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Apr 2026 — Week 2

· @r2jamong .md

Weekly Ethereum Research Report (2026-04-06 ~ 2026-04-10)

TL;DR

  • Bottom line: This was a week where ACDE #234 finalized the Glamsterdam SFI definition and the late-April unified DevNet target, while the Lido V3 transition, EIP data drift, and long-term infrastructure workstreams for FOCIL/PQ/zkEVM all advanced at the same time.
  • Numbers: Forkcast tracking coverage plunged from 135 to 18 entries from 4/9→4/10, EF officially confirmed cumulative staking of ~70,000 ETH, and zkEVM completed correctness proofs for 24/55 RISC-V opcodes.
  • Action: Operators should immediately upgrade to Geth v1.17.2 and Lighthouse v8.1.3, and track the 4/13 DVT vote result, the 4/14 ePBS DevNet stability evaluation, and ACDC #177 on 4/16.

Top 3 Takeaways

  1. ACDE #234 (4/9) finalized the Glamsterdam SFI definition and declared a "late April unified DevNet" target — the deprecation of the Engine API safe block tag (split into justified/confirmed), the SSZ Engine API integration proposal, and the creation of a dedicated AA breakout were all decided at once, pushing Glamsterdam/Hegota development past a key inflection point.

    자세히 읽기

    After a 14-day gap, ACDE #234 resumed with reports of gas-accounting mismatches on Battle DevNet 3 and a consensus bug on TPGS.Net 1, and Barnabas presented the goal of a "unified DevNet by late April." The direction of splitting the Engine API safe block tag into justified/confirmed was discussed (Dustin: "no hard fork needed"), and SSZ Engine API integration (execution-apis#764) emerged as a new agenda item. For AA, after the native AA (Pedro Gomes) vs ERC-8221 (Ben Adams) disagreement, a dedicated breakout series was created. ePBS DevNet stability will be evaluated by 4/14 (Mon), after which Glamsterdam DevNet Zero or Battle DevNet 4 will be decided.

  2. Across the Lido ecosystem, the CircuitBreaker (LIP-34) proposal, Validator Consolidation guide release, Fast Swap launch, and DVT incentive vote all proceeded simultaneously, materially accelerating the V3 (stVaults) transition — a week that requires curated operators to fully revisit emergency response, migration, and economic strategy.

    자세히 읽기

    LIP-34 CircuitBreaker is a fundamental security shift that replaces expiring GateSeals with a permanent emergency-halt architecture, and when combined with Dual Governance it creates a pause scenario of up to 60 days. The EIP-7251-based Validator Consolidation guide presented a capital-efficient stVaults migration path requiring 64 ETH (2%) of idle capital for 100 validators (3,200 ETH). Fast Swap (CoWSwap integration) entered maintenance within 24 hours of launch, and the DVT incentive redirect Snapshot vote (4/6~4/13) is a structural change that transfers Obol/SSV third-party incentives to Meta Treasury+LoL.

  3. While EIP upgrade-status data drift deepened (a sharp 135→18 drop, complete loss of Hegota), long-term infrastructure transition workstreams are actually accelerating, including the FOCIL EL spec merge into Amsterdam, finalization of the PQ Devnet-4 spec, and completion of 24/55 zkEVM opcode proofs.

    자세히 읽기

    Structural instability in EIP tracking data was confirmed throughout the week (EIP-6110 three consecutive restore-loss cycles, 135→18 sharp drop from 4/9→4/10). Whether core EIPs are included should be judged only from ACD call notes. Meanwhile, the FOCIL (EIP-7805) execution spec was merged into the Amsterdam branch, PQ Interop #034 finalized the Devnet-4 spec (Poseidon 1 + XMSS), and zkEVM #003 completed 24/55 RISC-V opcode proofs with the goal of completing all of them by summer.


1. Roadmap/Upgrade Highlights

Glamsterdam

Item Status Changes This Week
ACDE #234 Results Passed key inflection point SFI definition finalized, late-April unified DevNet target declared
EIP-7732 (ePBS) Scheduled DevNet stability to be evaluated by 4/14 (Mon) → Glamsterdam DevNet Zero decision
EIP-7928 (BAL) Scheduled Battle DevNet 3 gas-accounting mismatch (spillover gas) discovered
EIP-8037 (State Creation Gas) Considered Besu PR #9994 Stale Closed (4/7) — automatically closed after 30 days of inactivity, reimplementation needed
EIP-7805 (FOCIL) Scheduled EL spec merged into Amsterdam branch (FOCIL #032), Reth rebase in progress
Engine API Structural change safe → justified/confirmed split discussed, SSZ integration proposed, SSE addition proposed
Strawmap Stalled for 51 days No new client releases

