New Week in Ethereum 2025-09-26

Week in Ethereum News

Fusaka upgrade testnet schedule announced: The Ethereum core developers have finalized the testnet schedule for the upcoming Fusaka upgrade, with Holesky forking on October 1, followed by Sepolia on October 16, and Hoodi on October 30. Mainnet deployment is expected in December at the earliest, bringing significant improvements including PeerDAS for enhanced data availability.

EIP Champion role formalization proposed to improve coordination and communication for EIPs included in network upgrades, with the Protocol Support team offering to identify champions for existing EIPs.
BAL devnet-0 expected in October, with client teams including Besu, Geth, and Nethermind already working on Block-level Access Lists (BAL) implementations.
EPBS breakout continuing with development progressing on the Proposer-Builder Separation protocol, a key component of the Glamsterdam upgrade.

Mainnet gas limit increase to 60M confirmed to be included in Fusaka mainnet client releases, significantly increasing Ethereum's transaction throughput capacity.

BALs for Proposer Commitments explores using Block-level Access Lists to optimize proposer commitments, potentially improving the efficiency of preconfirmation protocols.
The Difficulty of Delayed Encryption Anti-MEV analyzes challenges in implementing delayed encryption as an MEV mitigation strategy, highlighting potential vulnerabilities and implementation complexities.

UXLink exploit led to an estimated $41 million loss after admin privileges were compromised, followed by cross-chain laundering and billions of UXLINK tokens being minted. The team has proposed a new contract with a 1:1 swap and plans to freeze hacker funds.

Foundry released several updates this week including:
- Added a new cast command b2e-payload to convert beacon payload to execution payload
- Fixed formatter for hex literals with underscores
- Added documentation for cast rpc --decode-internal
- Updated to soldeer 0.7.1
OpenZeppelin Contracts v5.5.0-rc.0 was released with several new features:
- ERC6909 and its extensions are no longer marked as draft since EIP-6909 is now final
- Added SignerWebAuthn for verifying WebAuthn signatures
- Added ERC7786Recipient for cross-chain message handling
- Added InteroperableAddress library for ERC-7930 interoperable addresses
- Added several utility libraries including Base58, Accumulators, and WebAuthn

New Gold Protocol lost $2 million shortly after launch due to price oracle vulnerabilities and broken transfer logic. The team went silent while security firms analyzed the exploit.
MYX Finance was found to be engaging in one of the largest airdrop Sybil attacks ever, with sophisticated market manipulation including wash trading with billions in fake volume and coordinated short squeezes.

Ethereum World's Fair districts announced for the upcoming event in Buenos Aires this November, designed to showcase current innovations and future developments in the Ethereum ecosystem.
$1.9B inflows into Ethereum & Bitcoin ETFs: Institutional capital pours into ETH/ BTC as rate cut optimism fuels demand.

🚨 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.

Execution layer:
- Geth v1.16.4: enables the Osaka (Fusaka) fork on testnets, introduces two blob-parameter only (BPO) forks, and sets the default block gas limit to 60M gas.
- Nethermind v1.34.0: implements Osaka testnet forks, fixes snap sync edge cases, and improves stability with better cancellation handling.

EIPs (Core, Networking, Interface):
- EIP-7935: Default gas limit to 60M, Moved to Review
- EIP-7892: Blob Parameter Only Hardforks, Moved to Review
- EIP-7910: eth_config JSON-RPC Method, Moved to Review
ERCs (Application Layer)
- ERC-7634: Limited Transfer Count NFT, Move to Last Call
- ERC-7893: DeFi Protocol Solvency Proof Mechanism, Move to Review

Onchain Stats

Fees (via ultrasound.money):
- Gas: 0.1 to 16.3 gwei, 0.5 gwei average; zero net issuance at 28.27 gwei
- 18.08k ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $3,846.41 – $4,502.68, currently $4,018.56, all time high $4,946.05
ETHBTC: currently 0.037 (Flippening at ~0.165)

Ethereum ETF inflows hit record high as investors bet on the upcoming Pectra upgrade, with over $500 million in new investments this week.
Coinbase announces expanded validator services for institutional clients ahead of the Pectra upgrade, focusing on consolidation support.

Miscellaneous

Ethereum Technical Analysis Report: a chart-based breakdown of support/resistance zones and bearish pressure in ETH-USDT trading.
Daily Ethereum Discussion Highlights: community forum roundup covering staking, treasury firms’ role, and sentiment shifts in the ecosystem.

Sep 26-28: ETHGlobal New Delhi in New Delhi, India - Bringing developers onchain to build the future of the internet.
Oct 1: ETHVenice in Venice, Italy - Join the third edition in the beautiful San Servolo Island to learn more about blockchain, technology and with an eye towards art.
Oct 1-2: TOKEN2049 Singapore in Singapore - TOKEN2049 is the world's largest crypto event, joining the crypto ecosystem's decision-makers to connect, exchange ideas, network, and shape the industry.
Oct 28–29: Blockchain Life in Dubai, UAE: one of the world’s largest blockchain and crypto forums, uniting global leaders, investors, and innovators in Dubai to explore Web3, DeFi, and the future of digital assets.