Unbeknown

decorative technique (support) where gold (value) is inlaid into steel

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

One positive consequence of all the recent detailed thinking about transaction formats - not just 8141, also "future of state" discussions eg. UTXOs, PBT, keyed nonces, and also recursive STARK mempool - is that we have a much more explicit understanding of how transactions have "actions" and "dependencies", and we can engineer around optimizing the two separately.

An action is an effect that a transaction has.

A dependency is a fact about the transaction and/or the state that must be true for the transaction to be valid.

eg. a signature is a dependency, a Merkle proof of a UTXO is a dependency, a ZK-SNARK (or STARK) is a dependency, a call that sends ETH is an action

Dependencies can be processed in parallel. Dependencies that involve state can be reasoned about by a mempool, especially if the specific state accessed is statically declared. Dependencies that are pure (no state calling allowed) can be processed once at the mempool layer and never need to be processed again - and potentially even replaced with a STARK verifying them, allowing not just execution but also data to be elided.

In principle, dependencies and actions can all be expressed as calls (if needed, calls to precompiles). This would make the transaction format itself very bare-bones and minimalist (a list of calls, flags for the type of each call eg. dependencies would be static or pure calls, and origin, nonce, etc) and allows maximum cross-compatibility even if different EVM chains have different features.

In 2015-era Ethereum, thinking explicitly about these differences was not very important: execution was execution, there were few enough transactions that we could process them all serially, and single-key ECDSA accounts were good enough for everyone.

Ethereum's current scaling strategy, however, requires moving beyond that paradigm. Ethereum is beloved by many developers because the execution and state model is so dynamic and flexible. But dynamic and flexible is not friendly to scaling. Fortunately, >90% of Ethereum's activity by volume does not require anything dynamic and flexible. So, we require contracts, accounts and transactions to more explicitly specify what is dynamic and flexible and what is more statically-analyzable but more restrictive, and more statically-analyzable things get the lowest gas cost and thus scale the most. Effectively, learning from the best of both the 2015-era Ethereum model and a more Bitcoin-like model (reminder: Bitcoin has had what I call account abstraction since the beginning), and making a mixture of both (really, the full spectrum between both) available, with gas costs appropriate for the level of scale involved.

New state types, the recursive STARK mempool, keyed nonces, etc all go in this direction.

This all relates to transaction types, because a general-purpose transaction type is a very natural interface layer on top of which all of this can be implemented, and the current thinking around the EIP-8141 transaction type is going in this exact direction that is friendly to these kinds of future generalizations.

So in that sense, 8141 done well is not just a culmination of 10 years of account abstraction work, it's also preparation for the next few years of responsible decentralization-friendly hyper-scaling.

[Tomi @tomiwebstr]

I never understood the NFT era, was everyone just under mass psychosis or what?

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

Defi is a central part of the value that Ethereum provides. Financial empowerment is a central part of what it means to have agency and freedom in our current world. Finance is far from the only thing that Ethereum is good for, but it is an important thing. This post discusses how the Ethereum Foundation is approaching defi.

Defi today makes the world's best savings, risk management and wealth-building opportunities permissionlessly available worldwide. We need to build on that.

Ethereum's early defi era was great because it dared to dream and innovate and come up with totally new paradigms (eg. AMMs). Defi tomorrow will bring back that spirit. Don't just "make a better stablecoin", dig a layer deeper, and think about the underlying problem (risk management, hedging one's future expenses), and come up with an even better solution.

But also, as the EF, we are not interested in supporting "onchain finance" or even "defi" indiscriminately. We have a specific vision of what we want to see out of defi: permissionless, open-source, private, security-first global finance that maximizes people's control over their own assets, minimizes centralized chokepoints and trusted third parties, and democratizes risk management and wealth building (the two key goals of finance according to modern portfolio theory) as well as payments. We want protocols that pass the walkaway test: that keep working even if the original team suddenly disappears without warning (or even: becomes hostile / compromised without warning).

Bringing this vision to reality will inevitably take a lot of work. Defi is a complex toolchain, including various onchain components, user-side offchain components (ie. wallet, local agent...), other offchain components, etc.

