Andrew Ashikhmin

[Protocol Guild @ProtocolGuild]

1/ Announcing Protocol Guild's partnership with @megapot to drive recurring funding to Ethereum core development via lottery contests

A portion of new and future ticket purchases (+ contest winnings) made via PG’s Megapot page go toward supporting the stewards of L1 Ethereum

[Protocol Guild @ProtocolGuild]

1/ We're thrilled to welcome @AztecFND as the latest project to take the 1% Pledge 🎉

1% of the AZTEC token supply has been deposited into Protocol Guild's 4-year vesting contract to support 187 Ethereum core contributors across client teams, research, and coordination

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

Keyed nonces are not just a way to add stronger in-protocol support for privacy solutions. They are also a potential first foray into a new state scaling strategy for Ethereum: create new types of storage that are more optimized for handling categories of use cases that we care about, with restrictions on their use that make them usable at extreme scale while preserving the protocol's decentralization.

Let's zoom in on this case (in-protocol nullifiers). Let's say we get to 2000 TPS of privacy-preserving transactions onchain, for eight years. Then we get 2^11 tx/sec * 2^25 sec/year * 2^3 years = 2^39 [ie. 500 billion] nullifiers stored onchain (the challenge with nullifiers is that they are fundamentally not possible to prune).

It's actually far easier to keep Ethereum decentralized if we have 500 billion nullifiers onchain in a dedicated nullifier store, than if we just let them grow in the current state. The reason is that the more restrictive structure of nullifiers (only used to check validity, and we can require the nullifier ID to be explicitly specified in the tx) enables more decentralized ways of handling them. This includes:

* Sharding: each node (incl builders) can hold a small percentage of nullifiers, and make sure to have a connection to an honest peer in each other shard
* Bloom filters: see this somewhat wacky idea here for reducing the VOPS requirement for nullifiers to ~8 bits per nullifier: https://t.co/M2HgDru1NV

Both techniques are not possible to use for dynamically accessible state. And so builders would have to download the full 16 TB to become viable (not just optimal, viable!), and privacy protocol users would not be able to use FOCIL without providing a Merkle branch proving that their nullifier is unspent, and there would be very few nodes capable of providing such a branch...

Zooming back out, the moral of the story is that fully dynamic state is much harder to handle at extreme scale (tens to hundreds of TB) than state that is more controlled and restricted in how it can be used. And so if we can move the majority of usage into these more specialized forms of state (which we can make much cheaper in terms of gas), then we can keep Ethereum decentralized, and highly scalable, and keep the fully dynamic state available for applications (eg. defi) that really need its full functionality.

[Somnath Banerjee @somnergy]

Last week we trespassed into the realm of RTP with 2 GPUs, this week we broke the 8 second barrier with zilkworm-airbender @eth_proofs
Next-stop: Avg latency less than 10 seconds

[Gnosis Chain @gnosischain]

The Fusaka hardfork has been activated on the Gnosis Chain mainnet! 🦓

A massive shout-out to our validators and node operators your quick updates and dedication are what keep the network resilient and decentralized.

Next ⏩ Glamsterdam!

[Somnath Banerjee @somnergy]

GPU prices aren't gonna like this.
Sub-12 second #etheruem #zkevm proving achieved on just 2 5090s

https://t.co/Q9qwGZga7H

As a great man once said, "basically a toaster"

[Gnosis Chain @gnosischain]

https://t.co/zqm5rqjzGE

[Somnath Banerjee @somnergy]

Zilkworm v0.1.0-alpha.1 is out 🚀

The first and only zkEVM with a full C++ stack including State Transition and EVM (EVMOne) moves one step closer to production.

https://t.co/qD0XcCOxHV

Performance and strict testing standards have been the priority from the beginning of the project. Going forward we would also focus on security, robustness and interoperability.

