Weekly Ethereum Research Report (2026-02-09 ~ 2026-02-13)
TL;DR
- Bottom line: With ACDE #230 finalizing the Glamsterdam DevNet-3 scope and launching voting on five Hegota EL headliner candidates, gas repricing, BAL, and validator-operations changes have moved into the empirical stage.
- Numbers: Six protocol calls were held this week; there are two confirmed Glamsterdam EIPs (EIP-7732, EIP-7928), and the Hegota EL headliner vote closes around 2/26.
- Action: Operators and researchers should prioritize tracking 2/16 ACDT #70, 2/18 epbs-devnet-0, the 2/19 ACDC decision on FOCIL, and the result of the five-way Hegota EL contest.
Top 3 Takeaways
ACDE #230 finalized the Glamsterdam DevNet-3 scope, and client voting began for five Hegota EL headliner candidates.
자세히 읽기
Lucid Encrypted Mempool (Justin/Anders) was officially presented, competing with EIP-8105, EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions), EIP-7807 (SSZ), and others in a ranked-preference submission process over the next two weeks (~2/26).
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Confirmed Glamsterdam EIPs remain only two (ePBS: EIP-7732, BALs: EIP-7928), while EIP-8037 (State Creation Gas Cost) has been confirmed for DevNet-3, moving gas repricing from theory into empirical testing.
EIP-8159 (eth/71, BAL P2P exchange protocol) was also newly proposed, indicating that the BAL stack is entering a maturation phase.
The paradigm shift in the validator operating environment is accelerating.
자세히 읽기
Quick Slots (shorter slot times), Native DVT (protocol-native distributed validators), redefinition of the FOCIL PTC role, and Vitalik's AI x Ethereum vision (ZK API Credits) are unfolding at the same time, while the Lido CMv2 migration ($1.8M-$2.8M per hard fork, 117 days) is expected to begin in spring 2026.
1. Roadmap / Upgrade Change Highlights
Glamsterdam (expected mid-2026)
| Item | Status | This week's change |
|---|---|---|
| EIP-7732 (ePBS) | Scheduled | epbs-devnet-0 launch targeted for 2/18. Not separately confirmed in ACDE #230 notes — risk of deferral to Hegota if interoperability is not secured by late February |
| EIP-7928 (BALs) | Scheduled | DevNet-3 scope finalized (including four BAL optimizations). BAL Breakout #012 completed. EIP-8159 (eth/71) P2P protocol newly proposed |
| EIP-8037 (State Gas) | Considered | Confirmed for inclusion in DevNet-3 — an inflection point from theory to empirical testing |
| EIP-7954 (Max Contract Size) | Considered | Confirmed for inclusion in DevNet-3 |
| EIP-7904 | Considered | Title changed: "General Repricing" → "Compute Gas Cost Increase" — confirms a major scope reduction |
| Overall gas repricing | 18 Considered items | Additional changes deferred until after March (ACDT #69 decision) |
Hegota (after Glamsterdam)
| Item | Status | This week's change |
|---|---|---|
| EIP-7805 (FOCIL) | CL Considered | FOCIL Breakout #28 completed. Discussion on redefining the PTC role. Final CL headliner decision at 2/19 ACDC |
| EIP-8105 (Encrypted Mempool) | Proposed | One of five EL headliner candidates |
| Lucid Encrypted Mempool | Newly announced | Officially presented by Justin/Anders at ACDE #230. Voting on five EL headliner candidates within two weeks |
| Quick Slots | New proposal | CarlBeek proposed reducing slot time from 12 seconds to 8–10 seconds. Positioned on the non-headliner track |
| LUCID | Headliner candidate | Combines encrypted mempool + FOCIL. Simultaneously targets MEV protection and censorship resistance |
| 2D PeerDAS | Headliner candidate | Partial Reconstruction + row-level DA |
Fusaka (deployed in November 2025)
- Mainnet continues stable operation. PeerDAS (EIP-7594) is active.
- Follow-up optimizations for blob-devnet-0 (partial cells, getBlobv3) are scheduled for discussion at ACDT #70 (2/16).