The things that we care about include areas like:

* Improving security of defi through "traditional" means, eg. audits, standards, wallet-side safeguards
* Improving security of defi through "new" means, eg. AI-assisted formal verification, user-side agents as safeguards
* Oracle security and decentralization (there's A LOT of skeletons in the closet here, we as an ecosystem really need to point a big eye of sauron at it for a while)
* Privacy. Both privacy-preserving payments, and privacy of more complex use cases (eg. what does it mean to have a maximally privacy-preserving CDP? there are clearly benefits in reducing liquidation-sniping risk, but it requires hard tech to get there)
* Open source, and improving the licensing / forkability situation in defi

Ethereum is a permissionless protocol, and nothing stops people from deploying insecure protocols, protocols that enshrine ultimately unneeded centralized trust in the name of convenience, or dopamine-maximizing gambleslop. However, we *are* interested in working with anyone aligned to make permissionless, open-source, intermediary-minimizing and security and user-agency-maximizing defi ecosystem as strong as possible, so that it can be not just individuals and institutions' first choice in Ethereum, but also a globally compelling way to manage funds for anyone who needs its properties.

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

spent 3 hours making homemade ramen from scratch. broth was mid ngl, noodles slightly overcooked, my kitchen looks like a warzone…

but that first bite? worth every second. gonna do it again next weekend. life's good when you slow down a little

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

Core CPI hotter than expected at 0.3% MoM, but the 2.4% YoY print is the coolest since 2021. Mixed signal for the Fed, and BTC clearly can't decide either. Feels like a coin flip on next week's decision. #Bitcoin

Rate hike or pause?

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

Metaplanet just torched $220M off their exec reward pool and slashed the Series 10 share stash by 41%. Feels like a rare "shareholders first" move in a market obsessed with insider payouts. Bullish signal or damage control? #Bitcoin

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

Welcome to 2026! Milady is back.

Ethereum did a lot in 2025: gas limits increased, blob count increased, node software quality improved, zkEVMs blasted through their performance milestones, and with zkEVMs and PeerDAS ethereum made its largest step toward being a fundamentally new and more powerful kind of blockchain (more on this later)

But we have a challenge: Ethereum needs to do more to meet its own stated goals. Not the quest of "winning the next meta" regardless of whether it's tokenized dollars or political memecoins, not arbitrarily convincing people to help us fill up blockspace to make ETH ultrasound again, but the mission:

To build the world computer that serves as a central infrastructure piece of a more free and open internet.

We're building decentralized applications. Applications that run without fraud, censorship or third-party interference. Applications that pass the walkaway test: they keep running even if the original developers disappear. Applications where if you're a user, you don't even notice if Cloudflare goes down - or even if all of Cloudflare gets hacked by North Korea. Applications whose stability transcends the rise and fall of companies, ideologies and political parties. And applications that protect your privacy. All this - for finance, and also for identity, governance and whatever other civilizational infrastructure people want to build.

These properties sound radical, but we must remember that a generation ago any wallet, kitchen appliance, book or car would fulfill every single one of them. Today, all of the above are by default becoming subscription services, consigning you to permanent dependence on some centralized overlord.

Ethereum is the rebellion against this.

To achieve this, it needs to be (i) usable, and usable at scale, and (ii) actually decentralized. This needs to happen at both (a) the blockchain layer, including the software we use to run and talk to the blockchain, and (b) the application layer. All of these pieces must be improved - they are already being improved, but they must be improved more.

Fortunately, we have powerful tools on our side - but we need to apply them, and we will.

Wishing everyone an exciting 2026.

Milady.

[Monad @monad]

ONE BILLION DOLLARS OF TOTAL VALUE LOCKED IN DEFI ON THE MONAD LAYER 1 BLOCKCHAIN

[DonAlt @DonAlt]

It's so wild how ETH goes up a bunch which leads to altcoins going up a lot which leads to ETH pulling back a tiny bit which leads to altcoins going back to zero

Pretty clear that there is a sticky bid for ETH, probably wisest to stick to that if you're not an excellent trader

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

Massive shift. Hargreaves Lansdown going from "stay away from crypto" to actually offering crypto ETNs is exactly the kind of institutional flip that signals we're entering a new era. UK retail is finally getting a seat at the table.

