Tomasz Stańczak Steps Down From EF
Bastian Aue will assume the role of Interim co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation. Stańczak will continue building on Ethereum.
Tomasz steps from EF.
Peer releases onramp extension.
EIPT builds private bonds on Aztec.
TheDAO publishes a gov proposal.
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Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. Tomasz Stańczak stepped down as co-ED from the EF. Peer releases its embedded crypto onramp extension. The Ethereum Institutional Privacy Taskforce builds private bonds on Aztec. And TheDAO publishes a governance proposal. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/883 Sponsor: Arkiv is an Ethereum-aligned data layer for Web3.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/12fzwpLDZETupEYJsWIGro)
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Tomasz Stańczak, co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation and CEO of Nethermind, is stepping down from his role at the Ethereum Foundation at the end of February 2026. He will continue building on Ethereum ecosystem, beginning a new project on March 1st. Bastian Aue will assume the role of Interim co-Executive Director alongside Hsiao-Wei Wang. Aue has been a core member of the Ethereum Foundation's executive management team since 2019. In his announcement, Stańczak emphasized Ethereum's growing role as foundational infrastructure for global financial systems, AI-driven agentic economies, robotics, governance innovation, and emerging tech. Stańczak also stated his departure was not due to internal conflict.
Peer, a ZK-powered crypto-to-fiat bridge, released the Peer browser extension, enabling developers to embed a fiat-to-crypto onramp directly into their applications using the ZKP2P SDK. Through a simple SDK call, the Peer extension opens a side-panel flow that allows users to purchase crypto without leaving the dapp. Peer supports fiat payments from Venmo, Revolut, Wise, Cash App, and other platforms, enabling users to receive onchain assets like USDC, ETH, SOL, and USDT across 20+ chain. Transactions are gasless, require no redirects or centralized exchanges, and do not require additional verification beyond the connected payment platform.
The Ethereum Institutional Privacy Taskforce redeveloped its private zero-coupon bond prototype on Aztec, reducing the architecture from three separate components into a single ~200-line Noir contract. By leveraging Aztec's privacy-first L2, the rebuild provides a single contract instead of multiple codebases, an encrypted mempool, authentication witnesses for atomic swaps, composability with other private contracts, and a larger anonymity set. The proof-of-concept aims to showcase confidential, compliant bond trading on Ethereum.
The DAO, the infamous 2016 Ethereum crowdfunding experiment now evolved into the TheDAO Security Fund, has published its first governance proposal in nearly a decade. DAO token holders are asked to vote on three proposals that would authorize the Security Fund to: recover any DAO tokens mistakenly sent to TheDAO contract, and retrieve 49 SAI and 1.8777 DGD from the TheDAO contract. Voting is open for the next three days and will close on Monday, February 17, 2026, at 7 UTC.
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Aave Will Win Framework
A strategic overhaul aiming to scale Aave and align the ecosystem around an AAVE-centric model.
Aave Will Win Framework proposal.
Optimism partners with Succinct.
CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee.
ETH staking queue hits ATH.
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Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. Aave Labs proposes the Aave Will Win Framework. Optimism partners with Succinct to bring ZK to the OP Stack. And the CFTC forms the Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC). Read more: https://ethdaily.io/882 Sponsor: Arkiv is an Ethereum-aligned data layer for Web3.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/67RbpePtPtjAn2nRIDf8T0)
EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn
Aave Labs proposed the Aave Will Win Framework, a strategic overhaul aiming to align the ecosystem around a token-centric model and scale Aave. The proposal asks the DAO to approve four core elements. The first is directing 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products to the DAO treasury. The second is ratifying Aave V4 as the protocol's primary technical foundation. The third is establishing a formal structure to govern and protect the Aave brand. And the fourth is funding Aave Labs with $25 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE to execute at scale. The proposed initiatives aim to grow the DAO's revenue from the product layer and the protocol layer through Aave V4. The proposal is currently in the Temp Check phase and open for community discussion.
