timeframe.

**To address this, a new testnet has been launched: [Hoodi](https://hoodi.ethpandaops.io/). It will activate the Pectra network upgrade at epoch 2048 (Wed. March 26, 2025 14:37:12 UTC).** Client releases that support the

Holesky and Hoodi Testnet Updates


We are pleased to announce that Hsiao-Wei Wang is joining the Ethereum Foundation’s Board of Directors. The current board members now include **Aya Miyaguchi (President)** , **Vitalik Buterin (Founder)**, **Patrick Storchenegger (Swiss council)** and **Hsiao-Wei Wang (Co-ED)**. 

As this transition unfolds, the board will share further updates on its role and functions in the Ethereum Foundation. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.


Ethereum Foundation Board of Directors Update


The [Mekong](https://blog.ethereum.org/2024/11/07/introducing-mekong-testnet) devnet was meant to be a playground for wallet developers to experiment with UX changes and for stakers to gain confidence in the upcoming [Pectra](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7600) changes. 

The Pectra network upgrade has been activated on the Ethereum Sepolia and Holesky testnets. These networks can now be used to test the Pectra upgrade features. In light of this, we'd like to announce the deprecation of the Mekong testnet on 7th March, 2025.


**Application and tooling developers are encouraged to use [Sepolia](https://github.com/eth-clients/sepolia)** to test applications, smart contracts, and other EVM functionality. Its permissioned validator set provides a stable test environment. Alternatively, many [local development environments](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/local-environment/) allow for testing against copies of the Ethereum mainnet state.

**Stakers and infrastructure providers concerned with protocol-level testing are encouraged to wait for

Mekong Deprecation Announcement


We’re excited to announce that [the next Devconnect](https://devconnect.org/) will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from November 17th to the 22nd, 2025 at the iconic venue La Rural! 

This year, we are aiming for something bigger than just Devconnect: We want to support an effort that the local community has already started — bringing Argentina onchain. 

In Buenos Aires and Argentina, we have a city and country that have been leading adopters of Ethereum for many years. Devconnect Argentina is an opportunity for the whole Ethereum ecosystem to support that steady growth and to accelerate it even further, by helping individual citizens, businesses, institutions and governments to adopt and benefit from Ethereum. 

**Get in touch at support@devconnect.org or on the [Forum](https://forum.devcon.org/t/devconnect-2025-help-bringing-argentina-onchain/5471) if you or your

Join us for an ecosystem-wide push to bring Argentina onchain

Devconnect 2025 - An “Ethereum World’s Fair” in Buenos Aires


At 7:29 UTC today, on epoch `222464`, the [Pectra network upgrade](https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/02/14/pectra-testnet-announcement) went live on the Sepolia testnet. 

Unfortunately, an issue with Sepolia's permissioned deposit contract prevented many execution layer clients from including transactions in blocks. The root cause was identified within minutes, and client teams immediately began working on a fix.

**This issue is due to Sepolia's configuration and could not occur on the Ethereum mainnet.** 

Around 14:00 UTC today, validators deployed a fix that restored the network to normal throughput.

**All Sepolia node operators must now upgrade their execution layer clients to the versions listed below to maintain network compatibility.**


--- 


Sepolia Pectra Incident Update


The Ethereum Foundation is thrilled to announce a new leadership structure, welcoming Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as co-Executive Directors effective March 17th. This marks an exciting new chapter in the Foundation's evolution as we continue to support a growing Ethereum ecosystem.


Welcoming a new EF leadership structure


The security of the Ethereum protocol is continually being improved, and one recent effort is the external security review of the Pectra System Contracts.

The results of this review can be found in the [audits repository](https://github.com/ethereum/audits), and the TL;DR is that all discovered issues deemed relevant or important from these reviews have been addressed.


Audit Results for the Pectra System Contracts


My dear Ethereum community,

Today, I’m excited to turn the page and share that I will be closing this chapter as Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation soon and stepping into a new role as its President. This new opportunity will allow me to continue supporting EF’s institutional relationships, and to expand the reach of our vision and culture more broadly. I’m feeling deeply grateful and enthusiastic for what’s ahead, and while I made this decision a year ago, recent events have given me the perfect opportunity to reflect on what truly matters to me.

These past few weeks have illuminated something profound about Ethereum — a truth that becomes clearest in moments of tension, when debates arise over the network’s performance or ETH’s market value. Across

A new chapter in the infinite garden


Today, we're excited to announce the Pectra Audit Competition, kicking off on [Cantina](https://cantina.xyz/competitions/pectra)! This month-long event will run from **February 21 to March 24**, and we're excited to see what issues the security community can find.


Pectra Audit Competition Launches on Cantina


Across different disciplines and geographies, builders are exploring how Ethereum fits into their work and communities. The [Devcon](https://devcon.org/en/) SEA Scholars Program brought together 93 of these individuals in Bangkok who are bridging Ethereum with other worlds and pushing Ethereum's boundaries.