What's inside:

🔧 Pure C++ guest: compiled with GCC, we have removed all rust dependencies from the elf
⚡ EVMOne optimized for bare-metal RISC-V 64IM (SP1 Hypercube)
🧱 Full Osaka hardfork with native precompile implementations: BLS12-381 suite, modexp , P256verify, KZG verification
🔐 Crypto precompiles built-in (Keccak, BN254, BLS12-381, modexp, KZG, ecrecover) each accelerated by native SP1 ecalls
🌳 GridMPT: a stateless Merkle Patricia Trie built for zkVMs running on a fixed memory stack
🔩 Hand-tuned RISC-V memcpy from musl libc
🔋 Batteries included: CPU and NVIDIA GPU proving, including EthProofs integration out of the box
✅ Ethereum Execution Spec Tests across three architectures: native x86_64, rv32im, rv64im (qemu)
📦 Binaries with Docker image, ready to go

(P.S. No worms or butterflies were harmed during the making of this release 🐛🦋)

[FFmpeg @FFmpeg]

FFmpeg is moving to Rust 🦀

Our use of C and Assembly in FFmpeg has been an unacceptable violation of safety.

FFmpeg will be running 10x slower - but we're doing it for your safety.

All your videos will appear green - safety first, working software later.

[erigon.eth @ErigonEth]

🚀 Erigon v3.3.10 "Rocky Romp" is out! 🚀

🚨THIS IS A MANDATORY UPGRADE FOR ALL GNOSIS CHAIN USERS

🔹 Gnosis Fusaka Scheduled: Set for April 14, 2026, 12:06:20 UTC.
🔹 Osaka Readiness: Improved txpool handling for blob transactions and auto-conversion of legacy blob sidecars to v1 cell proofs.
🔹 RPC Enhancements: New blockRangeLimit parameter for better API range management.
🔹 CL Stability: Improved fork choice validation and better fallback for checkpoint sync failures.

All Gnosis nodes must upgrade. Recommended also for all Erigon users.

Full release notes: https://t.co/sr5m7U7ed7

#Ethereum #GnosisChain #Erigon #Blockchain #CryptoUpdate

[Andrew Ashikhmin @yperbasis]

Bring back GPT-5​.​1 thinking mode in ChatGPT - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/xiBK1Ub0Z5 via @UKChange

[Giulio Rebuffo @GiulioRebuffo]

Happy to see Vitalik backing up this idea, but also, I would like to remind people that Erigon had this for the past 2 years? 🤷‍♀️

I think this was one of my most controversial ideas at the time and even got high-ish degree of backlash at the time for even daring to try this out. I usually don't do this but I think some credit should be due here.

[Ben {chmark} Adams ⟠ @ben_a_adams]

@functi0nZer0 For EIP-7954 @GiulioRebuffo is co-author so maybe should be more like this for the +33% smart contract size landing in Ethereum's Glamsterdam fork

[Protocol Guild @ProtocolGuild]

Ethereum ETFs giving back to Ethereum devs 🫡

Grateful to @bitwise for the second consecutive year of support for Protocol Guild and the 187 core devs it funds 💙

This kind of structural commitment to the ecosystem is exactly what PG exists to channel

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

A very important document. Let's walk through this one "goal" at a time. We'll start with fast slots and fast finality.

I expect that we'll reduce slot time in an incremental fashion, eg. I like the "sqrt(2) at a time" formula (12 -> 8 -> 6 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2, though the last two steps are more speculative and depend on heavy research). It is possible to go faster or slower here; but the high level is that we'll view the slot time as a parameter that we adjust down when we're confident it's safe to, similar to the blob target.

Fast slots are off in their own lane at the top of the roadmap, and do not really seem to connect to anything. This is because the rest of the roadmap is pretty independent of the slot time: we would need to do roughly the same things whether the slot time is 2 seconds or 32 seconds

There are a few intersection areas though. One is p2p improvements. @raulvk has recently been working on an optimized p2p layer for Ethereum, which uses erasure coding to greatly improve on the bandwidth/latency tradeoff frontier. Roughly speaking: in today's design, each node receives a full block body from several peers, and is able to accept and rebroadcast it as soon as it receives the first one. If the "width" (number of peers sending you the block) is low, then one bad peer can greatly delay when you receive the block. If width is high, there is a lot of unneeded data overhead. With erasure coding, you can choose a k-of-n setup, eg: split each block into 8 pieces so that with any 4 of them you can reconstruct the full block. This gives you much of the redundancy benefits of high width, without the overhead.

We have stats that show that this architecture can greatly reduce 95th percentile block propagation time, making shorter slots viable with no security tradeoffs (except increased protocol complexity, though here the performance-gain-to-lines-of-code ratio is quite favorable)

Another intersection area is the more complex slot structure that comes with ePBS, FOCIL, and the fast confirmation rule. These have important benefits, but they decrease the safe latency maximum from slot/3 to slot/5. There's ongoing research to try to pipeline things better to minimize losses (also note: the slot time is lower-bounded not just by slot latency, but also by the fixed-cost part of ZK prover latency), but there are some tradeoffs here.