Hegota

Item Status Changes This Week
EIP-8141 (Frame TX) Considered Non-headliner placeholder maintained. Decision to decouple PQ and AA discussions
AA Direction Unresolved Native AA vs ERC-8221 disagreement → dedicated AA breakout created (led by Pedro Gomes)
Hegota Data Complete loss Entire Hegota category removed from Forkcast

Fusaka / Long-Term Tracks

Item Status Changes This Week
ETH 128M Supply Cap New research ethresear.ch proposal — noted issuance-burn oscillation issue, early research stage
Block in Blobs (BiB) New research ethresear.ch proposal — radical restructuring that encodes TXs in blobs
Fusaka "hostile takeover" debate Community ethresear.ch post — lacks technical basis, but surfaced governance tension

2. EIP Status Changes (Forkcast Monday 4/6 vs Friday 4/10)

Data Quality Warning

This week's Forkcast data is in a severe drift state. Every EIP stage value is shown as ? (unknown), and entries plunged from 135 to 18 from 4/9→4/10. Because official stage information has been lost, the diff below reflects only "tracking coverage changes" and may differ from actual ACD decisions.

Tracking Coverage Changes

Change Type EIP Upgrade Description
Newly Added EIP-6110 Pectra Tracking restored on Friday after three consecutive restore-loss cycles during the week
Newly Added EIP-5920 Fusaka, Glamsterdam PAY opcode — had been Declined, but tracking restored
Maintained EIP-2780 Glamsterdam (Considered) Reduce intrinsic gas — transfer log cost added, PAY removed
Maintained EIP-7732, 7928 Glamsterdam (Scheduled) ePBS, BAL — DevNet status discussed at ACDE #234

Substantive Progress (Not Reflected in Forkcast)

  • EIP-7805 (FOCIL): EL spec Amsterdam merge — Glamsterdam Scheduled but not reflected in Forkcast
  • EIP-8189: BAL API GetBlockAccessLists bytes parameter added
  • EIP-8070: PeerDAS column cap removal — reflected in blob-devnet-0 implementation
  • EIP-8007: Gas repricing synchronization update
  • ERC-8221: Wallet Title Deeds — NFT-based smart account ownership transfer (new AA alternative proposal)

3. Validator/Staking Key Issues

EF 70K ETH Staking Target Achieved

  • Official confirmation that a ~45,034 ETH (~$93M) bulk deposit on 4/3 brought the cumulative total to ~70,000 ETH
  • Self-operated using Bitwise Infrastructure (Attestant Dirk/Vouch), not routed through Lido
  • Annual revenue of $3.9M~$5.4M (APY 2.7%~3.8%) → reinvested into ecosystem grants
  • Institutional signal: $145M+ deployed by the protocol foundation itself = the strongest trust signal for PoS

Lido Ecosystem Focus (V3 Transition Accelerating)

Item Status Impact
CircuitBreaker (LIP-34) Forum proposal D+1 GateSeals → permanent emergency halt. Up to 60 days of pause when combined with Dual Governance
Validator Consolidation Guide Published EIP-7251-based 3-step migration. 2% idle capital
Fast Swap Launched → entered maintenance within 24h CoWSwap-integrated instant stETH liquidity
DVT Incentive Redirect Snapshot vote in progress (4/6~4/13) Obol/SSV incentives → Meta Treasury+LoL
DVT IDVTC + LDO Buyback Snapshot vote in progress (~4/13) Introduction of Identified DVT Cluster type
Galaxy DAO Review Forum discussion SOC2, multi-region, client-diversity criteria
SecureRPC Relay Removal Forum discussion, not moved to vote Cited reason: persistent unavailability

Staking Yield Outlook

  • Structural downward pressure from the current ~3.3% APY as EF 70K ETH + institutional volume accumulates
  • Increasing possibility of APY settling in the 2% range → stVaults DeFi supplementation is key to preserving yield

4. Infrastructure Key Issues

Clients and DevNets

Item Status Action
Besu EIP-8037 PR #9994 Stale Closed (4/7) Automatically closed after 30 days of inactivity. Only blocker for bal-devnet-3·4. Reimplementation needed
Battle DevNet 3 Unstable spillover gas edge case, gas-accounting mismatch for special opcodes on revert
TPGS.Net 1 Unstable Client disconnections + consensus bug
Geth v1.17.2 Immediate upgrade required debug_executionWitness state corruption fix, history pruning
Lighthouse v8.1.3 Immediate upgrade required state-root 10x performance regression + P2P security patch
New releases None No new client releases during the week