New trends in state-management research
- Base Fee Floor proposal (2/9): addresses spam, state bloat, and fee volatility simultaneously through a single parameter
- Hyper-scaling State research (2/5): scaling through introduction of a new kind of state (complementary with existing state expiry)
- State Expiry benchmark: retaining only one year of active state reduces storage by 77.5% (359GB → 81GB)
2. EIP Status Changes (EIP upgrade status, Monday 2/10 vs Friday 2/13)
Inclusion-stage changes: none
Across Glamsterdam, Hegota, and Fusaka, no EIP changed its upgrade inclusion status.
| Category | Glamsterdam | Hegota |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled (confirmed) | 2 items (EIP-7732, EIP-7928) | 0 items |
| Considered | 18 items | 1 item (EIP-7805 FOCIL) |
| Proposed | 0 items | 1 item (EIP-8105) |
| Declined | 34 items | - |
| Withdrawn | 4 items | - |
EIP-level status changes (3 items):
| EIP | Monday (2/10) | Friday (2/13) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| EIP-3540 (EOF v1) | Review | Stagnant | Confirms overall EOF inactivity. Declined in both Fusaka and Pectra |
| EIP-7762 (MIN_BASE_FEE_PER_BLOB_GAS) | Review | Stagnant | Declined in Fusaka. Blob base-fee proposal is inactive |
| EIP-7904 | Title: "General Repricing" | Title: "Compute Gas Cost Increase" | Officially reflects scope reduction. Only operations below the 60 Mgas/s floor receive price increases |
New EIP registrations: none (unchanged at 241 items)
Interpretation: The absence of any forkcast inclusion-status changes this week suggests that Glamsterdam is still in the transition from scoping to testing, and that ACDE call outcomes have not yet been reflected immediately in forkcast. The scope reduction for EIP-7904 (title change) is the most substantive change.
3. Major Validator / Infrastructure Issues
Validator operations
| Issue | Urgency | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Lido CMv2 migration | Urgent (starts in spring) | $1.8M-$2.8M per hard fork, 117 days, ~3,882 0x02 keys, covers 92% of $25B TVL |
| EIP-8148 Custom Sweep | Medium term | Removes key friction in 0x02 migration. Allows custom thresholds starting at 33 ETH |
| ePBS-devnet-0 | Urgent (D-5) | Launch targeted for 2/18. Risk of exclusion from Glamsterdam if interoperability is not secured by late February |
| FOCIL PTC redefinition | Medium term (Hegota) | PTC takes responsibility for inclusion verification. Reduces attester burden and expands the PTC role |
| Native DVT | Long term | Vitalik proposal. Protocol-native M-of-N. Reduces reliance on SSV/Obol |
| zkFOCIL benchmark | Medium term | Proving 1.5 seconds (achieved), verification 50ms (misses 20ms target), size 7.7KB (misses 1.5KB target) |
- Staking status: APR ~3.3%, ~35.86M ETH staked (28.91%), ~1.1 million active validators
Infrastructure
| Issue | Details |
|---|---|
| EIP-8159 (eth/71) | New BAL P2P exchange protocol proposal. Adds an average of 70 KiB bandwidth per block |
| BAL performance benchmark | Block processing time reduced by 42% (708ms→409ms), storage reads improved by 69% |
| State Expiry | Retaining only one year of active state reduces storage by 77.5% and speeds execution by 15% |
| PeerDAS evolution | EIP-8136 cell-level delta broadcast. Hegota 2D PeerDAS candidate |
| zkEVM Breakout #001 | First official L1-zkEVM breakout call (2/11). Beginning of long-term ZK proof integration |
| Multiple devnets in progress | Fusaka blob-devnet-0 + Glamsterdam bal-devnet-2/epbs-devnet-0 in parallel |
| Latest clients | Geth v1.16.8, Lighthouse v8.1.0. Erigon joining DevNet-3 delayed by one week |
4. Key Protocol Call Decisions
This week, six protocol calls were held.
