• Sepolia encounters a bug from Pectra fork.

• ACI proposes the Aave Savings Rate for GHO.

• Devconnect 2025 will be held in Argentina.

• Coinbase explores tokenizing COIN.

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The Pectra upgrade was successfully activated on the Sepolia testnet on March 5th at 7:29 UTC. While now stable, the testnet initially faced an issue due to Sepolia’s permissioned deposit contract, which prevented execution layer (EL) clients from properly including transactions, leading to mostly empty blocks. The issue was identified immediately and addressed by client teams. Sepolia has since restored normal network throughput. Node operators are urged to update their execution layer clients to the latest version. Similar to Holesky, the issue was specific to Sepolia’s non-standard, deposit contract and cannot occur on Ethereum mainnet.

The Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) published a temp check proposal to introduce sGHO, a low-risk savings product for GHO that will offer users the Aave Savings Rate (ASR). By staking GHO, users will receive sGHO, a yield-bearing token that accrues interest over time at the Aave Savings Rate, which will be influenced by market conditions. sGHO aims to compete against other savings products like Sky’s sUSDS. The yield for sGHO will be generated through GHO borrowing, facilitator liquidity deposits, and other mechanisms. sGHO will feature no rehypothecation, ensuring that deposited GHO won’t be used to generate additional yield, which offers a low-risk investment.

Devconnect, the Ethereum-focused developer conference, announced that Buenos Aires, Argentina, will host Devconnect 2025 from November 17th to 22nd, 2025. The event will kick off with an opening ceremony on November 17th, followed by a six-day "Ethereum World's Fair" and coworking sessions. Devconnect Argentina will emphasize localization, supporting the country’s growing adoption of Ethereum.

• Coinbase revisits tokenized securities

• Giveth introduces Rescue Money

• EF funds Vyperlang

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• ACI proposes Aavenomics implementation.

• Lens introduces the Grove data storage.

• Hyperlane introduces OpenUSDT.

• Lighthouse to enable light client support.

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The Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), a key contributor to the Aave DAO, introduced the Aavenomics implementation proposal, aiming to enhance AAVE tokenomics, optimize protocol revenue distribution, phase out the LEND migration, and refine secondary liquidity management. It seeks to establish the Aave Finance Committee (AFC), tasked with overseeing treasury management. Key changes include leveraging Aave’s cash reserves for user protection and liquidity incentives, transitioning to a hybrid secondary liquidity model, introducing a non-transferable rewards token for AAVE stakers that can be used for GHO debt reduction or staking incentives, and launching a structured buyback program. The proposal is currently open for community feedback.

Lens Chain, a SocialFi L2 built on ZKsync’s ZK Stack, introduced Grove, a decentralized storage solution that ensures secure, user-controlled data management. Grove enables onchain access controls while storing content offchain, allowing users to modify or delete their data. Grove supports multiple EVM-compatible chains, including Lens Chain, Ethereum Mainnet, ZKsync, Abstract, Sophon, and Base. A proposal to integrate Lens Chain into ZKsync’s Elastic network is currently open for voting. Once approved, Lens Chain will migrate from Polygon PoS to a ZK Validium chain in the coming months.

Interchain messaging protocol Hyperlane introduced OpenUSDT, an interoperable version of Tether’s USDT stablecoin designed for the Superchain. OpenUSDT tackles liquidity fragmentation by removing the need for separate bridged USDT versions, ensuring seamless access across all Superchain networks. OpenUSDT can be deployed permissionlessly to new Superchain chains as they launch and is forward-compatible with native USDT minting on Celo. Its implementation leverages Hyperlane Warp Routes for cross-chain transfers with liquidity on Velodrome.

Sigma Prime announced that Lighthouse will enable light client support by default starting with version v7.0 and later. The update is expected to boost the share of beacon nodes providing light client data from 5% to 30-40%, with minimal impact on disk usage and memory for users. Light nodes offer a resource-efficient way to access the Ethereum network without heavy hardware or hight bandwidth requirements. 

• Obront joins Etherealize

• Tradeoffs in delayed execution

• Lighthouse v7.0.0-beta.2 for Holesky

• Nethermind team's view on Fusaka

• Velodrome goes live on Unichain

• White House rescinds Broker Rule

• Across raises $41m from Paradigm

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• Zora announces $ZORA token.

• The EF appoints co-Executive Directors.

• Nethermind supports history expiry.

• Celo announces its L2 launch date.

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NFT creation platform Zora announced plans for its upcoming ZORA token, anticipated to launch on Base in Q2 2025. The token will have a total supply of 10 billion, with 10% allocated for a retroactive airdrop. An initial snapshot for the airdrop was taken on March 3rd, and another is scheduled just before the token's launch. The distribution of ZORA tokens includes 20% for community incentives, 20% for a community treasury, 5% for liquidity, and the remaining 45% for the Zora team and contributors. The ZORA token is a memecoin and will not hold governance rights or ownership in Zora products. Zora has facilitated over $376 million in secondary sales volume and generated over $27 million in creator rewards.

The Ethereum Foundation changed its leadership structure, transitioning from a single Executive Director role, previously held by Aya Miyaguchi, to dual Executive Director roles. The new co-Executive Directors are Hsiao-Wei Wang, a former Ethereum research lead, and Tomasz Stańczak, the CEO of Nethermind, a key Ethereum execution layer client. Together, Hsiao-Wei and Tomasz are set to lead the Ethereum Foundation in fostering the growth of the ecosystem while upholding Ethereum values. Meanwhile, Danny Ryan, a former researcher who was highly sought by the community to be the next Executive Director, has joined Etherealize as a co-founder to grow Ethereum's institutional adoption.

Nethermind released history expiry support on its execution layer client in the 1.31.* releases. The feature allows for the deletion of historical, pre-merge data via ERA files. A consensus among all clients is required to activate the change. All client teams have agreed to remove pre-merge history from full nodes on May 1st. Currently, over 80% of the disk space in Ethereum full nodes is estimated to be occupied by redundant historical data that is not required to validate new blocks. Implementing history expiry will significantly reduce the storage requirements for full nodes, freeing up to 320 GB of disk space and allowing a full node to operate on less than 200 GB.

Celo announced the mainnet activation date of its migration from an EVM-compatible Layer 1 to an OP Stack Layer 2 network, scheduled for March 26th at 3 AM UTC. The upgrade to Celo L2 reduces the block times from 5 seconds to just 1 second, enabling faster transactions for users. The migration also preserves historical transactions from its Layer 1 network. Full nodes on the Celo network are required to upgrade to the new Layer 2 client.

• EF introduces zknox

• SEC closes Yuga investigation

• Nimbus v25.3.0 release

• Blockscout v7.0.0 release

• Holesky alternative devnet

• Third week of Protocol Study

• Coinbase FOIA request on SEC

• Trump approves crypto reserve

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