News linked to both this project and an event.
According to The Block, Base—the Ethereum Layer 2 network operated by Coinbase—has officially activated the Azul upgrade on its mainnet. This marks Base’s first independent network upgrade following its separation from the Optimism Superchain. The Azul upgrade introduces a multi-proof system that combines TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) proofs with zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, reducing the shortest possible withdrawal finalization time to just one day. Both proof types can independently confirm proposals; in case of conflict, permissionless ZK proofs override TEE proofs—further enhancing the network’s censorship resistance. Additionally, Azul integrates Base into a single execution client, <code>base-reth-node</code>, and introduces a new consensus client, <code>base-consensus</code>, built on OP Kona. Following the upgrade, the number of empty blocks has plummeted from approximately 200 per day to roughly 2 per day, and the network has achieved a sustained peak throughput of 5,000 transactions per second.
SUPERFORTUNE AI released a 24-hour investigation update stating that the May 27 GUA security incident was not, as previously suspected, address poisoning—but rather resulted from the leakage of private keys belonging to multi-signature signers. The attacker then forged valid signatures pointing to a malicious address and exploited the “premium address” feature—where the malicious address shared the same first four and last four characters as the legitimate address—to mislead the remaining signers into completing the signing process via the Safe interface.
Nasdaq-listed company Bit Digital CEO Sam Tabar stated on X that he has purchased more ETH.Sam Tabar explained: "Many people look at ETH's price performance over the past two years and conclude it's finished. But I believe they are looking for the wrong catalyst. The repricing of ETH was never meant to be built on retail narratives. For an asset backed by such a massive infrastructure, that kind of narrative is simply too fragile. The real catalyst is institutional demand. And the pace of institutional demand never follows the sentiment on social media. It only materializes when compliance frameworks are ready, custody systems are established, and the regulatory environment is stable enough for a CFO to give the green light. And that moment is closer than what market prices reflect."He added: "I hold ETH because I have a fiduciary obligation to make smart capital allocation decisions. And at the price I bought in, ETH meets that standard."
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recommended the "The Interfold" project in a post, stating that more people should learn about Interfold. It is a general implementation version of the MACI (Minimal Anti-Collusion Infrastructure) concept he has repeatedly called for over the past decade. Essentially, this project is a privacy protocol optimized for scenarios such as voting and secret auctions, allowing more people to pay attention to and understand this technological advancement.Vitalik also stated that the core mechanisms of Interfold include generating threshold encryption keys, users submitting votes on-chain with ZKP eligibility proofs, performing arbitrary computations within Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) followed by threshold decryption. This enables unconditional voter anonymity, Ethereum-level censorship resistance, and ensures correctness through ZK over FHE, among other strong security guarantees. The main limitation at present is the high cost of complex computations (such as multiplication operations); only additive vote counting is mature. Optimizations based on slashing are being advanced, with a long-term goal of implementing obfuscation techniques to eliminate reliance on M-of-N committees.
according to an Everstake report, among six Ethereum treasury companies that separately disclosed staking-related revenue, staking income accounts for an average of 60% of their reported revenue. The report reviewed 15 public companies with an Ethereum treasury strategy, of which those reporting losses in 2025 had a combined net loss of approximately $1.41 billion. Additionally, BitMine Immersion Technologies reported a net loss of $9.02 billion for the six months ending February 28, driven primarily by unrealized losses on digital assets.The report noted that spot crypto ETFs have diminished the appeal of publicly traded companies that simply hold Ethereum, forcing treasury companies to justify their valuations through yield-generating strategies such as staking. (cointelegraph)
the latest weekly report from CoinShares shows digital asset investment products recorded net outflows of $1.47 billion last week, marking the second consecutive week of negative growth and the third-largest single-week outflow of 2026. Cumulative outflows over the two weeks have reached $2.54 billion.By asset, Bitcoin saw outflows of $1.315 billion, the largest single-week outflow of 2026, compressing its year-to-date net inflows from $3.9 billion to $2.6 billion. Ethereum recorded outflows of $223 million, roughly flat compared to the previous week. Some altcoins still saw minor inflows, with XRP attracting $31.8 million, Near $9 million, and Solana $7.7 million.By region, the United States dominated the outflow landscape with $1.425 billion in single-week outflows. Switzerland, Canada, and Hong Kong recorded outflows of $16.2 million, $12.5 million, and $12.2 million respectively, indicating that risk aversion sentiment, which was localized last week, has now spread to most regions globally. CoinShares notes that these outflows are closely linked to heightened geopolitical risks related to Iran. Despite the ongoing legislative progress of the CLARITY Act, market risk aversion continues to deepen.
