Ethereal news weekly #11

February 13, 2026

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6 min read

BlackRock BUIDL tradeable via UniswapX, ENS staying on mainnet, Solidity developer survey

Vitalik’s updated view of Ethereum x AI: build trustless/private AI tooling, Ethereum as AI economic layer, make cypherpunk vision reality & make better markets/governance
Devcon: propose country/city for next location, deadline March 15
EF Offstage (builder stories): Danny Ryan interview [video]
ETH metrics:
- Gas (gwei): 0.2 average, 0.0 - 4.0 (12.4 for zero net issuance)
- ETH supply change: 18.7k net issuance
- ETHUSD: $1,907 - $2,131 (all time high $4,946, August 24, 2025)
- ETH ETFs: 5% of ETH supply
- ETHBTC: 0.029 (0.166 for the Flippening)

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BlackRock BUIDL tradeable via UniswapX (through Securitize), alongside strategic investment in Uniswap ecosystem
Robinhood Chain (Arbitrum L2) public testnet
Stripe machine payments (preview): x402 support using USDC on Base

ENS staying on mainnet due to L1 scaling, ENSv2 to be deployed on mainnet & Namechain (L2) development stopped
Aave Labs proposal: ratify v4, Aave branded product revenue goes to DAO treasury, new foundation to hold Aave trademarks & requests ongoing funding for Labs
Spark Prime: CeDeFi margin lending for institutional borrowers
Ondo Finance tokenized stocks available for use as collateral in DeFi
MetaLeX cyberSign: sign legal agreements on mainnet, Base & Arbitrum
Base app:
- Leaderboards: mini apps by weekly transacting users
- Talk feed removed & creator rewards sunset

Solidity developer survey, takes ~5 minutes to complete, opt in to win Devcon ticket
EVM storage chronicle (web tool): adds Vyper support to transaction & storage explorer
Optimism liveness module for Safe, ownership transfers to fallback owner if multisig fails challenge
Base builder codes: transaction attribution using ERC8021 (data suffix appended to transaction calldata)
Agents & wallets:
- Sign In With Agent (SIWA): sign via keyring proxy, agent doesn’t see private key, implements ERC8004 & ERC8128
- Coinbase agentic wallets: session caps & transaction limits, private key remains in Coinbase infrastructure
- BankrWallet (browser wallet): agents have separate password & can’t export private key
EF dAI team: register MCP server using ERC8004
RareSkills: formal verification with Certora
CTF:
- Certora Capture the Funds endless edition, $1k prize for beating current score by 25 ETH
Application layer standards (ERCs):
- ERC8152: Content-addressable logic modules
- ERC8153: Facet-based diamonds
- ERC8154: Multichain agents & agent relationships
- ERC8155: Kernel-orchestrated modular contracts
- ERC8156: Agent onchain metadata (for ERC8004)
- ERC8157: Accept pre-approved tip amounts
- ERC8160: Primary agent registry

Security Alliance (SEAL):
- SEAL Safe Harbor v3.0: enhanced clarity on good faith actions, clearer protections, updated adoption guidance & independently reviewed by Cyfrin
- TheDAO Security Fund allocating 133.7 ETH + 0.1337 ETH per day to SEAL 911 & 69 ETH + 0.069 ETH per day to SEAL
- EF sponsoring SEAL Intel security engineer to track & neutralize drainers
SolidityGuard: contract security scanner (Solidity & Vyper); CLI, desktop or web; integrates Slither, Mythril, Echidna, Aderyn, Foundry, Medusa, Halmos & Certora

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- bal-devnet-3 scope: eth_simulateV1, EIP8037 state creation cost, EIP7954 contract size & EIP7975 eth/70 - partial block receipt lists (testing on separate devnet. needed for 83M+ gas limit)
- EIP8159 eth/71 - Block access list exchange (add to future devnet)
Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026)
- Proposed headliners (execution layer):
  - LUCID encrypted transaction pool: presented, breakout February 18
  - EIP8141 frame transaction: execution spec implementation & tests in progress
  - EIP8105 encrypted transaction pool
  - EIP7807 SSZ execution blocks
  - Client teams to writeup headliner preferences (including option of no execution layer headliner) for next ACDE with decision at ACDE after that

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- bal-devnet-2 (spec) live
- Gas repricing final numbers expected end of March
ethPandaOps Benchmarkoor: tool for benchmarking execution layer clients

Glamsterdam upgrade (targeting mid-2026):
- EIP7928 Block-level Access Lists breakout #12
Hegotá upgrade (targeting late-2026):
- EIP7805 FOCIL breakout #28
- Quick slots proposed as non-headliner: remove 12 second slot assumption, find bottlenecks & iteratively reduce slot time
ethPandaOps EVM gas profiling: The Lab (website) adds gas profiler & gas repricing simulator; execution trace data added to Xatu dataset
L1-zkEVM:
- L1-zkEVM breakout #1: notes
- zkEVM security sprint update
Stateless implementers call #48
Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs):
- EIP8151: Private key deactivation aware ecrecover
- EIP8158: Invariant layout guard opcode
- EIP8159: eth/71 - Block access list exchange

ZK API usage credits: deposit once & make API calls without linking identity, double-signaling can have stake claimed and policy abusers stake can be slashed
Linearly-homomorphic signatures for RLNC, avoid sending full blocks during propagation

Client diversity:
- Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~50% (data may not be accurate)
- Execution layer: Geth ~41%, Nethermind ~38% (estimated from self reports)
Staking marketshare: Lido 23.5% [Note: dual governance]
Validators: 966k active (target 128k)
- EF Protocol Support: validator consolidation progress
  - 0x02 credentials: ~1% of validators, ~17% of staked ETH, ~700 ETH average balance
  - Barriers to adoption: reward liquidity concerns, batch consolidation increased withdrawal key exposure, migration downtime & prioritization
Client releases:
- Consensus layer:
  - Lodestar v1.40.0 (recommended): memory & performance improvements, supernode stability improved; Node v22 no longer supported
  - Teku 26.2.0 (recommended): RocksDB default database & blob custody backfilling improved

MegaETH (OP Kailua + EigenDA) open to the public
OP Stack upgrade 18: adds Cannon + Kona fault dispute game type, custom gas token v2 & creator pattern dispute game refactor
Optimism selects Succinct as first preferred provider for ZK proving on the Superchain, ultimate goal is instant withdrawals

US CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee members, includes Hayden Adams (Uniswap), Brian Armstrong (Coinbase) & Vivek Raman (Etherealize)
Bprotocol Foundation & Localcoin patent infringement case against Uniswap dismissed

Discord teen-by-default rolling out globally in March, access to age-restricted content may require age verification via video selfie or ID scan
Péter Szilágyi: extracting a secret from an LLM
AMM challenge: submit custom AMM design

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