One way we are exploring to compensate for this is to change to an architecture where only ~256-1024 randomly selected attesters sign on each slot. For a fork choice (non-finalizing) function, this is totally sufficient. The smaller number of signatures lets us remove the aggregation phase, shortening the slots.

Fast finality is more complex (the ultimate protocol is IMO simpler than status quo Gasper, but the change path is complex). Today, finality takes 16 minutes (12s slots * 32 slot epochs * 2.5 epochs) on average. The goal is to decouple slots and finality, so allow us to reason about both separately, and we are aiming to use a one-round-finality BFT algorithm (a Minimmit variant) to finalize. So endgame finality time might be eg. 6-16 sec.

Because this is a very invasive set of changes, the plan is to bundle the largest step in each change with a switch of the cryptography, notably to post-quantum hash-based signatures, and to a maximally STARK-friendly hash (there are three possible responses to the recent Poseidon2 attacks: (i) increase round count or introduce other countermeasures such as a Monolith layer, (ii) go back to Poseidon1, which is even more lindy than Poseidon2 and has not seen flaws, (iii) use BLAKE3 or other maximally-cheap "conventional" hash. All are being researched).

Additionally, there is a plan to introduce many of these changes piece-by-piece, eg. "1-epoch finality" means we adjust the current consensus to change from FFG-style finalization to Minimmit-style finalization.

One possible finality time trajectory is: 16 min (today) -> 10m40s (8s slots) -> 6m24s (one-epoch finality) -> 1m12s (8-slot epochs, 6s slots) -> 48s (4s slots) -> 16s (minimmit) -> 8s (minimmit with more aggressive parameters)

One interesting consequence of the incremental approach is that there is a pathway to making the slots quantum-resistant much sooner than making the finality quantum-resistant, so we may well quite quickly get to a regime where, if quantum computers suddenly appear, we lose the finality guarantee, but the chain keeps chugging along.

Summary: expect to see progressive decreases of both slot time and finality time, and expect to see these changes to be intertwined with a "ship of Theseus" style component-by-component replacement of Ethereum's slot structure and consensus with a cleaner, simpler, quantum-resistant, prover-friendly, end-to-end formally-verified alternative.

[Justin Drake @drakefjustin]

Introducing strawmap, a strawman roadmap by EF Protocol.

Believe in something. Believe in an Ethereum strawmap.

Who is this for?

The document, available at strawmap[.]org, is intended for advanced readers. It is a dense and technical resource primarily for researchers, developers, and participants in Ethereum governance. Visit ethereum[.]org/roadmap for more introductory material. Accessible explainers unpacking the strawmap will follow soon™.

What is the strawmap?

The strawmap is an invitation to view L1 protocol upgrades through a holistic lens. By placing proposals on a single visual it provides a unified perspective on Ethereum L1 ambitions. The time horizon spans years, extending beyond the immediate focus of All Core Devs (ACD) and forkcast[.]org which typically cover only the next couple of forks.

What are some of the highlights?

The strawmap features five simple north stars, presented as black boxes on the right:

→ fast L1: fast UX, via short slots and finality in seconds
→ gigagas L1: 1 gigagas/sec (10K TPS), via zkEVMs and real-time proving
→ teragas L2: 1 gigabyte/sec (10M TPS), via data availability sampling
→ post quantum L1: durable cryptography, via hash-based schemes
→ private L1: first-class privacy, via shielded ETH transfers

What is the origin story?

The strawman roadmap originated as a discussion starter at an EF workshop in Jan 2026, partly motivated by a desire to integrate lean Ethereum with shorter-term initiatives. Upgrade dependencies and fork constraints became particularly effective at surfacing valuable discussion topics. The strawman is now shared publicly in a spirit of proactive transparency and accelerationism.

Why the "strawmap" name?

