Week in Ethereum News

September 05, 2025

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Highlight of the Week

  • The Fusaka upgrade development is progressing with significant focus on fixing client syncing issues in devnet-3. Multiple client teams have identified and addressed bugs, with a target of Monday, September 8 for all code to be on trunk branches, as discussed in the ACDC #164 call.

Eth R&D Protocol Call(s)

  • All Core Devs - Consensus (ACDC) #164, September 4, 2025
    • Fusaka devnet-3:
      • Multiple client issues identified across the devnet with a comprehensive feedback document compiled by Barnabas
      • Recent fixes reported: Lighthouse bugs fixed on unstable branch, Prysm ready to use trunk, Teku still working on RPC issues
      • Next steps: Target Monday for all code on trunk branches, aim for near 100% participation recovery once fixes are deployed, run another non-finality test for 1-2 days to confirm fixes
    • Fusaka devnet-5 planning:
      • Will launch with larger scale like devnet-4
      • Launch contingent on successful devnet-3
      • Broader Fusaka timeline depends on completing current bug fixes and successful devnet-5 testing
    • Protocol Upgrade Process Timeline Changes:
      • Tim proposed modifications to the original process document
      • Key proposed changes: Minimum 14 days (down from 30) between client releases and first testnet, minimum 10 days between each testnet, maintain 30-day buffer between client releases and mainnet
      • Community feedback collected from L2s, LSTs, infrastructure providers who were mostly in favor
      • Outstanding concerns: Mixed-use nature of testnets, need for clearer public feedback, teams need more time to review proposal
    • Other discussions:
      • ModExp gas cost increase breaking a contract from AlignedLayer (discussion ongoing in Telegram)
      • Mario highlighted teams should check Hive test results
      • Reminder: Glamsterdam EIP discussions deferred until Fusaka mainnet release

Fusaka upgrade

  • Syncing issues in devnet-3 documented across multiple clients:
    • Prysm: Issues when starting a node from a checkpoint with a pre-existing DB
    • Teku: OOM bug and syncing bug identified, with fixes in progress
    • Lighthouse: Issues maintaining peers across custody subnets and syncing on "forky" chains, with fixes in development
    • Lodestar: Merged several improvements for better peer pool management and performance
    • Grandine: Sync speed issues and data redownload loop from the last finalized slot
    • Reth: Fixed incorrect blob fee comparison
    • Erigon: Validation errors in newPayload and issues reconstructing blocks
  • Fusaka devnet-5 scheduled to launch on September 3, 2025, targeting 1500 nodes using the same spec as devnet-3/4 and trunk branches of all clients

Glamsterdam upgrade

Layer 1

Research

Layer 2

  • Optimism partnered with Flashbots to bring fast, configurable, verifiable sequencing to the Superchain, powered by the team that built Ethereum's sequencing pipeline.

  • Arbitrum introduced DRIP: The DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program on September 3rd, aimed at boosting DeFi activity and innovation on the Arbitrum ecosystem.

  • Arbitrum's dynamic pricing for gas fees was launched on August 21st, making transaction costs more predictable and efficient for users.

  • Optimism announced the Kona-Node, a Rust-powered implementation for the OP Stack that promises improved performance and reliability.

Stuff for Developers

  • Foundry:

  • The Ethereum Foundation published Protocol Update 003 — Improve UX on August 29th, focusing on interoperability improvements through intent-based architecture and general message-passing to reduce latency and costs.

Security

  • Venus Protocol recovered $13 million on September 4th after a founder of Eureka Crypto fell for a malicious Zoom link, leading to a flash loan exploit. Venus froze the protocol, rushed a governance vote, and force-liquidated the attacker's collateral.

  • BetterBank lost $5 million on August 28th due to a reward logic flaw in their protocol, just three weeks after launch. The exploit exposed how quickly DeFi math can turn against users.

  • Coinbase lost $550K on August 20th after granting ERC-20 approvals to 0xProject's permissionless Settler contract, which was exploited by an MEV bot to drain hundreds of tokens.

Ecosystem

  • The Ethereum Foundation announced on September 1st the Holešky Testnet Shutdown, with the network to be sunset two weeks after the Fusaka upgrade finalizes. Users are encouraged to migrate to the Hoodi testnet launched in March 2025.

  • The Ecosystem Support Program shared its next chapter on August 29th, revealing it awarded close to $3M in funding to 105 projects in 2024 alone, supporting developer tooling, data analytics, education, research, and community events.

  • The Ethereum Foundation announced Phase 2 of the Trillion Dollar Security project on August 20th, focusing primarily on UX security issues identified as the highest priority for both individual and institutional users.

Notable at app layer

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

  • 🚨 Lido at 24.06%, still too close to the 33.3% threshold.
  • Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):
    • Execution layer: Geth ~41% & Nethermind ~38%
    • Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~42.71% & Prysm ~30.91%
    • Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality.
  • Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe.

Client Releases

  • Consensus layer:

    • Lighthouse v7.1.0: Low-priority maintenance release with hierarchical state diffs for hot state (4x less disk I/O), optimized processing of Electra SingleAttestation messages, default gas limit of 45M, and light client updates broadcasting improvements.
    • Prysm v6.0.4: More work on PeerDAS, light client support, and bug fixes including blob cache size correction, slashing protection history exports fix, and API call corrections.

  • Execution layer:

    • Nethermind v1.33.1: Hotfix release addressing issues with eth_config and receipts handling, correcting an issue where receipts were being removed for blocks beyond TxLookupLimit even when History pruning was disabled.

EIPs/Standards

Onchain Stats

  • Fees (via ultrasound.money):
    • Gas: 0.1 to 16.3 gwei, 1.3 gwei average; zero net issuance at 28.27 gwei
    • 17.17 ETH net issuance this week
  • ETHUSD: $4,241 – $4,487, currently $4,349, all time high $4,946
  • ETHBTC: currently 0.038 (Flippening at ~0.165)

Upcoming Dates of Note