Research & Development

The Protocol Security Research Team and the Ecosystem Funding Initiative at the Ethereum Foundation are proud to announce the launch of the ETH Rangers program to help incentivize Public Goods Security Work for the Ethereum Ecosystem.

The Protocol Security Research Team and the Ecosystem Funding Initiative at the Ethereum Foundation are pleased to announce the launch of the first Ethereum protocol Attackathon with a reward pool of $1,500,000, hosted by Immunefi. 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. The Attackathon is co-sponsored by: Bybit Wormhole Arbitrum The Graph GMX Base

The 2025 Ethereum Foundation internship applications are open! Both research and development 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 before eventually joining the EF full time.

After scoping the Pectra fork, a successful interop event and four devnets, we're now launching the first short-lived Pectra testnet: Mekong! The Mekong testnet includes all the EIPs proposed for the upcoming Pectra fork on Ethereum. These changes include UX changes via EIP-7702, Staking changes via EIP-7251, changes to the deposits and exit mechanisms via EIP-6110/ EIP-7002 and more. An exhaustive list of the EIPs as well as specifications implemented can be found here. Mekong is meant to be a playground for wallet developers to experiment with UX changes and for stakers to gain confidence in the upcoming changes. The testnet will be short-lived and is feature complete with all the intended EIPs for Pectra). We may see some minor spec changes or smaller EIPs,

In March 2024, the Ethereum network underwent a significant upgrade with the implementation of EIP-4844, an essential part of the Dencun hardfork, aimed at bolstering Ethereum’s role as a data availability layer. This upgrade introduced "blobs" of data, dramatically enhancing the scalability of Layer 2 solutions by increasing data availability by approximately 100 times. As with any major upgrade, it’s crucial to evaluate its impact, understand its implications, and refine our approach moving forward. To that end, we launched a dedicated data collection round, inviting researchers and developers to delve into the empirical impacts of EIP-4844. The response was overwhelming, with submissions exploring everything from consensus layer security to rollup economics. Today, we are thrilled to announce the winners of this round, who have provided

The Ecodev Coordinators team at EF announces the 11 recipients of the Data Collection grant round, with a total funding amount of 557,660 USD. After reviews, the winners were selected based on their innovative approaches to advancing data collection and analysis within the Ethereum ecosystem. The selected projects span a variety of initiatives, including developing open-source data platforms, creating comprehensive dashboards and analytical tools, establishing network baselines for healthy ecosystems, and understanding the distribution and evolution of the Ethereum ecosystem. These projects aim to enhance the efficiency, security, and applicability of data collection across different domains. We look forward to the contributions of these projects, anticipating advancements that will benefit the Ethereum ecosystem and the broader field of data analysis.

The Ethereum Foundation, along with Aztec, Polygon, Scroll, Taiko, zkSync, announces the 25 winners of the collaborative ZK grant round. Each sponsor contributed 150,000 USD to the shared pool of 900,000 USD. The winners were selected through a rank-choice vote after thorough reviews. The selected projects cover a range of approaches to advancing zero-knowledge proofs. These include developing security frameworks, analyzing cryptographic schemes, creating benchmarking tools for performance and scalability, and integrating advanced cryptographic models into practical applications which will benefit the whole ZK ecosystem. The projects aim to enhance the efficiency, security, and applicability of zero-knowledge proofs across different domains. The grantees include researchers and developers from various organizations and universities, working on both theoretical advancements and practical implementations to address key challenges in

Last week, Ethereum client, testing and research teams from around the world gathered together for a week of intense work on the Pectra network upgrade, PeerDAS and the Verge. Similarly to previous events like Edelweiss 🏔️ or Amphora 🏺, the focus of the Nyota ✨ interop was achieving multi-client interoperability across the different technical tracks. In addition to this, Nyota was preceded with a first of its kind public event: Frontiers Africa, where core devs & researchers spent the day meeting & exchanging with builders from across the region.