Optimism partnered with Succinct as its preferred zero-knowledge (ZK) proving provider for the OP Stack. Succinct will introduce canonical ZK validity proofs to the OP Stack, beginning with OP Mainnet. Succinct's proving system already secures more than $4 billion in TVL. By replacing the traditional 7-day fraud-proof challenge period used in optimistic rollups, the integration enables near real-time withdrawals, faster finality, and improved capital efficiency. Existing OP Stack chains will be able to seamlessly upgrade to validity proofs as part of Optimism's broader shift toward ZK-native infrastructure.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) launched a new Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC) under the leadership of Michael S. Selig. The group brings together top figures from crypto, traditional finance, and market infrastructure to help the agency update its regulatory framework and stay aligned with fast-moving innovations such as DeFi, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. Among the members are Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, Hayden Adams of Uniswap Labs, and Tyler Winklevoss of Gemini.
ACDE #230 highlights | minutes
ETH staking queue hits ATH
L1-zkEVM breakout call 1
First 2-character ENS registered
Vitalik on user incentives
EF Devcon location survey
Octant creator grants
Scroll introduces DAO 2.0
Coinbase 2025 recap
Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.
Sign In With Agent Introduced
An open standard for trustless identity and authentication for AI agents, built on ERC-8004 and ERC-8128.
Sign In With Agent introduced.
Coinbase introduces Agentic Wallets.
UniswapX to support BlackRock BUIDL.
Ondo brings tokenized stocks to DeFi.
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Listen to this episode from Ethereum News on Spotify. Builders Garden introduces Sign In With Agent. Coinbase introduces Agentic Wallets. UniswapX will support BlackRock's BUIDL fund. And Ondo brings tokenized stocks to DeFi. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/881 Sponsor: Arkiv is an Ethereum-aligned data layer for Web3.
](https://open.spotify.com/episode/43awH1qh19kerma0v9Hm3i)
EarnUSD is a stablecoin vault by Lido for earning transparent, onchain USD-denominated rewards. Get started today at stake.lido.fi/earn
Builders Garden, a crypto product studio, introduced Sign In With Agent (SIWA), a new open standard for trustless identity and authentication for AI agents. Similar to "Sign In With Ethereum," but designed for agents, it aims to solve two major security risks: leaked API keys and insecure wallets embedded in agent runtimes. Built on ERC-8004 and ERC-8128, SIWA enables agents to create a wallet, register an onchain ERC-8004 identity, and authenticate requests using cryptographic signatures instead of shared secrets. Private keys never reside inside the agent. All signing operations are handled through a separate keyring proxy, allowing the agent to request signatures without ever accessing the private key.
Coinbase Developer Platform introduced Agentic Wallets, the first wallet infrastructure purpose-built for autonomous AI agents. The wallets allow agents to independently send, receive, trade, and manage funds onchain without constant human intervention. Agentic Wallets include programmable spending controls, non-custodial identity, and gasless transactions on Base. They're powered by the x402 protocol and built on Coinbase's CDP Wallet infrastructure, with private keys secured in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Developers can launch Agentic Wallets in minutes via a simple CLI, equipping agents with financial capabilities and financial autonomy.
Uniswap Labs partnered with tokenization platform Securitize to enable trading of BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) on UniswapX. Through the integration, eligible whitelisted investors can swap BUIDL shares for USDC using UniswapX's RFQ (request-for-quote) system. UniswapX is a permissionless, auction-based liquidity aggregation protocol that sources both onchain and offchain liquidity to deliver competitive pricing. The integration expands liquidity options for BUIDL holders. BUIDL remains restricted to qualified institutional investors and high-net-worth qualified purchasers.
Ondo Finance partnered with Chainlink to provide oracle pricing for its tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs on Ethereum via Ondo Global Markets. The integration enables tokenized equities to be used as collateral in DeFi lending markets, with Euler now supporting borrowing of stablecoins against the real world assets. The collaboration unlocks liquidity and yield for equities.
Teku v26.2.0 release
Charon v1.8.2 release
TheDAO funds SEAL 911
Xatu execution trace data
Requirements for zkVM
ZK-based API usage protocol
Houdini launches randomizer
Octant announces Octant Labs
Privacy ecosystem map
OP yield opportunities
Aave expands to Mantle
UniFI AVS awarded EIGEN grant
Status FIRM stablecoin
Aztec proceeds with TGE
Base releases leaderboards
Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.