"Strawmap" is a portmanteau of "strawman" and "roadmap". The strawman qualifier is deliberate for two reasons:

1. It acknowledges the limits of drafting a roadmap in a highly decentralized ecosystem. An "official" roadmap reflecting all Ethereum stakeholders is effectively impossible. Rough consensus is fundamentally an emergent, continuous, and inherent uncertain process.
2. It underscores the document's status as a work-in-progress. Although it originated within the EF Protocol cluster, there are competing views held among its 100 members, not to mention a rich diversity of non-EFer views.

The strawmap is not a prediction. It is an accelerationist coordination tool, sketching one reasonably coherent path among millions of possible outcomes.

What is the strawmap time frame?

The strawmap focuses on forks extending through the end of the decade. It outlines seven forks by 2029 based on a rough cadence of one fork every six months. While grounded in current expectations, these timelines should be treated with healthy skepticism. The current draft assumes human-first development. AI-driven development and formal verification could significantly compress schedules.

What do the letters on top represent?

The strawmap is organized as a timeline, with forks progressing from left to right. Consensus layer forks follow a star-based naming scheme with incrementing first letters: Altair, Bellatrix, Capella, Deneb, Electra, Fulu, etc. Upcoming forks such as Glamsterdam and Hegotá have finalized names. Other forks, like I* and J*, have placeholder names (with I* pronounced "I star").

What do the colors and arrows represent?

Upgrades are grouped into three color-coded horizontal layers: consensus (CL), data (DL), execution (EL). Dark boxes denote headliners (see below), grey boxes indicate offchain upgrades, and black boxes represent north stars. An explanatory legend appears at the bottom.

Within each layer, upgrades are further organized by theme and sub-theme. Arrows signal hard technical dependencies or natural upgrade progressions. Underlined text in boxes links to relevant EIPs and write-ups.

What are headliners?

Headliners are particularly prominent and ambitious upgrades. To maintain a fast fork cadence, the modern ACD process limits itself to one consensus and one execution headliner per fork. For example, in Glamsterdam, these headliners are ePBS and BALs, respectively.

(L* is an exceptional fork, displaying two headliners tied to the bigger lean consensus fork. Lean consensus landing in L* would be a fateful coincidence.)

Will the strawmap evolve?

Yes, the strawmap is a living and malleable document. It will evolve alongside community feedback, R&D advancements, and governance. Expect at least quarterly updates, with the latest revision date noted on the document.

Can I share feedback?

Yes, feedback is actively encouraged. The EF Protocol strawmap is maintained by the EF Architecture team: @adietrichs, @barnabemonnot, @fradamt, @drakefjustin. Each has open DMs and can be reached at first.name@ethereum[.]org. General inquiries can be sent to strawmap@ethereum[.]org.

[Giulio Rebuffo @GiulioRebuffo]

This is from 2 weeks ago with Opus-4.5 when I first began experimenting with agents. Pretty insane how far these models has come.

[erigon.eth @ErigonEth]

📣Erigon v3.3.8 (Rocky Romp) is live!

Updates you’ll actually notice:
• Improved Chiado peer discovery (new boot nodes)
• More accurate eth_getLogs on pruned nodes (better receipts awareness)
• Shutter txn decryption more reliable when keys arrive out of order
• Fix for Chiado re-exec from genesis

Stability and performance fixes:
• Less chain-tip slowdown from background DB merge/compress
• Safer receipts caching + better “latest executed block” checks in RPC
• More correct reorg/unwind handling
• Fixed crash with --nodiscover
• Prevented History event duplication

@ethereum @gnosischain @ShutterNetwork

Release: https://t.co/hVNJ7sGArp

[erigon.eth @ErigonEth]

🚀 Erigon v3.3.7 - "Rocky Romp" is here!

This release focuses on improving P2P stability and pruning performance, and it is recommended that all users upgrade.

Here's a quick overview of what's new:
- Pruning logic improved for efficiency.
- Fixed edge cases in execution commitment state.
- Resolved P2P deadlock issues for smoother networking.
- Forward compatibility: v0 snapshot index building supported.
- Backward compatibility: Added --v5disc alias.
- Helpful defaults: --help now shows default P2P discovery values.

🌐 Full changelog: https://t.co/nJAkS3M4DS

[erigon.eth @ErigonEth]

The greatest upgrade needs the fastest engine.

Zilkworm's C++ core and EVMone make this vision a high-performance reality running on low end machines.

The zkEVM era isn't just coming—it's being architected.

#Zilkworm #Ethereum

https://t.co/USbp93PwQf