This community of builders, thinkers, and creators was selected from over 800 applicants representing 86 countries. The program consisted of four categories: (1) Ethereum Community Organizers; (2) Law Students & Legal Professionals; (3) Artists and Sci-fi Writers, and (4) Other Builders. Each category was guided by a mentor and included a series of online gatherings leading up to Devcon. After attending Devcon for the first time – with financial support for those who needed it – the Scholars created "Learning Artifacts" to document their experiences and

Exploring how scholars from around the world experienced Devcon

Stories from Bangkok: Devcon SEA Scholars Program

Pectra Testnet Announcement


The new year may be here, but we're still inspired by the incredible projects funded in Q4 2024. Check out the table below for an overview of the grantees shaping the future with their work!


|Category|Project|Recipient|Description|Contact|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Community & education|[Aleph de Verano](https://lu.ma/4rs60tro)|[Crecimiento](https://x.com/crecimientoar)|2-week event in Buenos Aires, Argentina featuring a ZK and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) bootcamp, hackathon, demo day, and talks on [DeFi](https://ethereum.org/en/defi/), infrastructure, governance, and regulation.|
|Community & education|[Aleph ZK Week](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0Jb2_9xzReJZGPKl6nl-THfcyBK68B_A)||3-day conference hosted during the Aleph pop-up city in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that provided a deep dive into programmable cryptography, multi-party computation (MPC), FHE, and decentralized identity systems.|
|Community & education|[Algebraic Aspects in the Design and Cryptanalysis of Modern Symmetric Cryptography (ALPSY) 2025](https://alpsy-informatik.uibk.ac.at/)||Research workshop that unites experts in arithmetic oriented symmetric-key primitives and their cryptanalysis to foster collaborations on

Allocation Update - Q4 2024


> *tl;dr*: Ethereum Protocol Studies is returning for 2025. Visit [epf.wiki](https://epf.wiki/#/eps/intro) to fill out the survey and join the town hall on Wednesday, Feb 12.

The Ethereum Protocol Studies program (EPS) is back for 2025! Designed to lower the barrier to understanding Ethereum's core protocol, EPS provides structured learning and a direct path to deeper protocol knowledge.


Ethereum Protocol Studies 2025


We're evolving how we build ethereum.org. Starting January 20th, we've adopted [Shape Up cycles](https://basecamp.com/shapeup) - focused 6-week build periods followed by 2-week cooldowns. For Cycle 1, each project below will ship by the end of February - no automatic rollovers to next cycle.

Quick point of clarification: **this is the cycle roadmap for ethereum.org the website, not Ethereum the protocol**.

We'll ship the following projects by the end of February in our first cycle:


From quarters to cycles: accelerating ethereum.org


2024 was a great year for [ethereum.org](http://ethereum.org/), and as we already have our hands full with projects and initiatives for 2025, it's important to take a moment to celebrate the achievements made possible by the community this past year.

With that in mind, we've put together a recap of our top highlights from 2024—we hope you enjoy reading it!


ethereum.org Year in Review


The EF's Ecosystem Funding Initiative team is proud to announce the launch of the 2025 Academic Grants Round, a pioneering initiative aimed at empowering and expanding the frontiers of Ethereum-related academic research. With a dedicated fund of **$2 million**, we are eager to build upon the success of the previous rounds by supporting innovative research in diverse fields critical to the growth and strengthening of the Ethereum ecosystem. 


Introducing the 2025 Academic Grants Round


The Ecosystem Funding Initiative team is thrilled to announce the recipients of the **2024 Academic Grants Round**! This round, we are proud to support 41 projects from researchers and institutions worldwide. These projects address fundamental challenges and opportunities in areas critical to Ethereum’s growth, including cryptography, consensus mechanisms, security, execution, and more.


Announcing the 2024 Academic Grants Round Recipients


We firmly believe that information is a public good that should be freely shared within the community. In line with this philosophy, in 2022 we initiated a [series of grants to support academic research](https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/07/29/academic-grants-grantee-announce) to foster knowledge and further enhance the Ethereum ecosystem. The response we received was overwhelming, and we awarded 39 grants to exceptional builders who actively worked across diverse domains to push Ethereum-related knowledge forward. In this blog post, we are excited to present a summary of the results achieved by each grantee, along with resources for those seeking deeper insights. We will keep sharing results as they come, as some grantees continue their research.

| **Title** | **Grantee(s)** | **Summary** |
|-----------|----------------|-------------|
| [Amplification Messaging for Short-Term Slot Finality and Improved Reorg-Tolerance](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.08135) | [Hammurabi

Results from the Academic Grants Round 2022


_**The following is an update from Next Billion Fellow Mulenga Kapwepwe and her initiative "Summitshare". For more about the Next Billion Fellowship Program and to apply, please visit https://nxbn.ethereum.foundation/.**_

[Mulenga Kapwepwe](https://twitter.com/Mulengakapwepwe), founder of the [Women’s History Museum of Zambia](https://www.whmzambia.org/)  posed a question in 2022 to a small group of younger tech enthusiasts in Zambia: Can something called “blockchain technology” offer any new usefulness for the preservation of history? She had started a new initiative aimed at _digital humanities_, and engaging with young people excited by technology who might want to apply their talents to the world of arts, culture, and history. The group of developers, designers, and artists she was working with shared their enthusiasm for “web3”, and together they discussed some of the properties

Exploring digital repatriation of African heritage artifacts.

