New Week in Ethereum 2025-09-19

Week in Ethereum News

The Ethereum Foundation announced a $2,000,000 audit contest for the upcoming Fusaka upgrade, co-sponsored by Gnosis and Lido. The contest runs for four weeks starting September 15, with 2x point multipliers for findings reported in the first week and 1.5x multipliers for the second week.

Fusaka $2,000,000 Audit Contest launched on September 15, running for four weeks on the Sherlock platform. The contest includes contributions from Gnosis ($100,000) and Lido ($25,000).
A comprehensive Fusaka auditor guide was published to help security researchers identify potential vulnerabilities.
Fusaka-Devnet-5 BPO Analysis was published, providing insights into the Blob Parameter Only hardfork implementation.

Payload Chunking: A new research discussion on improving data availability by chunking execution payloads, with active participation from multiple researchers in the past week.
PeerDAS Documentation: Updated documentation for the PeerDAS protocol, which is a key component of the upcoming Fusaka upgrade.
Measuring Validator Economics Under Preconfirmations: New research analyzing early mainnet evidence of how preconfirmation protocols are affecting validator economics.

Ronin is coming home to Ethereum with Optimism's OP Stack. After evaluating four proposals, Ronin Validator community voted to adopt the OP Stack. The migration will include EigenDA for data availability, Boundless for ZK proving, and Flashbots for 200ms block times.
Plasma to launch mainnet beta blockchain for stablecoins next week, claiming it will debut with more than $2 billion in stablecoin liquidity.
Boundless launched mainnet on Base, bringing universal zero-knowledge compute to the ecosystem. This follows their incentivized testnet which went live in July.

Foundry:
- Released v1.3.6 with a bugfix for ensuring broadcast accounts are touched.
- Latest nightly builds include new features like applying network precompiles for cast run and call, printing traces and logs in calltracer, and parallel linking for improved performance.
- Added a new cheatcode vm.signWithNonce(privateKey, digest, nonce) for more flexible signature generation.
Ethereum Foundation created a new AI team to support agentic payments, positioning Ethereum to become a base layer for AI economy.
Ethereum validator bottleneck has emerged with 2.5M ETH awaiting exit, creating congestion in the validator exit queue.

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.
Shibarium suffered a $3 million validator heist when an attacker flash-loaned BONE to control 10 out of 12 validators, then signed fraudulent checkpoints to drain the bridge. Half the stolen funds were trapped by blacklists and staking locks.
Largest npm supply chain attack in history gave attackers control over packages with 2+ billion weekly downloads, but the crypto-stealer they deployed only netted $1,050 as it broke CI/CD systems and exposed itself.

American Express introduced blockchain-based 'Travel Stamps', bringing a major traditional financial institution deeper into the blockchain space.
Avalanche ecosystem is taking off with AVAX token surging. Former Solana Foundation communications head Arielle Pennington joined Ava Labs to spearhead growth.
BNB approached $1,000 as Binance looks to escape DoJ monitor, hitting a new all-time high.
EY-Parthenon report suggests stablecoins are set to transform global payments, highlighting growing institutional interest in blockchain payment solutions.

Web3 wallet wars intensify as Rabby and MetaMask tease tokens, with both platforms competing for user adoption.
Trust Wallet revealed plans to add 100X perps and prediction markets, causing its TWT token to soar nearly 40%.
Aster token soared as perpetual DEX mania continues to drive interest in decentralized derivatives trading platforms.
Hypurr NFT floor price hit $100,000, demonstrating continued high-value activity in the NFT market.

🚨 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.

Fees (via ultrasound.money):
- Gas: 0.1 to 16.3 gwei, 1.3 gwei average; zero net issuance at 28.27 gwei
- 17.17 ETH net issuance this week
ETHUSD: $$4,241 – $4,487, currently $4,349, all time high $4,946
ETHBTC: currently 0.038 (Flippening at ~0.165)

Ethereum faces validator bottleneck with 2.5M ETH ($11.25B) awaiting exit, pushing wait times to over 46 days - the longest in Ethereum's staking history.
Ethereum developers set Fusaka upgrade for December 3, with two Blob Parameter Only (BPO) forks to follow in successive weeks, raising blob limits from 6/9 to 14/21 without requiring new client software.
Is Ethereum's DeFi future on L2s? Despite ETH hitting record highs, DeFi activity on Ethereum's L1 remains muted compared to 2021 peak, while L2 networks like Arbitrum and Base are booming with billions in TVL.

U.S. Treasury takes next step in turning GENIUS Act into stablecoin regulations.
Hex Trust adds custody and staking for Lido's stETH, expanding institutional access to Ethereum staking rewards with one-click staking and liquidity options.
BitMine's Ether treasury crosses 2.15M, while its stake in Worldcoin-linked Eightco rises 10-fold to $214 million.
XRP and DOGE ETFs smash records with $54.7M combined day-one volume.

Sep 23-25: ETHSofia in Sofia, Bulgaria - The first major Ethereum community conference in Bulgaria, bringing ETH enthusiasts, professionals, and developers to the IT heart of the Balkans.
Sep 25: Pragma New Delhi in New Delhi, India - Bringing developers onchain to build the future of the internet.
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.