Author: Michael Johnson

The EF’s Ecosystem Funding Initiative team is proud to announce the launch of the 2025 Academic Grants Round, a pioneering initiative aimed at empowering and expanding the frontiers of Ethereum-related academic research. With a dedicated fund of $2 million, we are eager to build upon the success of the previous rounds by supporting innovative research in diverse fields critical to the growth and strengthening of the Ethereum ecosystem. Round Scope The scope of this round includes, but is not limited to, projects in Economics & Game Theory, Applied and Theoretical Cryptography, Consensus Algorithms, Protocol Design, Networking & P2P Technologies, Client…

2024 was a great year for ethereum.org, and as we already have our hands full with projects and initiatives for 2025, it’s important to take a moment to celebrate the achievements made possible by the community this past year. With that in mind, we’ve put together a recap of our top highlights from 2024—we hope you enjoy reading it! Blobs everywhere: launching the Dencun FAQ In 2023, we built a comprehensive hub for Ethereum’s protocol roadmap on ethereum.org. A few months later, in March 2024, the Cancun-Deneb (aka Dencun) network upgrade was deployed. As questions started coming in, it was…

We’re evolving how we build ethereum.org. Starting January 20th, we’ve adopted Shape Up cycles – focused 6-week build periods followed by 2-week cooldowns. For Cycle 1, each project below will ship by the end of February – no automatic rollovers to next cycle. Quick point of clarification: this is the cycle roadmap for ethereum.org the website, not Ethereum the protocol. We’ll ship the following projects by the end of February in our first cycle: Core ethereum.org improvements Interactive roadmap 🛣️ Making Vitalik’s Ethereum roadmap more beginner-friendly and interactive, helping newcomers understand Ethereum’s evolution and future. Listen-to-learn 🎧 Implementing audio capabilities…

tl;dr: Ethereum Protocol Studies is returning for 2025. Visit epf.wiki to fill out the survey and join the town hall on Wednesday, Feb 12. The Ethereum Protocol Studies program (EPS) is back for 2025! Designed to lower the barrier to understanding Ethereum’s core protocol, EPS provides structured learning and a direct path to deeper protocol knowledge. Expanding Learning Resources Over the past year, we’ve created a curriculum covering foundational Ethereum concepts available to help onboard new participants. These recordings serve as an invaluable resource for newcomers and seasoned builders alike. Some highlights of the curriculum include this session on data…

Community & educationAleph de VeranoCrecimiento2-week event in Buenos Aires, Argentina featuring a ZK and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) bootcamp, hackathon, demo day, and talks on DeFi, infrastructure, governance, and regulation.Community & educationAleph ZK Week3-day conference hosted during the Aleph pop-up city in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that provided a deep dive into programmable cryptography, multi-party computation (MPC), FHE, and decentralized identity systems.Community & educationAlgebraic Aspects in the Design and Cryptanalysis of Modern Symmetric Cryptography (ALPSY) 2025Research workshop that unites experts in arithmetic oriented symmetric-key primitives and their cryptanalysis to foster collaborations on significant research problems, including special sessions on Poseidon.Community &…

[05/03/2025] Sepolia Incident Update See this post. [27/02/2025] Holesky Incident Update On Feb. 24, 2025, the Pectra upgrade activated on the Holesky testnet. After the activation, a configuration issue in Besu, Nethermind and go-ethereum led to a chain split on Holesky. The issue was rapidly fixed, but the Holesky network performance is still degraded. More details on the incident can be found here. Sepolia Network Upgrade The Sepolia network upgrade timing is unchanged. The network is expected to fork at epoch 222464 (Mar. 5, 7:29 UTC). Node operators using the Besu, go-ethereum, Nethermind or Lodestar clients MUST upgrade their client…

Ryuta Aoki Ryuta is an artist, artistic director, conceptual designer, system architect, software engineer, entrepreneur, and social sculptor based in Tokyo. Ryuta describes his Learning Artifact, SOTOROJI, as part of a series of spatial devices that lead from the ordinary to the extraordinary, utilizing the modern social affordance of “seeing a QR code and scanning it with a camera,” just as soto-roji (the outer garden) in the Japanese tea ceremony serves as a space leading to a world of profound subtlety. SOTOROJI was featured as an art piece at the Devcon venue, viewed by thousands of attendees. Source link

Today, we’re excited to announce the Pectra Audit Competition, kicking off on Cantina! This month-long event will run from February 21 to March 24, and we’re excited to see what issues the security community can find. Why Pectra Matters Some of the key EIPs for Pectra are listed below From EOAs to Smart Accounts (EIP-7702) Enhances Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) with smart contract features. Key Benefits Transaction Batching: Combine multiple operations into a single transaction.Gas Sponsorship: Others can pay fees for the account.Alternative Authentication: Use hardware security modules or passkeys for authorization.Spending Controls: Limit token usage/outflows for improved security.Recovery Mechanisms:…

My dear Ethereum community, Today, I’m excited to turn the page and share that I will be closing this chapter as Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation soon and stepping into a new role as its President. This new opportunity will allow me to continue supporting EF’s institutional relationships, and to expand the reach of our vision and culture more broadly. I’m feeling deeply grateful and enthusiastic for what’s ahead, and while I made this decision a year ago, recent events have given me the perfect opportunity to reflect on what truly matters to me. These past few weeks have…

The security of the Ethereum protocol is continually being improved, and one recent effort is the external security review of the Pectra System Contracts. The results of this review can be found in the audits repository, and the TL;DR is that all discovered issues deemed relevant or important from these reviews have been addressed. Audit Scope and Methodology The Pectra System Contracts encompass several EIPs (EIP-2935, EIP-7002, and EIP-7251), and reviews were primarily done to: Evaluate the contracts for potential attack vectors.Ensure that the contract logic accurately implements the intended functionality as per the EIP specifications. A multi-phase approach was…