• The Federal Reserve rescinds crypto guidance.

• EtherFi introduces a DeFi Bank product.

• Base targets 250 Mgas/s by the end of 2025.

• Nethermind multi-client support for builder

The Federal Reserve Board announced the withdrawal of its previous guidance on the involvement of banks in crypto-asset and stablecoin activities. The withdrawal includes its 2022 supervisory letter, which required state member banks to notify the Federal Reserve before engaging in crypto-related activities. The Board is also withdrawing a 2023 supervisory letter related to the nonobjection process for dollar token activities and is joining other regulatory agencies in rescinding two 2023 joint statements on crypto-asset exposure. The decision follows the FDIC's move to also rescind its prior guidance on crypto activities for banks.

EtherFi introduced its DeFi banking solution, offering a non-custodial alternative to traditional banking services. Unlike conventional banks, EtherFi’s DeFi bank does not accept user deposits but provides a full range of financial services built on DeFi. Users can easily fiat onramp and offramp, deploy assets into stablecoins or crypto vaults, and engage in staking and swapping. The DeFi banking solution combines EtherFi’s Stake, Liquid, and Cash products, all integrated into a single app. Stake is EtherFi’s staking and restaking product. Liquid offers a managed DeFi strategy vault for deploying ETH into DeFi apps with controlled risk. And Cash enables users to spend and borrow against their EtherFi balances.

Base announced its new goal to raise its network's gas target to 250 Mgas/s by the end of 2025. In Q1 2025, the network reached 25 Mgas/s, a 10x increase from its initial gas target at launch. By the end of Q2 2025, Base is on track to reach 50 Mgas/s. The ramp-up in gas capacity aims to reduce network congestion and enable more transactions to be processed within each block. To achieve its goal, Base has identified key bottlenecks. One of the major challenges is L1 data availability, which will be improved through capacity increases in the upcoming Ethereum upgrades. Additionally, Base is migrating from Geth to Reth clients to improve execution performance and will upgrade its Fault Proofs to MT64Cannon to optimize memory usage.

• ACDE #210 summary

• Nethermind multi-client support for rbuilder

• EF seeks Collaborative Funding Coordinator 

• DefiLlama releases Unlocks Calendar

• Enzyme deploys on Base

Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.

• EIP-7935 to increase the gas limit.

• Arbitrum supports custom gas tokens.

• Flashbots releases MEV-Boost v1.9.

• ZKsync exploiter returns funds.

Ethereum developers—Sophia Gold, Toni Wahrstätter, Carl Beek, Alex Stokes, and Dankrad Feist, among others—introduced EIP-7935, a proposal to test a raise in Ethereum's gas limit to 150 million by the Fusaka hard fork. The move aims to enhance Layer 1 execution scalability without introducing new protocol features. Currently, the Ethereum gas limit is 36 million, up from 30 million earlier this year. Increasing the limit allows each block to include more data, thereby improving network throughput. However, the significant increase will require rigorous testing by execution layer (EL) client teams, as higher gas limits may expose performance issues.

Arbitrum now supports custom gas tokens on rollup chains that use Ethereum for data availability. The update allows developers to designate any ERC-20 token to serve as the native gas token for transaction fees on their Arbitrum rollup. The custom tokens can now serve for gas mechanics and governance models. While the functionality has been available on Arbitrum AnyTrust chains, today's release expands that flexibility to Arbitrum rollups, enabling more secure and customizable deployments. Validators may still need ETH to cover operational costs on Ethereum mainnet, such as data posting or contract interactions.

Flashbots released MEV-Boost v1.9, a Pectra-compatible upgrade of its open-source software for Ethereum beacon chain validators. This update is required for all validators using MEV-Boost ahead of the upcoming Pectra hard fork, scheduled for May 7th. MEV-Boost enables validators to earn higher staking rewards by selling blockspace to an open marketplace, offering greater returns than base ETH rewards alone. Flashbots is a research and development organization focused on enabling fair and transparent MEV extraction. It also provides an MEV-protected RPC endpoint that Ethereum users can use for secure transactions.

• ZKsync hacker returns funds

• Pectra hard fork recap

• ZORA token goes live 1

• Symbiotic raises $29m Series A

• Ethereum ecosystem in Argentina

• FOSS token deployer

Disclosure: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.

• White paper for Boundless Protocol.

• Chaos Labs releases SVR dashboard.

• Tally raises an $8 million Series A.

RISC Zero published a white paper introducing Boundless, a new protocol designed to scale zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) compute across chains. Boundless establishes an open marketplace where provers compete to fulfill ZK proof requests, with payments settled automatically upon proof verification. The protocol aims to make ZK-powered compute accessible, scalable, and trustless. Boundless enables computations to be performed by a single node and efficiently verified by all others without re-execution. Boundless streamlines ZK integration for developers through support for mainstream programming languages, simplified proof aggregation, and built-in cross-chain capabilities. The protocol also inherits security properties of the underlying chains.

Blockchain security firm Chaos Labs launched a new Smart Value Recapture (SVR) Monitoring Platform that provides real-time analytics on Chainlink-powered SVR activity. SVR is a mechanism that allows DeFi protocols like Aave to capture surplus oracle extractable value (OEV) generated during liquidations. The dashboard breaks down Aave’s SVR profits, Chainlink’s involvement in the process, and participation from block builders. It also details the SVR recapture rate by liquidation size and collateral asset. Since integrating SVR, Aave has processed 63 SVR liquidations, generating over $10,000 in revenue for the Aave DAO.

Onchain governance platform Tally has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round to expand the Tally Protocol and accelerate value accrual for protocol tokens. Widely adopted across the Ethereum ecosystem, Tally supports major projects including Arbitrum, ENS, Uniswap, zkSync, EigenLayer, and Obol. To address low voter participation, Tally launched Liquid Staked Tokens (tLSTs) last year, which enables users to earn passive rewards while retaining full governance rights.

• History of Aztec

• AIP-20: Aztec Token Standard

Disclosure: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.