Web3 Protocol Pulse

Ethereum Hegotá upgrade planning with 66 EIPs competing, but only 1 actually scheduled; narrowing decisions expected Monday. Ethlabs sets four priorities: FOCIL, Quick Slots, Frame Transactions, Keyed Nonces; client rankings due Sept 10. Glamsterdam upgrade testing advances with Platåberget testnet (ePBS, BALs, gas repricing, 200M gas floor, 78.6% fee cut, MEV reduction). Gas-repiping EIP number disputed (8037 vs 8007). EIP-8361 staking reward burn proposal sparks backlash; Lido calls for deeper review. EF funded $5.5M in Q2 grants for ZK hardware, client diversity, privacy tools. Solana Agave 4.2 live: 90% rent cut, 3.3x larger transactions, 200ms slots; now slot time cut to 350ms with staged rollout to 200ms. Alpenglow codebase included but delayed. Solana SIMD-0550/0553 supply disinflation. Galaxy Research comparative analysis. Quantum-resistant L2: Sei, Algorand, Starknet, Sui; Google Cloud PQC roadmap. Vitalik's roadmap overlay prioritizes quantum readiness, privacy, native rollups. Base ditches optimistic rollups for ZK proofs via Succinct's SP1—$12B bet, cuts finality from days to hours. Base also moves to independent tech stack and ships native account abstraction standard (EIP-8130). Cardano Dijkstra hard fork targeted November 2026 with two-phase roadmap (Leios, Peras) and Amaru node phased rollout. Stellar Protocol 28 upgrade on August 27 improving Soroban and network efficiency. Celestia V9. Hyperliquid L1. BSC BEP-675 testnet 2,324 TPS. BNB Chain Pasteur hard fork tomorrow: stronger bridge verification, safer validator key rotation, fuller blocks (2,324 TPS testnet). Fuel mainnet. Optimism pivots to enterprise. World Chain EIP-7928. Polygon zkEVM gaps. Chainlink TWAP feeds. Restaking economy breakdown. EigenLayer restaking. Uniswap fee switch live ($5.2M daily fees), Uniswap Earn with Morpho ($11.79B deposits). Aave consumer app, AAVE on Solana. Fidelity Ethereum Fund files to stake up to 100% of holdings. EtherFi upgrades to Aave V4; Obol DVT. DeFi security: USENIX study reveals $574.8M at risk across 65,340 compromised wallets via deterministic contract addresses and EIP-7702 exploitation – urgent audit vector. New study uncovers 72 API inconsistencies across 11 Ethereum clients, 90% confirmed. Trezor breach. Microsoft EtherHiding malware. zkSync Era finality stalls. Open-source FPGA hardware for rollup proofs. AWS Nitro verification feasible post-Fusaka. EIP-7999 gas accounting paradigms. Brevis ProverNet mainnet. Stellar Protocol 28 upgrade. EIP-7702 explained: EOAs temporarily act as smart wallets without migration, reached Base via Isthmus – key UX improvement. Node efficiency: proposal to reduce CL block retention to 36 days. Gnosis Chain transitions to Ethereum rollup (EEZ), unlocking 350K GNO and new EEZ business model; GnosisDAO approved GIP-153 for ZK-proven rollup transition with xDAI gas preserved, late 2026/early 2027 target. EIP-8184 LUCID proposed for encrypted mempools to curb sandwich attacks. Arb402 payment facilitator for Arbitrum enables gasless USDC payments for AI agents. Celestia DA layer sees massive capacity (128MB blocks) but minimal paid demand ($50 daily fees), TIA down 98% from ATH. Fusaka upgrade breaks the 21k gas constant, forcing wallet/dapp updates. QoreChain claims first end-to-end NIST post-quantum transaction on live L1, multi-VM on one state layer, token listed on MEXC. Recent ERC/EIP activity shows proposal changes up 46% YoY but unique contributors down 30%, indicating contributor concentration; new ERCs include ZK Compliance Oracle and Modular Accounts for Frame Transactions, aligning with privacy/AA trends. Arbitrum plans ZK settlement via BoLD, cutting withdrawals from days to hours (DAO vote pending). Stacks Nakamoto upgrade achieves Bitcoin finality for all transactions, enabling sBTC and staking. Account abstraction proposals (3074, 7702, 4337) detailed for dev tooling. Sei governance explainer covers staking, voting, quorum thresholds.