• EF introduces an advisory group.

• Vitalik Buterin outlines steering mechanisms.

• Safe restores services for Arbitrum.

• ZKsync introduces a community program.

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The Ethereum Foundation launched the EF Silviculture Society, an advisory group consisting of eleven external individuals who will offer informal feedback to the foundation. The inaugural members include MilliΞ, Lefteris, Vectorized.eth, and Polar. Vitalik Buterin stated that the roles are unpaid and will serve for one year. The society establishes channels for Ethereum Foundation employees to seek advice from the group. Vitalik also mentioned that there are future plans to include more initiatives and frameworks to involve the community in a broader range of issues and formats.

Vitalik Buterin released a new blog post discussing the integration of AI into democratic systems, where AI serves as an operational tool while humans guide strategic decisions. Emphasizing the importance of credible neutrality, Buterin outlined three steering mechanisms: Futarchy, Distilled Human Judgment, and Deep Funding. In Futarchy, governance decisions are driven by prediction markets. Distilled Human Judgment involves a jury system that answers a large number of questions, focusing on providing high-quality responses to a select few. Deep Funding employs human judgment to allocate credits within a graph structure to reward contributions. The AI and human mechanisms can allow DAOs to operate under human direction without burdening voters with an overwhelming number of decisions.

Safe, the leading provider of smart contract wallets, has restored its wallet services for transactions on Arbitrum One via the safe.global interface. Safe users can also conduct transactions on Ethereum Mainnet. The Safe.Global interface was temporarily disabled last weekend following the $1.5 billion ByBit exploit. Users are urged to thoroughly verify transaction signatures on their hardware devices before approving them. Safe smart accounts are also accessible through alternative interfaces like OnChainDen. Safe plans to restore its front end services on more networks in the coming weeks.

ZKsync introduced the ZKsync Community Program, a six-month initiative designed to recognize and reward significant contributions to the ZKsync ecosystem. The program allocates a total of 5 million ZK tokens in rewards, distributed monthly based on the impact of contributions. Roles such as Moderators, Captains, and Mateys are eligible for rewards, with their contributions being assessed and verified on Gitcoin. The program will kick off on March 7th.

• OpenSea supports Unichain

• OP Labs deprecates custom gas tokens

• Base’s view on the Fusaka fork.

• Holesky recovery update

• BLS consensus issue report

• Fileverse ddocs updates

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• Base implements Flashblocks on testnet.

• Base introduces Smart Wallet Sub Accounts.

• SEC dismises lawsuit against Conensys.

• Holesky validators agree on slashing plan.

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Base implemented Flashblocks on the Base Sepolia testnet, which cuts block times to 200 milliseconds, a significant enhancement from its current 2-second block time. Flashblocks is part of Flashbot's Rollup Boost software that provides sub-blocks that are streamed to nodes at 200-millisecond intervals. It provides fast confirmation times and includes native revert protection. The upgrade will position Base as the fastest EVM-compatible chain, surpassing Solana's speed. Developers can start experimenting with Flashblocks by integrating them via the Base Sepolia Flashblocks RPC endpoint. Uniswap is also adopting Flashblocks to achieve 250-millisecond block times on Unichain. Base plans to implement Flashblocks on Base mainnet in Q2 2025.

Base also introduced Smart Wallet Sub Accounts as part of recent updates aimed at optimizing performance and usability. The feature, incorporated into the Coinbase Smart Wallet, is designed to minimize the complexity of handling multiple accounts and approvals by providing unified account management. Sub accounts simplify the user experience by reducing the number of wallet pop-ups. They feature hierarchical account ownership and customizable spending permissions across applications. Sub accounts are currently live for testing on the Base Sepolia testnet.

Consensys founder Joseph Lubin announced that the SEC has agreed to end its lawsuit against Consensys. The lawsuit, initiated by the SEC in June 2024, accused Consensys of unregistered securities violations, specifically concerning MetaMask Swaps and MetaMask Staking services. The SEC plans to file a formal stipulation to dismiss the case in the coming weeks. Previously, Consensys had sued the SEC for overstepping its authority following subpoenas that demanded extensive details about Consensys's role in the Ethereum Merge. The SEC subsequently withdrew its investigation into Ethereum in 2024. Today’s dismissal follows a trend of the SEC ending enforcement actions against crypto platforms, including Coinbase, OpenSea, and Uniswap.

Holesky testnet validators agreed on a coordinated plan to temporarily disable slashing protection on February 28 at 15:00 UTC. The action aims to quickly finalize an epoch and establish a clean synchronization checkpoint. Validators are advised to continue syncing to the correct chain and maintain their slashing protection until slot 3737760. The Pectra fork on Sepolia will proceed as planned on March 5th at 7:29 UTC. Validators on Sepolia using Geth, Besu, Nethermind, or Lodestar clients must update their software before the scheduled upgrade.

• SEC statement on meme coins

• MetaMask releases logo refresh

• 161.4k ETH laundered via ThorChain

• Growthepie application level metrics

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• Safe.global was compromised.

• EF donates $1.25m Pertsev’s defense.

• Holešky fork rescue efforts continue.

• Clave releases ZK Email Recovery.

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Preliminary investigations into the $1.5 billion ByBit hack revealed that the breach originated from a compromised Safe.Global front end, likely due to a leaked AWS S3 or CloudFront account key. The Safe team later confirmed that an employee’s device had been compromised, granting the attacker server access to the Safe front end. Forensic analysis revealed that malware, injected through JavaScript from app.safe.global, altered transaction data to divert funds to the hackers. The malicious code specifically targeted ByBit's addresses, one of the largest accounts on Safe. Currently, the Safe front end is available in a limited capacity. Safe founder Martin Koeppelmann recommended not to interact with Safe at this time.

The Ethereum Foundation donated $1.25 million to support the legal defense of Alexey Pertsev, a developer who helped write open-source code for Tornado Cash. Pertsev was arrested in August 2022 on allegations of money laundering linked to Tornado Cash. In April 2024, he was sentenced to 64 months in prison. He is now preparing to appeal the conviction. The donation by the Ethereum Foundation comes about a month after Paradigm donated $1.25 million for the legal defense of Roman Storm, another Tornado Cash developer facing similar charges in the U.S. who will begin trial in April 2025. Last month, the Texas Court of Appeals overturned sanctions on Tornado Cash smart contracts.

Holešky validators and full nodes are urged to come back online and attempt to sync as part of ongoing efforts to stabilize the testnet after a chain split. The testnet is showing signs of recovery, with validators now producing between 4 to 10 blocks per epoch. The primary focus is on reducing the rate of missed slots to below 25%, which will enable developers to begin coordinated slashing. Even for validators that previously attested to the wrong block, their slashing protections are still in place, allowing them to continue block production. Despite the incident, there is a consensus among developers to move forward with the scheduled activation of the Pectra upgrade on the Sepolia testnet, set for March 5, 2025, at 7:29 UTC.

• RIG seeks a Protocol Researcher

• Base 27 Mgas/s gas target

• Blocknative introduces Gas Network

• Consensys community values

• Clave releases ZK Email Recovery

• GHO hits 200m market cap

• ByBit Hack FBI alert

• Astria introduces Bridging Protocol

• How to use multisigs safely

• How to manually create Safe tx

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