Status Network has announced plans to consolidate its technical work, liquidity, and community into Linea rather than launching as a standalone L2. The merge will bring Status Network's core innovations, including ephemeral accounts, free cover traffic, untraceable agents, and decoupled execution, to the broader Linea ecosystem.

The move also allows Status to refocus on its flagship product, the Status App, originally launched in June 2017. Pre-deposit vaults for the Status L2 are now closed and will be migrated to Linea mainnet, where users will be able to withdraw their principal, accrued yield, and liquid rewards. A reward pool has also been approved for pre-depositors. No action is required before the claim.

Status Network's privacy-first design aligns with Vitalik's Ethereum privacy roadmap, which prioritizes private transactions as a default user experience.

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The Ethereum Foundation opened applications for the seventh cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF), an annual mentorship program aimed at helping developers dive into core protocol development. The application deadline is May 13, 2026, with the program running from June through November 2026.

The program is designed for aspiring protocol developers looking to make meaningful contributions to Ethereum, spanning client development, testing, specifications, and research. This year's cohort is purposely smaller, aiming to be more focused and prioritizing depth of engagement. Select participants will receive a monthly stipend. The EPF team will host a town hall on May 6 at 15:00 UTC.

EPF aligns with the broader Ethereum protocol roadmap, including the 2026 protocol priorities and the Ethereum Protocol Studies 2026 program.

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

• Visa expands stablecoin pilot.

• EF ESP allocates $9.8m in Q1 2026.

• Solidity v0.8.35 ships ERC-7201.

• Ethereum hits 3.6m daily txs.

EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn

Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot to five new chains, including Base and Polygon, bringing its total supported blockchains to nine. The pilot has reached a $7 billion annualized run rate and builds on regional rollouts across Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and CEMEA, alongside the recent expansion of USDC settlement to U.S. banks and over 130 stablecoin-linked card programs. Read more.

The Ethereum Foundation's Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) published its Q1 2026 funding allocation, distributing $9.8 million across 57 projects spanning protocol research, cryptography, ZK proofs, security, privacy, and developer tooling. The quarter emphasized formal verification of zkVM systems, ZK trace construction optimizations, and cryptanalysis of the Poseidon hash function. Read more.

The Solidity team released version 0.8.35 of the compiler, delivering new language features, an experimental codegen pipeline, and early warnings ahead of the upcoming 0.9.0 release. The headline feature is ERC-7201, Solidity's first compile-time builtin, which automatically computes the base storage slot for namespaced storage layouts. The release also issues deprecation warnings for identifiers that will become reserved keywords in 0.9.0. Read more.

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• Lido DAO approves 2,500 ETH

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• Uniswap Community SDK

• Governance Review #93

• Link smart wallet update

• Privy digital asset accounts

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