Who else sees this as bullish? #Crypto

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

Another wild day in crypto and half my timeline is either euphoric or doom-posting. At what point do we stop calling this volatility and just admit it's the vibe? 😅 Who else is just watching the charts with popcorn? #Crypto

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

Wait, hackers claiming to be "good guys" after draining $320M from Liquid Network?? 😳 The whole "ethical exploit" narrative is getting wild in crypto. Curious to see if they actually return the funds or if this is just PR spin. Buying it? #Bitcoin

[panda @pandaa]

Drop your solana address

Check the wallet later.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

In these five years, the Ethereum Foundation is entering a period of mild austerity, in order to be able to simultaneously meet two goals:

1. Deliver on an aggressive roadmap that ensures Ethereum's status as a performant and scalable world computer that does not compromise on robustness, sustainability and decentralization.
2. Ensures the Ethereum Foundation's own ability to sustain into the long term, and protect Ethereum's core mission and goals, including both the core blockchain layer as well as users' ability to access and use the chain with self-sovereignty, security and privacy.

To this end, my own share of the austerity is that I am personally taking on responsibilities that might in another time have been "special projects" of the EF. Specifically, we are seeking the existence of an open-source, secure and verifiable full stack of software and hardware that can protect both our personal lives and our public environments ( see https://t.co/GzgBS9sh87 ). This includes applications such as finance, communication and governance, blockchains, operating systems, secure hardware, biotech (including both personal and public health), and more. If you have seen the Vensa announcement (seeking to make open silicon a commercially viable reality at least for security-critical applications), the https://t.co/cuyU9Chs1y including recent versions with built in ZK + FHE + differential-privacy features, the air quality work, my donations to encrypted messaging apps, my own enthusiasm and use for privacy-preserving, walkaway-test-friendly and local-first software (including operating systems), then you know the general spirit of what I am planning to support.

For this reason I have just withdrawn 16,384 ETH, which will be deployed toward these goals over the next few years. I am also exploring secure decentralized staking options that will allow even more capital from staking rewards to be put toward these goals in the long term.

Ethereum itself is an indispensable part of the "full-stack openness and verifiability" vision. The Ethereum Foundation will continue with a steadfast focus on developing Ethereum, with that goal in mind. "Ethereum everywhere" is nice, but the primary priority is "Ethereum for people who need it". Not corposlop, but self-sovereignty, and the baseline infrastructure that enables cooperation without domination.

In a world where many people's default mindset is that we need to race to become a big strong bully, because otherwise the existing big strong bullies will eat you first, this is the needed alternative. It will involve much more than technology to succeed, but the technical layer is something which is in our control to make happen. The tools to ensure your, and your community's, autonomy and safety, as a basic right that belongs to everyone. Open not in a bullshit "open means everyone has the right to buy it from us and use our API for $200/month" way, but actually open, and secure and verifiable so that you know that your technology is working for you.

[Lucky @LLuciano_BTC]

I need your honest reply.

If I send you $100K right now, what are you buying?

$ETH at $2,487

$XRP at $1.41

$SOL at $103

$ADA at $0.22

$SUI at $0.81

$TAO at $260

$LINK at $11.82

$LTC at $54

You can only pick ONE.

What are you buying?

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

3 monitors, 2 phones, 1 coffee. the usual setup.

sometimes i wonder if i'm watching the markets or if they're watching me. either way, the ritual stays the same.

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

what's everyone else running? genuinely curious if i'm overdoing it or if there's someone out there with 6 monitors

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

3 monitors, 2 phones, 1 coffee. the usual setup

honestly i think anyone who trades on a single screen is either a genius or completely unbothered. i am neither lol

[Unbeknown @damascene_gold]

yo did you see Ukrainian cops just busted a crypto scam ring pulling in a MILLION a month?? 46 people involved, 62 victims deep 😳 wild how these operations keep getting bigger before they get caught. when will people learn to DYOR? #CryptoScam