Week in Ethereum News

November 07, 2025

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Highlight of the Week

Eth R&D Protocol Call(s)

  • All Core Devs - Execution (ACDE) #224, November 6, 2025:

    • Fusaka upgrade: Confirmed mainnet release dates with BPO1 on December 9 and BPO2 on January 7, 2026. Nethermind team is investigating a bug related to re-orgs.

    • Glamsterdam upgrade: Conducted a comprehensive review of 40 EIPs, discussing client positions and potential bundling approaches. Client teams shared their perspectives on various EIPs, with Geth, Erigon, and Nimbus presenting their stances.

    • Repricing efforts: Discussed various repricing options for the Glamsterdam upgrade, with proposals from Caspar, Ansgar Dietrichs, Maria Silva, and Marius van der Wijden.

    • STEEL: The team announced the completion of the WELD process, unifying execution spec test code into execution specs.

Fusaka upgrade

Glamsterdam upgrade

Layer 1

  • Gas limit signalling snapshot: Community dashboard shows last update Nov 6 with a 24-hour avg gas limit ≈ 45,002,012, i.e., near the current cap, with ongoing validator signalling tracked there. Useful context for bandwidth/blob-count discussions.

  • MEV infrastructure reality check: Live relay/builder stats this week show continuing concentration among a few builders (e.g., Titan, BuilderNet, Quasar), underscoring why inclusion-list and PBS discussions remain active.

Research

Layer 2

  • Starknet rolled out the open-source S-two prover on mainnet, claiming faster proofs and lower costs—positioning the network for privacy features and broader decentralization

Security

  • The Balancer protocol suffered a large exploit, with estimates ranging up to US $128 million drained across multiple chains, including Ethereum mainnet, due to vulnerabilities in its Vault architecture

Ecosystem

  • Devconnect set to open in Buenos Aires in two weeks, featuring the first-ever Ethereum World's Fair at La Rural, showcasing real-world applications of Ethereum technology.

  • Ecosystem Support Program unveiled a new grants program designed to be more targeted, impactful, and sustainable, evolving alongside Ethereum's growth after temporarily pausing open grant applications.

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

  • 🚨 Lido at 23.57%, 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

  • Execution layer:

    • Geth v1.16.7: Critical release that enables the Fusaka hardfork on Ethereum mainnet scheduled for December 3, 2025. Includes a fix for a cryptographic vulnerability in c-kzg-4844 library, adds eth_sendRawTransactionSync method, and improves networking with metrics for tracking slow peers.

  • Consensus layer:

    • Lighthouse v8.0.0: Major release with Fusaka mainnet support. Includes important changes for PeerDAS, memory optimizations, and support for BPO forks. This will be the last Lighthouse release supporting Windows.

EIPs/Standards

  • EIPs (Core, Networking, Interface):

    • EIP-7976 (Core) — Increase calldata floor cost: added an empirical impact analysis report.

    • EIP-7916 (Core) — SSZ ProgressiveList: refined the Motivation section wording to better explain efficiency and stability goals

    • EIP-6404 (Core) — SSZ transactions: moved the “union layer” into the payload; structural spec cleanup.

  • ERCs (Application Layer):

    • ERC-7730 — Structured Data Clear Signing Format: removed embedded ABI from schema & examples; made “display formats” the single source of contract typing; tightened schema rules and examples.

    • ERC-7908 — HD wallet in Treasury Management: status moved to Last Call.

    • ERC-7857 — AI Agents NFT with Private Metadata: status moved to Final.

Onchain Stats

  • Fees (via ultrasound.money):

    • Gas: 0.0 to 97.7 gwei, 1.1 gwei average; zero net issuance at 16.3 gwei

    • 17.35 ETH net issuance this week

  • ETHUSD: $3,162 – $3,911, currently $3,438, all time high $4,946

  • ETHBTC: currently 0.033 (Flippening at ~0.165)

Regulation/Business/Tokens

  • Ethereum stakeholders launch coordinated lobbying group: Major DeFi protocols including Aave Labs, Aragon, Curve, Lido Labs Foundation, Spark Foundation, The Graph Foundation, and the Uniswap Foundation have formed the Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance (EPAA) to counter the "outsized influence" of centralized crypto entities in policymaking.

Miscellaneous

Upcoming Dates of Note