Digital Repatriation


Devcon has always been a living reflection of Ethereum’s growth, challenges, and community ambitions. It showcases the most pressing topics, the newest innovations, and the people building the future of decentralized technology. [As Ethereum grows, so too does Devcon](https://devcon.org/en/).

Two years ago, right before Devcon VI in Bogotá, the Merge took Ethereum’s consensus from proof of work to proof of stake. Devcon VI focused not only on the achievement of this milestone, but also on the next innovations: early Layer-2 development, the introduction of Account Abstraction (AA), and the rise of zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs) as an expansion of Ethereum.

Fast forward to today, Devcon SEA celebrated the ecosystem’s readiness to take on the next big challenges. The content demonstrated how far Ethereum has come, how Ethereum's

Photos and resources at the bottom!

The latest chapter for Ethereum & highlights from Devcon SEA


Curious about the projects and community initiatives that were funded last quarter? Explore the Q3 grantees and their impactful work below:

|Category|Project|Recipient|Description|Contact|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Community & education|Blockchain Summer Bootcamp|[Africa Blockchain Institute](https://africablockchain.institute/)|Bootcamp introducing teenagers to blockchain through hands-on learning, workshops, and collaborative projects organized in Cotonou, Benin and taught in French.|[Email](mailto:info@africablockchain.institute)|
|Community & education|[BlockHack](https://blockhack-kba.devfolio.co/)|[Kerala Blockchain Academy](https://kba.ai/)|Hackathon hosted in Trivandrum, India with tracks focused on Ethereum onboarding and inclusion, blockchain for Sustainable Development Goals, and building dapps on Ethereum and [layer 2s](https://ethereum.org/en/layer-2/) (L2).|
|Community & education|Building Builders|[Web3Clubs](https://web3clubs.xyz/)|3-month Solidity program and in-person Solidity bootcamps organized in Nairobi, Kenya.|
|Community & education|Crecimiento Activities|[SEED Org](https://seedorg.super.site/home)|Supporting SEED Org's Ethereum-focused activities at the [Crecimiento](https://www.aleph.crecimiento.build/) pop-up city in Buenos Aires, Argentina.|
|Community & education|[EEA Industry Day](https://www.eeaday.org/)|[Enterprise Ethereum Alliance](https://entethalliance.org/)|Conference exploring how Ethereum is powering enterprises globally, hosted in Bangkok, Thailand.|
|Community & education|[ERC55](https://x.com/ERC55_)

Allocation Update - Q3 2024


The [Protocol Security Research Team](https://github.com/ethereum/protocol-security) and the Ecosystem Funding Initiative at the Ethereum Foundation are proud to announce the launch of the [ETH Rangers](https://ethrangers.com/) program to help incentivize Public Goods Security Work for the Ethereum Ecosystem. 


Funding Public Goods Security Efforts

The ETH Rangers Program


We’re excited to announce that [applications](https://nxbn-fellowship.paperform.co/) for the Next Billion Fellowship Program are now open!


Apply to join the next cohorts today

Next Billion Fellowship Program Applications Now Open!


The [Protocol Security Research Team](https://github.com/ethereum/protocol-security) and the Ecosystem Funding Initiative at the Ethereum Foundation are pleased to announce the [launch of the first Ethereum protocol Attackathon](https://immunefi.com/audit-competition/ethereum-protocol-attackathon/ ) with a reward pool of **$1,500,000**, hosted by [Immunefi](https://immunefi.com/). The attackathon runs between November 25th and January 20th and aims to enhance the security of the Ethereum protocol through a large-scale crowdsourced security audit competition.

We invite the entire Ethereum community — from auditing firms to individual security researchers — to participate in this important event to help secure the Ethereum Protocol.

You can get started on your journey into understanding the Ethereum Protocol via live and pre-recorded technical walkthroughs through the [Academy](https://immunefi.com/academy/ethereum-protocol-attackathon/).

The Attackathon is co-sponsored by:
* Bybit
* Wormhole
* Arbitrum
* The Graph
* GMX
* Base


Ethereum Protocol Attackathon is Live


> The 2025 Ethereum Foundation internship applications are open! Both [research](https://jobs.lever.co/ethereumfoundation/bac0fd4a-a8de-45f0-9223-2df882a7022e) and [development](https://jobs.lever.co/ethereumfoundation/4881baf8-f006-4885-aaac-8bd5c9ca836a) teams have open positions. Applications close on December 9, 2024. 

---

The Ethereum Foundation is running its first formal summer internship program in 2025 aimed at nurturing the next generation of Ethereum developers and researchers.

Interns will work alongside EF teams and, with the help of dedicated mentors, contribute directly to core projects in key areas such as protocol security, account abstraction, scaling research, client development, and more. For example, a past intern worked on [MEV smoothing research](https://ethresear.ch/t/committee-driven-mev-smoothing/10408) before eventually joining the EF full time. 
