OpenZK

OpenZK is the first Layer 2 solution on ZK rollup technology to unite ETH staking, liquid restaking, and stablecoin staking in one seamless platform.

[Cointelegraph @Cointelegraph]

⚡ CLARITY: The CLARITY Act is expected to be passed by July 4th, per Patrick Witt.

[CoinDesk @CoinDesk]

DATA: Ethereum's staking ratio hits an all-time high of 32.4%, with 39M $ETH worth $80B now locked in validators.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

Short-term things being done to shift Ethereum toward native privacy:

* AA + FOCIL (makes privacy protocol txs, among many other things, first-class with strong inclusion guarantees)
* Keyed nonces: https://t.co/BeTJvFhxiV
* Access-layer work (Kohaku, private reads...)

[Ethereum @ethereum]

From privacy breakthroughs to AI agents and institutional rails, the Ethereum ecosystem keeps shipping.

Here are 22 things the ecosystem delivered over the past few weeks.

0/ @gnosis_ and partners introduced The Ethereum Economic Zone (@etheconomiczone), a framework to unify the L1 and L2s into a more composable system with better interoperability.

1/ @aztecnetwork Alpha went live, a feature-complete privacy stack built natively on Ethereum.

2/ @aave V4 was released with a new hub-and-spoke architecture with support for over 20 assets across three initial liquidity hubs.

3/ @PrivacyEthereum released Social Recovery SDK, a wallet recovery model where trusted guardians can help restore access if the owner loses their private key, replacing seed-phrase backups with programmable onchain policy.

4/ Post-quantum wallets launched on @Starknet. A path to quantum resistance without address changes or hard forks.

5/ The @ethereumfndn's Board released the EF Mandate. This document, which was first intended for EF members, reaffirms the promise of Ethereum, and the role of EF within this ecosystem.

6/ Private transfers are live on @Scroll_ZKP. You can now send funds privately onchain, advancing default user protections and confidentiality.

7/ @base introduced Batches Cohort 003. 12 teams were selected from 1,100+ building across AI, DeFi, payments, and prediction markets, pushing forward OnchainApps.

8/ @ethereumfndn launched pq.ethereum (dot) org. Supporting coordination and research in post-quantum cryptography. Two breakthrough papers progressing research on PQ, with input from Ethereum researchers, were also released.

9/ Stablecoins on Ethereum hit a new ATH. Supply surpasses $180B, up 150% in 3 years, with ~60% market share globally, reinforcing Ethereum’s role in stablecoins and DeFi.

10/ @Morpho launched Morpho Agents (beta), allowing users to integrate lending into apps via natural language using AI agents and accelerating the convergence of DeFi and AI.

11/ @thedaofund deployed $1M+ via an Ethereum Security quadratic funding round hosted by @Giveth, funding work to strengthen security across the ecosystem.

12/ Deposit time from L1 to L2s and exchanges can now be as low as 13 seconds due to the new Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR). This new industry standard can be adopted by the ecosystem over the next few months.

13/ @hinkal_protocol launched Hinkal Pay, end-to-end confidential payments where sender, receiver, and amounts remain private.

14/ @peerxyz launched Peer Verify, allowing users to prove their identity, in a privacy-preserving way via ZK proofs.

15/ @ensdomains integrated with PayPal, allowing users to send funds cross-border using ENS names instead of addresses.

16/ @AskVenice shipped verifiable end-to-end encrypted AI, introducing privacy systems that can be externally audited and proven.

17/ @safe released Safenet (beta), a pre-execution security layer for Safe wallets that runs before transactions execute onchain.

18/ @SiloFinance launched Silo V3 for safer lending markets in DeFi. The team rebuilt core assumption behind lending so collateral does not need to be sold to keep markets solvent.

19/ @coinbase announced x402, an initiative to establish the x402 protocol as a universal standard for AI-driven payments, is moving under the Linux Foundation to ensure vendor-neutral, community-governed oversight of the protocol.

20/ @zksync introduced The Cari Network, a new platform to bring tokenized deposits onchain, developed alongside five regional banks and powered by ZKsync’s Prividium.

21/ @EthCC completed their 9th annual event in Cannes with attendees from across the industry. @ETHGlobal hit a milestone with their 300th event following ETHCC, continuing to support builders across the global ecosystem.

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

🚀Something big is coming in late April!

Yeah, the market’s been bleeding. Bear sentiment everywhere. But while others slow down, we keep building!

