Week in Ethereum News

October 31, 2025

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Highlight of the Week

Eth R&D Protocol Call(s)

  • All Core Devs

    • Consensus (ACDC) #168, October 30, 2025

    :

  • Fusaka upgrade:

    • Confirmed mainnet dates: Fusaka on December 3, BPO1 on December 9, BPO2 on January 7, 2026

    • Mainnet client releases scheduled for November 3 (Prysm will be delayed due to a bug)

    • Discussed a bug in the Prism client causing non-prism peers to be kicked out after a few hours

    • Reviewed Sepolia BPO2 and Hoodi testnet progress, with a small participation drop in Hoodi due to operator issues and a Reth bug (now patched)

  • Glamsterdam upgrade:

    • Discussed non-headliner EIP scoping for the consensus layer, with client team writeups due by November 13

    • Reviewed EIP-7688 (stable containers) and EIP-8045 (excluding slashed validators from proposing)

    • Discussed EIP-8061 (increasing churn limits) and its implications for weak subjectivity

    • Presented EIP-8062 (adding fees to SWAP withdrawals) and EIP-8068 (adjusting effective balance calculation)

    • Raúl presented PeerDAS cell-level deltas, which would allow increasing max blobs from 21 to 72

    • Discussed the inclusion of FOCIL (EIP-7805) and its impact on the timeline

  • Heka was chosen as the H-star name for the upgrade after Glamsterdam

Glamsterdam (Amsterdam–G-Star) Upgrade

  • EIP-8066: Upgrade Mascots proposed: Andrew B Coathup proposed a new EIP to standardize the process for selecting mascots for Ethereum upgrades. A mascot is currently needed for the Glamsterdam upgrade.

Research

  • Hybrid Encrypted Mempools: Proposed a new approach to encrypted mempools that combines the benefits of different encryption schemes to improve privacy and efficiency.

  • Optimal Outbound Neighbors for P2P networks: Published research on selecting optimal outbound neighbors (SOON) for fast, bandwidth-efficient propagation in P2P networks, which could improve Ethereum's networking layer.

Layer 2

  • Linea shipped a multi-fork compatibility release (Beta v4.0) — Mainnet activated Paris, Shanghai & Cancun/Prague milestones on Oct 22–28, tightening EVM alignment (e.g., PUSH0, MCOPY) and shrinking the delta with Ethereum for devs and tooling.

  • Base doubled throughput parameters — Base raised mainnet capacity from 75 → 100 Mgas/s and upped the 1559 elasticity multiplier to 4, a direct scaling change that lowers congestion risk.

Stuff for Developers

  • Foundry v1.4.4 released with numerous formatter improvements, including a new single_line_imports option to keep single imports on one line and fixes for function header size calculations.

  • Foundry's cast tool added more ERC20 methods, allowing developers to interact with token contracts more easily through the command line.

  • Foundry npm packages for anvil, cast, and chisel are now available, making it easier to integrate these tools into JavaScript/TypeScript projects.

Security

  • House of Cards incident revealed Stream Finance and Elixir were caught in a recursive stablecoin minting scheme, where Stream turned $1.9 million into $14.5 million xUSD through circular backing.

  • Vibe coding risks highlighted how AI-generated code that "feels right" without proper understanding creates security vulnerabilities in crypto and DeFi applications.

Ecosystem

  • The Gitcoin Grants programme (Round 24) officially opened its “Builder Support” phase — applications and donations are now live under the new “Gitcoin 3.0” framework.

  • In gaming-NFT commentary, an updated survey of October 2025 trends shows gaming/metaverse NFT activity across multiple chains (including Ethereum) remains vibrant, pointing to themed collections, in-game assets and hybrid models.

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

  • 🚨 Lido at 23.48%, 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 v8.0.0-rc.2: Release candidate for the upcoming Fulu-Osaka (Fusaka) hard fork, targeting Holesky, Hoodi, and Sepolia testnets. Includes full PeerDAS support, enhanced networking capabilities, and memory optimizations.

    • Teku 25.10.0: Fusaka-compatible release for testnets.

Onchain Stats

  • Fees (via ultrasound.money):

    • Gas: 0.1 to 10.8 gwei, 0.3 gwei average; zero net issuance at 16.2 gwei

    • 18.26 ETH net issuance this week

  • ETHUSD: $3,708 – $4,232, currently $3,900, all time high $4,946

  • ETHBTC: currently 0.035 (Flippening at ~0.165)

Job Postings

Upcoming Dates of Note