Vitalik Buterin stated that the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is not the “center of Ethereum,” but rather “a node within the ecosystem,” and is currently transitioning toward a smaller, more opinionated, and more sustainability-focused organizational structure. He explained that the Foundation will prioritize allocating its limited resources to work essential for Ethereum’s viability as a censorship-resistant, control-resistant, open, private, and secure system—work that would be unlikely to happen without the Foundation’s involvement—while also reducing ETH sales. Vitalik further noted that Ethereum should not pursue only maximum throughput and low latency, but should instead aim to be “impressive” in areas such as formal verification, chain availability consensus, and reducing reliance on intermediaries. He emphasized that the Foundation’s new structure is expected to gradually stabilize over the coming months.
recently, Liu Feng, former founder of ChainNews, and Dan Romero, former Farcaster founder and Tempo team member, engaged in a series of discussions on topics such as payments, cryptocurrency, and AI Agents. During the conversation, Dan Romero addressed some key questions raised by both Liu Feng and the public. The highlights are as follows:1. The reason for the shift from idealistic socialfi products to public chains dominated by large enterprises: "The crypto landscape has changed. Now we have stablecoins and crypto (more native) as two distinct things." Tempo and Playbook's goal is: "Starting with payment services, collaborating with large, established companies to help them conduct on-chain payments and advance their own business development. Then, by integrating DeFi applications, we will launch yield-generating products that end users actually need."2. "Tempo has no meme coins or anything similar, which is a good thing for a conservative bank. Tempo has other characteristics: compliance and privacy. This might not be as exciting for crypto natives, but it is very attractive to banks."3. Regarding core use cases for payments: "Platform-based marketplaces and cross-border payments are two clear stablecoin use cases."4. Micropayment-driven agent-to-agent payments are worth anticipating; stablecoin-based micropayments will usher in a new spring. Regarding payments between agents: "Traditional payment methods are too costly to use at scale. This level of granularity and speed can only be achieved through cryptocurrencies and streaming payments."5. "I deeply respect Ethereum's adherence to cypherpunk principles regarding decentralization. I really like their new mission; it's good for the world. But the reality is that businesses don't care about these things; they care about whether it can solve real problems." "If Tempo can attract 1 million businesses and 1 billion consumers, it won't be a bad thing for either cryptocurrency or Ethereum."6. Regarding Tempo's decentralization process: Hoping to achieve it within two years. "We are not a bunch of suit-wearing outsiders; we truly understand the space. We know how important decentralization is, but at the same time, we are very pragmatic. I guarantee that we will actually drive application adoption."7. Regarding the Machine Payment Protocol (MPP) and the X402 protocol, AI Agents don't care about the differences between them. The key to satisfying them is the elimination of human intervention.8. Tempo's Asian market lead is now in place and will be operating out of Singapore.
Grayscale’s latest research report states that Grayscale Research Head Zach Pandl believes tokenized assets and decentralized finance (DeFi), among other blockchain applications, may experience growth as the CLARITY Act advances and related guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) becomes increasingly clear. Grayscale identifies Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, and Canton Network—currently dominant in on-chain financial activities—as likely to attract institutional capital first. The report notes that Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain lead in areas such as tokenized assets, stablecoins, and DeFi, while Canton Network also holds a significant share in the tokenized assets space.
