Vitalik's solution for hyper-scaling state.
EF PhD fellowship program.
ENS Explorer alpha release
Blockscout Tor-native explorer.
[
Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. Vitalik proposes a solution for hyper-scaling Ethereum state. The EF launches a PhD fellowship program. ENS releases an alpha version of its new explorer. And Blockscout releases a Tor-native explorer. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/877 Sponsor: Arkiv is an Ethereum-aligned data layer for Web3.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Njw4tKI9LNZT4gpUir2Dg)
EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn
The price of ETH is down over 12% in the last 24 hours, reaching a low of $1,740. The crypto market cap is currently $2.3 trillion, following a major market sell-off.
Vitalik Buterin proposed a barbell approach to hyper-scaling Ethereum state. The solution keeps existing state fully backwards-compatible but increasingly expensive, while introducing new, opt-in tiered state types that are cheaper and more restrictive, designed for scale. Buterin highlights state growth as a major bottleneck. He notes that even if full nodes don't need full state, builders do, making multi-terabyte state a permission and centralization risk. Alternatives like statelessness come with severe bandwidth and infrastructure costs, while state expiry is hard to make backwards-compatible. The proposed path would allow most high-volume states to move to scalable tiers, while preserving Ethereum's developer-friendly model for core contracts and accounts.
The Ethereum Foundation launched the 2026 PhD Fellowship Program, a new initiative supporting Ethereum-related academic research led by current PhD students across Economics, Political Science, Business, Public Policy, Computer Science, and Urban Planning. The program will award 7 to 8 fellowships, each providing up to $24,000 USD in stipends over a one year period. Priority research themes include decentralized economic models, Ethereum-enabled SME operations, and programmable institutional design. Eligible projects must produce formal academic research and be published as open-access work under a permissive license. Applications are now open to current PhD students through April 1, 2026.
ENS introduced the ENS Explorer Alpha, a transparency tool designed to provide deep visibility into the ENS protocol, now live on testnet. The ENS Explorer serves as the primary source of truth for ENS, offering native ENSv2 support, role and permission management, registries, resolvers, subnames, and full historical event data. Designed to operate independently of ENS Labs infrastructure, the explorer can read data directly from Ethereum and IPFS. The ENS Explorer is still in active development with ongoing feature and UI updates based on user feedback. Power users and developers can access the explorer at explorer.ens.dev.
Blockscout, a blockchain explorer provider, launched a Tor-native Ethereum block explorer, allowing users to browse and verify transaction data using the privacy-preserving Tor browser. The Tor-native .onion service offers a clean, minimal interface and removes tracking-heavy features, enabling block exploration without revealing location or creating a behavioral trail.
ACDC #174 highlights | minutes
ZKP2P rebrands to Peer
Superform goes live on Base
Rainbow launches RNBW airdrop
Vitalik comments on L2 reactions
EF is hiring a comms associate
L2Beat is hiring L2 Educator
ETHStars Opportunity Board
Fileverse Floppy Disk
Shutter takes PG pledge
Yield launches stYFI
Austin Griffith on Bankless
YO allocation for Tuyo users
Relay raises $170m
Polymarket partners with USDC
Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.