Week in Ethereum News

March 13, 2026

Highlight of the Week

• The Ethereum Foundation Board released the EF Mandate, a foundational governance document codifying censorship resistance, open-source development, and privacy as non-negotiable protocol principles.

Eth R&D Protocol Call(s)

• All Core Devs Execution (ACDE) Call #23 - March 12, 2026

  • Glamsterdam Upgrade Scoping:

    • Continued refinement of EIP-7732 (Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) to mitigate builder centralization and enhance censorship resistance.

    • Discussed the inclusion of EIP-7928 (Block-Level Access Lists) to pre-declare state access and optimize execution efficiency.

  • Hegotá Upgrade Planning:

    • Early-stage discussion on Verkle Trees as a primary candidate for the Hegotá upgrade slated for late 2026, aiming to lower hardware requirements for node operators.

  • State Management:

    • Updates on benchmarking efforts for parallel transaction processing and historical data management strategies to curb state growth.

Layer 1

• Censorship Resistance & Protocol Principles: The new EF Mandate explicitly locks Foundation funding and support behind projects aligned with "CROPS" (Censorship Resistance, Open source, Privacy, and Security) to ensure long-term protocol neutrality.

• Network Performance: Recent YCharts data shows the average gas limit holding steady at 59.99M, reflecting the full transition to post-Fusaka parameters.

Research

• Snap v2: Replacing Trie Healing with BALs: Researchers propose using EIP-7928 Block Access Lists to invert the state sync process. Instead of iterative trie healing, nodes would download BAL-based state diffs, making it theoretically impossible for the chain to outpace a syncing node.

• GhostPool: Encrypted Mempool Metadata: A research post explores hiding identity-critical metadata in encrypted mempools to enhance privacy and mitigate sophisticated MEV strategies.

• Binary SSZ Transport for Engine API: Initial benchmarks using Kurtosis show performance gains when using binary SSZ instead of JSON-RPC for internal client communication.

Layer 2

• Starknet launched the STRK20 privacy standard, a new token framework utilizing zero-knowledge proofs to provide native privacy for any ERC-20 asset. The standard includes a "viewing key" system, allowing users to selectively disclose transaction data to auditors or regulators while maintaining on-chain anonymity.

Stuff for Developers

• Foundry: The nightly release (2026-03-12) introduced generic estimate_gas methods and a FoundryTransactionBuilder::reset_gas_limit function to improve gas simulation accuracy.

• Hardhat: Recent v3.1.11 updates improved the developer experience for Viem and Ethers plugins with better autocomplete and refined error reporting for compiler configuration mismatches.

Security

• A wallet lost over $50 million in USDT due to extreme slippage during an Aave collateral swap, receiving only $36,000 worth of AAVE tokens. The incident was exploited by Titan Builder and other MEV bots, which captured approximately $44 million.

• BlockSec released a technical framework for DeFi compliance and resilience, emphasizing the use of "Compliance Hooks" and real-time screening APIs. The guide outlines how protocols can use zero-knowledge proofs to satisfy global regulatory standards like MiCA without compromising user privacy.

Centralization watch: threatening the value of your ETH

• 🚨 Lido at 23.29%, still too close to the 33.3% threshold.

• Client diversity (via clientdiversity.org):

  • Execution layer: Geth ~41% & Nethermind ~38%

  • Consensus layer: Lighthouse ~51.52% & Prysm ~23.7%

• Any client bug over 33.3% could mean loss of finality.

• Better geographic diversity is optimal, particularly outside of North America & Europe.

Client Releases

• Consensus layer:

  • Nimbus v26.2.0: Medium-urgency release improving network stability and addressing a scenario where clients falsely rejected mainnet blocks.

  • Lodestar: Passed all Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR) specification tests, with Mikhail reporting successful deployment to staking environments for performance benchmarking.

EIPs/Standards

• EIPs (Core, Networking, Interface):

  • EIP-8037: State Creation Gas Cost Increase: Moved to Review; aims to decouple state growth costs from execution to facilitate a higher gas limit in the 2026 roadmap.

  • EIP-8024: Backward compatible SWAPN, DUPN, EXCHANGE: Moved to Review; introduces new EVM opcodes for efficient stack manipulation to assist compilers and ZK-EVM implementations.

  • EIP-7928: Block-level Access Lists: Prioritized for the Glamsterdam upgrade scope to enhance parallel execution capabilities.

• ERCs (Application Layer):

  • ERC-7802: Cross-chain Mint/Burn Interface: Now in Last Call; standardizes bridging via a minimal mint/burn pattern for native transfers across the Superchain.

Onchain Stats

• Fees (via ultrasound.money):

  • Gas: 0.0 to 1.6 gwei, 0.1 gwei average; zero net issuance at 12.5 gwei

  • 19.06k ETH net issuance this week

• ETHUSD: $1,930 – $2,188, currently $2,103, all-time high $4,946

• ETHBTC: currently 0.029 (Flippening at ~0.165)

Regulation/Business/Tokens

• BlackRock officially launched the iShares Ethereum Staking Trust ETF (ETHB) on Nasdaq, marking the first major US fund to integrate spot exposure with native staking yields.

• The U.S. Department of the Treasury delivered its "Innovative Technologies" report to Congress, recommending new AML/CFT standards for digital asset service providers.

• The SEC and CFTC signed an historic Memorandum of Understanding, launching a joint "Project Crypto" initiative to harmonize token taxonomy and regulatory oversight.

Upcoming Dates of Note

• Mar 30 – Apr 2, 2026: EthCC 9 (Ethereum Community Conference): Europe’s largest Ethereum-focused conference, with strong research and developer tracks.

• April 29–30, 2026: TOKEN2049 Dubai: major global crypto and Web3 industry conference.

• June 12–14, 2026: ETHGlobal New York at the Javits Center.

• November 3–6, 2026: Devcon 8 Mumbai, the premier global gathering for the Ethereum community.