Anchorpoint Financial, OSL Group, and PantherTrade have successfully completed the first end-to-end financial transaction of Hong Kong's first approved stablecoin, HKDAP, on the Ethereum public chain. This digital asset operates under the regulation of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.The technical execution of this transaction was jointly carried out by Anchorpoint Financial, a fintech firm backed by Standard Chartered Hong Kong, along with digital brokerage firms OSL Group and PantherTrade. During this blockchain test, participants directly converted traditional physical Hong Kong dollars into reserve assets, triggering the minting of on-chain digital balances. Upon completion of the transaction, the tokens were converted back to fiat bank balances through a redemption agreement. Standard Chartered provided the custodial architecture and trust services for this process.The stablecoin is scheduled to begin its phased public issuance towards the end of the second quarter of this year. (financefeeds)
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, posted on X announcing that cirBTC is即将 launched. Circle Wrapped Bitcoin (cirBTC) is a tokenized Bitcoin backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin, issued by Circle on the Ethereum mainnet and the Arc network. Each cirBTC is backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin held in custody by regulated entities within the Circle group.
a16z Crypto published an article exploring the fundamental contradiction between blockchain “censorship resistance” and “low latency,” pointing out that any Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) blockchain protocol with censorship resistance, where more than one-fifth of validators could be malicious, requires at least 5 rounds of communication for its optimal good-case latency, whereas traditional BFT consensus only requires a minimum of 3 rounds.The article notes that in traditional BFT protocols, the block proposer holds the power for both block construction and consensus progression, allowing them to censor by excluding specific transactions. This is also a major source of the MEV problem. To address this issue, Ethereum is researching FOCIL / EIP-7805, while Solana is exploring mechanisms like Constellation and MCP. The core idea behind these approaches is to have validators proactively collect "Inclusion Lists" of transactions that cannot be ignored before a block is formally proposed.a16z Crypto states that achieving censorship resistance requires two additional rounds of communication: first, user transactions must be broadcast to all validators, and then the validators need to confirm and write these into an inclusion list before the consensus process can begin. Therefore, in a partially synchronous network environment, there is no protocol design that can achieve both BFT and censorship resistance in just 4 rounds; 5 rounds represent the mathematical lower limit.The article emphasizes that while a censorship-resistant mechanism increases protocol latency, it can significantly reduce the "effective latency" users actually experience. In a system lacking censorship resistance, transactions may be indefinitely delayed due to validator censorship. Conversely, in a system with censorship resistance guarantees, transactions will be included in a block within a maximum of 5 rounds of communication, making transaction confirmation times more predictable.
According to Caixin, the global tax “satellite surveillance system,” CRS 2.0, is accelerating its rollout worldwide. Cryptographic assets, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and certain electronic money products have now been included within the scope of financial asset reporting. Hong Kong plans to implement CRS 2.0 by 2028 and simultaneously advance the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). In the future, cryptocurrency exchanges, brokers, and operators of crypto ATMs will be required to report cryptocurrency–fiat currency conversions, cross-cryptocurrency swaps, and domestic and cross-border transfers of cryptographic assets. Reports must precisely specify the full names of assets—for example, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT)—and aggregate data by transaction dimension, including total market value, total holdings, and number of transactions. For retail payment transactions, individual transactions exceeding USD 50,000 must be reported separately. Although mainland China has not yet officially announced a timeline for implementing CRS 2.0, since 2025, tax authorities in multiple regions have begun notifying taxpayers—via phone calls and text messages—to self-report overseas income earned between 2022 and 2024 and fulfill their tax obligations accordingly. It is understood that CRS 2.0 will not only fully expose overseas-held cryptographic assets to tax oversight but may also trigger coordinated scrutiny by other regulatory bodies.
According to Cointelegraph, Yorkville America—the asset management firm behind Trump’s Truth Social—has announced the withdrawal of its three previously filed cryptocurrency ETF applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The withdrawn applications were for the Truth Social Bitcoin ETF, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF, and the Crypto Blue-Chip ETF. The company stated it will shift from the regulatory framework of the Securities Act of 1933 to that of the Investment Company Act of 1940 to offer more innovative products while providing stronger investor protections and tax advantages. However, it did not clarify whether it plans to pursue cryptocurrency ETFs under the new framework.