Over the past year, we shipped:
– ETH & stablecoin staking
– ETH & stablecoin restaking
– OZK staking
– Exploring OZK as an alternative gas fee beyond Ether
– Cross-chain support for major assets into the OpenZK network.

More features. More expansion. More coming this year.

[Ethereum Foundation @ethereumfndn]

Today, the Foundation’s Board released the EF Mandate.

This document, which was first intended for EF members, reaffirms the promise of Ethereum, and the role of EF within this ecosystem.

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

@DegenShoots Yeah, sure.

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

快乐中國过年!xīn nián kuài lè🎇🎇

[Cointelegraph @Cointelegraph]

⚡️ NEW: Ethereum Foundation is doubling down on DeFi as it forms a dedicated team to focus on builder support, security, and privacy-first finance across the Ethereum ecosystem.

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

I actually don't think it's complicated.

IMO the future of onchain mechanism design is mostly going to fit into one pattern:

[something that looks like a prediction market] -> [something that looks like a capture-resistant, non-financialized preference-setting gadget]

In other words:

* One layer that is maximally open and maximizes accountability (it's a market, anyone can buy and sell, if you make good decisions you win money if you make bad decisions you lose money)
* One layer that is decentralized and pluralistic, and that maximizes space for intrinsic motivation. This cannot be token-based, because token owners are not pluralistic, and anyone can buy in and get 51% of them. Votes here should be anonymous, ideally MACI'd to reduce risk of collusion.

The prediction market is the correct way to do a "decentralized executive", because the most logical primitive for "accountability" in a permissionless concept is exactly that.

Though sometimes you will want to keep it simple, and do a centralized executive at that layer instead:

[replaceable centralized executive] -> [something that looks like a capture-resistant, non-financialized preference-setting gadget]

Thinking in these two layers explicitly: (i) what is doing your execution, (ii) what is doing your preference-setting and is judging the executor(s), is best.

[Sharplink @Sharplink]

Over 11,000 ETH. All from staking rewards.

[Federal Reserve @federalreserve]

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: https://t.co/5dfrkByGyX

[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.

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

📣 Big News, OpenZK Community!

OpenZK has just rolled out a major upgrade.

Many of you may have already noticed that our cross-chain bridge now comes with new features.
It is no longer limited to bridging ETH and stablecoins. Mainstream crypto assets are now supported and can be bridged directly to the OpenZK network via our portal.

👉This upgrade brings better application scenarios and more possibilities to the OpenZK ecosystem. Everyone is welcome to try it out.

We have been continuously developing new features, and in 2026, multiple important updates will be launched. Please stay tuned! 🔥

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

Congratulations to Fusaka on the successful upgrade and launch. OpenZK is ready for the new features!

[timbeiko.eth @TimBeiko]

fusaka has finalized 🦓!

huge congrats to everyone who worked on the upgrade, massively expanding Ethereum's capacity and feature set, without compromising on security ❤️‍🔥

[Merlijn The Trader @MerlijnTrader]

BREAKING:

The U.S. Treasury and IRS have officially cleared staking for crypto ETPs.

Staking rewards can now flow directly to retail holders.

This flips Ethereum from a speculative asset
into a regulated, yield-bearing product.

A new demand engine for $ETH just came online.

[Ethereum @ethereum]

December’s Fusaka upgrade is a major step in Ethereum's roadmap.

It's proof that Ethereum can evolve responsibly, scaling to meet global demand without compromising decentralization.

Learn how Fusaka will unlock the next wave of growth: https://t.co/3TOda5KjY2

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

@0x_Top1 Thanks for your concern. We are still building, and our new feature will launch by the end of this year. More features are in the works for next year as well.

[OpenZK @OpenZkNetwork]

Hey frens, big news from OpenZK Network! 🚀

We’ve been building non-stop these past weeks, and our next major feature is almost ready, scheduled to go live by the end of the year! This upgrade will inject fresh energy into the entire network. ⚡️
It’s been almost a full year since OpenZK went fully operational, zero downtime, thousands of users onboard, and growing stronger every day. 💪

We’re not just another Ethereum scaling solution. OpenZK supports native ETH staking, stablecoin re-staking, and a range of upcoming innovative features that will reshape what L2s can do. 👀

Stay tuned, the next chapter of OpenZK is coming soon. 🌐🔥

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

ZKsync has been doing a lot of underrated and valuable work in the ethereum ecosystem. Excited to see this come from them!