RPC/API Standardization

  • eth_getStorageValues (execution-apis#756): Merged — batch storage lookup, maximum 1,024 slots
  • testing_buildBlockV1 (execution-apis#747): Merged — EL test fixture standardization
  • txpool namespace (execution-apis#758): Open — standardization of common implementation across 4 clients

Unpublished Call Notes (Critical)

Call Date Held Time Unpublished
ACDE #232 03-12 D+29, longest ever
ACDC #176 03-19 D+22
ACDE #233 03-26 D+15
ACDE #234 04-09 D+1
FOCIL #032 04-07 D+3

5. Key Protocol Call Decisions

This week, 5 calls were held: RPC #024, FOCIL #032, PQI #034, zkEVM #003, ACDE #234

ACDE #234 (4/9) — Biggest Event of the Week

  1. Glamsterdam unified DevNet target for late April — to be decided after ePBS DevNet stability evaluation on 4/14
  2. Engine API safe → justified/confirmed split direction — Dustin: "no hard fork needed"
  3. SSZ Engine API integration proposal — if finalized, all EL-CL client pairs will need simultaneous upgrades
  4. Dedicated AA breakout created — led by Pedro Gomes, separating PQ and AA discussions
  5. History pruning — minimum retention requirements discussed, no final consensus reached

FOCIL Breakout #032 (4/7)

  • EIP-7805 execution spec merged into Amsterdam branch — baseline secured for Glamsterdam spec integration
  • Reth FOCIL prototype Amsterdam rebase in progress

PQ Interop #034 (4/8)

  • Devnet-4 spec finalized: recursive signature aggregation + Poseidon 1 hashing + ZK-friendly XMSS encoding
  • 4/22 Devnet roadmap planning session scheduled — PQ transition moved from "far future" to the "concrete devnet schedule" stage

L1-zkEVM Breakout #003 (4/8)

  • 24/55 RISC-V opcode correctness proofs completed, targeting completion of all proofs by summer
  • GPU-based testnet deployment, Execution Witness Engine API proposal (139 tests)
  • 5 zkVM standards accepted, 2 new proposals under review

RPC Standards #024 (4/6)

  • eth_getStorageValues + testing_buildBlockV1 confirmed Merged
  • txpool namespace standardization proposal


6. Key Schedule Next Week

Date Event Importance Watch Points
4/13 (Sun) DVT IDVTC + LDO Buyback Snapshot Vote Closes HIGH Determines curated operator DVT economics
4/13 (Sun) ACDT #77 (14:00 UTC) HIGH blob-devnet-0, ePBS-devnet-1, BAL devnets, debug RPC
4/14 (Mon) ePBS DevNet Stability Evaluation Result CRITICAL Glamsterdam DevNet Zero vs Battle DevNet 4 decision
4/15 (Tue) PQTS Breakout #6 (13:00 UTC) MEDIUM PQ transaction-signature implementation status
4/16 (Wed) ACDC #177 (14:00 UTC) CRITICAL 28-day gap resolved. Glamsterdam/Hegota CL direction, EIP-8136, SFI definition
4/22 (Tue) PQ Interop Devnet Roadmap Planning (14:00 UTC) MEDIUM Finalize post-Devnet-3 stages
4/23 (Thu) ACDE #235 (expected) HIGH Unified DevNet status, AA breakout follow-up
TBD AA Breakout #001 HIGH Newly created, led by Pedro Gomes — schedule unconfirmed

Curated Operator Weekly Action Items

Priority Item Deadline
CRITICAL Immediately upgrade nodes that have not applied Geth v1.17.2와 / Lighthouse v8.1.3 Immediately
HIGH Review CircuitBreaker (LIP-34) forum post → update emergency response runbook This week
HIGH Check DVT IDVTC + LDO Buyback vote result (4/13) → recalculate economics 4/13
HIGH Confirm official publication of ACDE #234 call notes → whether safe tag deprecation and SSZ Engine API are finalized Upon publication
HIGH Run stVaults migration simulation based on Validator Consolidation guide This week
MEDIUM Check ACDT #77 (4/13) results → blob-devnet-0, ePBS-devnet-1 status After 4/13
MEDIUM ePBS DevNet stability evaluation result (4/14) → confirm Glamsterdam DevNet direction 4/14
MEDIUM Monitor ACDC #177 (4/16) → CL direction decision 4/16

Written by: @r2jamong Weekly Report | 2026-04-10 Sources: Daily Briefings (4/6~4/10), Infra Monitor (4/8), Protocol Calls Weekly Summary (W15), Forkcast Snapshots, Topic Recommendations