Ethereum Weekly Digest, May 18, 2025
Eth News and Updates
Eth R&D protocol call (All Core Devs)
Consensus layer focused protocol call (ACDC #157):
Fusaka
Devnet: PeerDAS DevNet 7 was launched and appears stable, with BPO (Blob Parameter Only) support underway across various clients. The next step is rolling out Fusaka DevNet 0, combining PeerDAS DevNet 7 with BPO to test consensus layer updates.
DevNet 0 Scope: PeerDAS, BPO, and selected mod_exp EIPs, deferring other EIPs to DevNet 1. Plan to launch DevNet 0 in about two weeks, allowing enough time for robust testing and client readiness.
Glamsterdam
Initial brainstorming for the Glamsterdam fork centered on ways to gather wider community input early in the process.
Overall: Focused on short-term Execution Layer scaling, emphasizing a structured approach to identifying and addressing performance bottlenecks. Discussed ongoing engineering tests (PerfNet), resource pricing updates, and key proposals such as Delayed Execution, ePBS, and Block-Level Access Lists.
Identify and Improve: Stressed the importance of systematically identifying distinct bottlenecks (state reads/writes, networking, sync performance) rather than simply raising the gas limit. Various client optimization techniques are being explored to handle higher throughput without sacrificing network stability.
Pricing and Containment: Researchers presented new gas pricing schemes (e.g., ModExp changes, opcode repricing) to better align costs with actual computation. These pricing adjustments help contain worst-case scenarios and pave the way for raising the network’s overall capacity safely.
Delayed Execution: The idea is to separate block propagation from complete execution, potentially allowing more time for throughput and complex proof generation (e.g., ZK proofs). However, key questions remain around handling invalid transactions and ensuring robust fee payments without introducing “free data” exploits.
Block-Level Access Lists: Builders could provide a mandatory list of accessed state slots for the entire block, enabling validators to parallelize execution and pre-load relevant data. Discussed trade-offs between adding storage locations alone versus including exact pre-/post-transaction values, weighing execution speed improvements against worst-case block size growth.
Beam Chain Call #3 - 3SF (Three Slot Finality)
Purpose: 3SF aims to finalize blocks within three slots by combining new voting rounds with the existing consensus layer. It addresses known shortcomings in LMD Ghost and provides a pathway to faster, more secure block finalization.
Mini Implementation: Vitalik showcased a Python prototype that demonstrates a simplified 3SF workflow under various network-delay scenarios. The prototype includes a "backoff" mechanism to handle latency and serves as a testbed for further research.
Practical Considerations: Key challenges involve managing vote weight transfers, snapshot-based accounting, reorg depth, and committee rotations. Integrating these features requires thoughtful trade-offs between complexity, state management, and protocol resilience.
Accountable Liveness: Introduced a formal framework to penalize validators who obstruct liveness, extending the concept of accountable safety. While theoretically powerful, it demands careful assumptions about synchronization and majority honesty, making real-world implementation complex.
Layer2
EIPs/ERCs
EIPs (Ethereum improvement proposals):
EIP-7942: Available Attestation
Client Release
Consensus Layer
Lodestar v1.30.0: optimizations for node operators.
Prysm v6.0.2: fix a few important bugs, better support Pectra states.
Execution Layer
Besu v25.5.0: Changes to gas estimation algorithm for eth_estimateGas and eth_createAccessList
Reth v1.4.1: significant performance improvements, especially for users who run on consumer hardware, as well as bug fixes.
For developers
alloy v1.0: first stable release
Ecosystem
EF’s Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative:
Mapping security strengths and attack vectors, producing a security overview report
Executing on the highest priority issues discovered through our research
Communicating effectively about Ethereum’s security properties to the world
BuilderNet v1.4: Pectra-ready version of BuilderNet. Includes newer versions of Reth and Lighthouse, as well as a few minor bug fixes and improvements.
Obol Stack: enterprise-grade framework to package, distribute and deploy decentralized systems
Research & Paper
Delayed Execution combines zkVM to improve Ethereum's gas limits. The builder of block n proves its validity and includes the proof in the next block (n+1). This stops bad actors from making blocks hard to prove and ensures blocks are still produced if some builders go offline. Attesters check the proof and data; if anything is missing, the block is treated as not executed.
The evolution of sandwich bots has reached a new stage with flash loans, allowing attackers to leverage borrowed capital to execute sophisticated strategies. By combining multiple DeFi protocols (e.g., Uniswap, Aave, Curve), attackers can amplify their profits with minimal risk.
Stats
Fees:
Gas: 0.3 to 24.9 gwei, 2.6 gwei average
ETHUSD: $2,426 – $2,693, currently $2,534, all time high $4,878
ETH/BTC: currently 0.024 (Flippening at ~0.164)
L2 Total Value Locked: 14.84 M ETH, -2.3% in 7 days
ETH ETF: 15.57K ETH net inflow (May 12 – May 16)