The Zcash Foundation released its Q1 2026 report, disclosing total liquid assets of approximately $36.7 million, including roughly $12.11 million in cash, 506,556 USDC, 85,412 ZEC (valued at ~$21.2 million), 41.8 BTC (valued at ~$2.85 million), and 12.02 ETH (valued at ~$25,000). The Zcash Foundation added that, although the first quarter of this year saw personnel changes within the Electric Coin Company’s development team and governance-related disputes, network operations remained unaffected, with transactions and block production continuing normally. On the regulatory front, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has concluded its investigation without taking any enforcement action, thereby resolving long-standing regulatory uncertainty.
According to Korea Economic Daily, Bumo Sarang, South Korea’s seventh-largest pension relief company, invested 59.5 billion KRW of its operating funds last year in Bitmine, an Ethereum-themed stock’s daily double-leveraged ETF, resulting in a loss of 49.3 billion KRW (approximately USD 32.73 million). A comprehensive review of the 2025 audit reports from 75 pension relief companies revealed that 42.7% of these firms hold total assets lower than the prepaid funds owed to their clients—meaning they would be unable to fully refund all clients if all terminated their contracts simultaneously.
According to The Block, the Ethereum Foundation has recently experienced another wave of talent attrition: researchers Carl Beek and Julian Ma announced their departures this Monday. Beek had worked at the Foundation for seven years and led the development of Ethereum’s Beacon Chain, making significant contributions to Ethereum’s transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism; Ma had been with the Foundation for approximately four years, contributing to mechanism design, cryptoeconomics, and protocol scalability, and co-authored EIP-7805—a proposal aimed at enhancing Ethereum’s censorship resistance. Earlier this year, in February, Co-Executive Director Tomasz K. Stańczak resigned; multiple other senior figures—including Josh Stark, Barnabé Monnot, and Tim Beiko—have also departed in succession.
Verus confirmed on Platform X that its Verus-Ethereum cross-chain bridge has been attacked, resulting in the theft of ETH, USDC, and tBTC from the contract on the Ethereum chain. Other bridged assets are currently unaffected. The Verus network is now suspended, with most block-producing nodes voluntarily going offline after experiencing the cascading effects of the attack. The development team is fully investigating the scope of the incident, the attack vector, and the subsequent remediation plan, and will provide updates once more information is confirmed. Verus stated that it is willing to cooperate with relevant law enforcement agencies to pursue legal accountability; however, if the attacker returns all stolen funds, the project team is willing to offer a bug bounty and will not pursue further legal action.Verus also reminds users that anyone claiming to be part of the Verus team or community in public channels, private messages, or other avenues, and offering "compensation" or "remediation plans," is a scammer. The official statement emphasizes not to interact with anyone claiming there are compensation projects or offering payouts, and to promptly report such accounts to Discord or Platform X.Previously, it was reported that the Verus-Ethereum cross-chain bridge was attacked, resulting in losses of approximately $11.58 million.
on-chain analyst Specter stated that the hijacking incidents of investor Keith Gill, Matt Furie, and WinRAR accounts on the X platform are all linked to the same hacker organization. This organization has accumulated over $14 million in profits by hijacking accounts to promote tokens and conducting cross-chain money laundering, with funds flowing through five chains: Solana, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Tron, and Hyperliquid.Specter claims the organization may also be connected to a $2.45 million wstETH phishing attack in 2024. The investigation found that hackers used compromised accounts to issue Pepe imitation tokens, incorporating a built-in 2% automatic fee mechanism to generate profits; related fund flows are associated with the bnbshare.fun platform and multiple Solana, Tron, and Ethereum addresses. Analysis also showed that several tokens (including USOR, VDOR, DROID, WCOR, UGOR) were used to inflate market caps before being dumped to zero.
: SharpLink CEO stated that if the CLARITY Act passes, market risk appetite recovers, and the tokenization process accelerates, ETH could rise. (Cointelegraph)