ACDT #069 (2/9) — All Core Devs Testing
- bal-devnet-2 gas limit: adjust to 70M or 100M (to avoid the 10MB block-size limit)
- EIP-8037 DevNet-3 inclusion: recognized the urgency of the state-growth problem
- ETH/70 independent testing: unexpected behavior found when processing large receipts
- Additional gas repricing deferred until after March: focus remains on stabilizing current devnets
FOCIL Breakout #28 (2/10) — Fork-Choice enforced Inclusion Lists
- Final decision on FOCIL CL headliner: to be decided at 2/19 ACDC
- PTC role redefinition: Payload Timeliness Committee to handle inclusion verification (Jihoon's proposal)
- One-slot delay bandwidth savings: about 0.1%, negligible (Pelle simulation)
- CL spec update: Jihoon will prepare CL/EL/Engine API updates by 2/19 ACDC
ACDT #069 RPC Breakout #020 (2/9) — RPC discussion
- Continued discussion on RPC standardization
BAL Breakout #012 (2/11) — Block-Level Access Lists
- Implementation updates from major EL clients (Besu, Nethermind, Reth, Erigon)
- Continued resolution of spec-clarification issues
zkEVM Breakout #001 (2/11) — L1-zkEVM integration
- First official L1-zkEVM breakout call
- Beginning of the long-term roadmap for a transition to ZK proof-based verification
ACDE #230 (2/12) — All Core Devs Execution (most important this week)
- Glamsterdam DevNet-3 scope finalized: BAL optimizations (parallel execution, state recalculation, batched reads, synchronization) + EIP-8037 + EIP-7954 + ETH simulate V1
- Hegota EL headliner vote opened: Lucid Encrypted Mempool officially presented. Client teams to submit ranked preferences for five EL options within two weeks
- EIP-8024 first change proposal rejected: concerns about code-size impact. Only simple encoding adjustment approved
- eth/70 Glamsterdam confirmed: Geth and Besu are ready
- Erigon delayed by one week: team vacation + parallel EVM work
5. Key Schedule for Next Week
| Date | Event | Importance | Watch points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2/16 (Sun) | ACDT #70 | Highest | blob-devnet-0, bal-devnet-2, epbs-devnet-0 updates; discussion on choosing Hegota CL headliner |
| 2/18 (Tue) | epbs-devnet-0 target launch date | Highest | Launch success = key signal for ePBS staying in Glamsterdam |
| 2/18 (Tue) | Post-Quantum (PQTS) Breakout #2 | Medium | Long-term roadmap for quantum-security transition |
| 2/19 (Wed) | ACDC (Consensus Layer) | Highest | Final decision on FOCIL (EIP-7805) as Hegota CL headliner |
| 2/23 (Sun) | Stateless Implementer's Call #49 | Medium | Binary Trie transition, ERC-8147 follow-up |
| ~2/26 | Hegota EL headliner client voting deadline | Highest | Selection result among five EL options |
| Late February | Expected Glamsterdam scope freeze | Highest | ePBS retention/exclusion, repricing EIP finalization |
Devnet milestones
| Devnet | Status | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| bal-devnet-2 | Running, stable | Transition to DevNet-3 |
| epbs-devnet-0 | 2/18 target launch | Interoperability testing |
| blob-devnet-0 | In progress | Update at ACDT #70 |
| Glamsterdam DevNet-3 | Scope finalized | BAL optimizations + EIP-8037 + EIP-7954 + ETH simulate V1 |
Appendix: New EIP/ERC Proposals This Week
| Number | Title | Type | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EIP-8148 | Custom Sweep Threshold for Validators | Core | 2/6 | Accelerates 0x02 migration. Not registered in forkcast |
| EIP-8158 | Invariant Layout Guard Opcode (MUTABLE) | Core | 2/11 | Strengthens proxy security. Early Draft |
| EIP-8159 | eth/71 - Block Access List Exchange | Networking | 2/12 | BALs P2P exchange. Complements Glamsterdam |
| ERC-8153 | Facet-Based Diamonds | ERC | 2/10 | Variant of EIP-2535 |
| ERC-8155 | Kernel-Orchestrated Modular Contracts | ERC | 2/12 | AI-first modular contracts |
| ERC-8160 | Primary Agent Registry | ERC | 2/12 | On-chain identity for AI agents |
Written by: @r2jamong
Data sources: ethereum/pm, ethereum/forkcast, Ethereum Magicians, ethresear.ch