• Ethereum Beacon Chain turns four.

• EF launches ETH Rangers program.

• Jon Charbonneau on Ethereum’s North Star.

• Coinbase Onramp integrates Apple Pay.

December 1, 2024 marks four years since Ethereum’s Beacon Chain launched on mainnet, with its genesis block created on December 1, 2020. At its inception, the Beacon Chain saw approximately 500,000 ETH deposited on the first day. Today, over 34 million ETH—representing 28% of the total ether supply—is staked on the Beacon Chain, supported by more than 10,000 node operators. The Beacon Chain has achieved 100% uptime since its launch. On September 15, 2022, it merged seamlessly with Ethereum's execution layer, marking Ethereum's complete transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. Reflecting on the anniversary, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake expressed optimism for Ethereum's future, highlighting the potential for incremental Layer 1 improvements in the years ahead.

The Ethereum Foundation's Protocol Security Research Team and Ecosystem Funding Initiative launched ETH Rangers, a new program offering $25,000 stipends to individuals and projects improving security within the Ethereum ecosystem. Eligible work includes vulnerability research, the creation of educational resources, pro-bono incident handling, audits, and tooling development. The program aims to support and incentivize Public Goods Security Work within the Ethereum ecosystem.  The application period for the first wave runs from November 21, 2024, to December 31, 2024, with recipients announced on January 20, 2025. The Ethereum Foundation is also looking to hire two Security Engineers.

Jon Charbonneau published an article analyzing Ethereum’s lack of a "North Star" and proposed strategies for establishing a vision. He notes Bitcoin’s focus on digital gold, Solana’s emphasis on high-performance global finance, and Celestia’s goal of enabling unstoppable applications. Charbonneau argues that a well-defined and unified purpose is crucial for Ethereum to maintain its leadership. The article outlines competing visions for Ethereum, including whether its primary objective should be to excel as sound money, a cutting-edge technology platform, or a mix of both. He advocates for more decisive, top-down leadership to set a clearer direction, aligning infrastructure development with user-driven use cases and engaging more deeply with the applications shaping Ethereum’s ecosystem. Charbonneau suggests prioritizing the "world computer" vision, calling for aggressive Layer 1 scaling to enhance Ethereum’s performance while preserving its decentralization ethos.

Coinbase launched an Apple Pay integration for fast and seamless fiat-to-crypto purchases. The feature enables instant transactions, lightweight KYC requirements, and simplifies the entire process, taking just seconds. Coinbase Onramp also offers free USDC on and off-ramping transactions. With over 60 million Apple Pay users in the U.S., developers can integrate one-click-buy functionality into their apps. Existing apps using Coinbase Onramp automatically gain access to the feature.

• ZKsync introduces SSO

• ZKsync begins ZIP-002 vote

• Pectra introduces new system contracts

• Celestia 8MB blocks live on Arabica testnet

• Consensus to increase blob count

• EF ZK Funding grants

• 40 invalid blocks incident

• Camelot modular incentive system

• Research on increasing Ethereum's blob count.

• Arbitrim introduces Trailblazer AI grants.

• Applications open for the Next Billion Fellowship.

• Starknet v0.13.3 goes live on mainnet.

Sam Calder-Mason from the ethPandaOps team released a research article examining the feasibility of increasing Ethereum's blob count using community-contributed data on block and blob arrival times. The analysis indicates that Ethereum could support an increase in the target/max blob count from 3/6 to 4/8 or 6/9, demonstrating strong performance even within current bandwidth limitations. The research also underscored that MEV Relay nodes handle higher blob counts more effectively than locally built blocks, thanks to their superior bandwidth and parallel distribution capabilities. However, it noted that bandwidth remains a key constraint for solo stakers. The study also suggests that higher blob counts may be achievable with improvements like EIP-7623.

Arbitrum introduced Trailblazer, a new grant program allocating $1,000,000 to support builders developing specialized AI agents and onchain AI products on the Arbitrum network. Eligible projects can receive up to $10,000 in funding, provided they have AI products in production with onchain integrations on Arbitrum. In addition to financial support, participants will gain access to mentorship, Arbitrum’s developer community, and promotional opportunities to help amplify their projects. Developers with active AI projects are encouraged to apply via the application form.

The Ethereum Foundation is now accepting applications for the fifth Cohort of the Next Billion Fellowship. The fellowship is a 6-month non-technical apprenticeship that supports individuals working on a personal project that uses Ethereum to empower a better future. The key requirement for applicants is being able to publicly represent and share their work with the community. Next Billion Fellowship provides access to relevant experts, resources from the EF, and financial support. Applications are open between now and January 12, 2025. The program will run from April 2025 to October 2025 with the sixth cohort starting in September 2025.

Starknet deployed v0.13.3 to mainnet, an upgrade introducing significant improvements that lower transaction fees and data costs by optimizing the compression and submission of state updates to Ethereum L1. The upgrade reduces blob gas costs across the network by a factor of 5x. Earlier this week, Starknet launched the first phase of STRK token staking on mainnet, enabling users to earn rewards by either becoming validators or delegating their STRK tokens to validators.

• Aave hits $33b in deposits

• Challenge with Tornado Cash ruling

• Coinbase will not support Celo hard fork

• Revisiting the world computer

• BlackRock (ETHA) Daily ETH Flows: +55.6m

• Court overturns Tornado Cash sanctions.

• Flashbots launches BuilderNet.

• EigenLayer introduces EigenGov.

• WalletConnect launches its WCT token.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of Tornado Cash, concluding that OFAC exceeded its authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) when it sanctioned Tornado Cash smart contracts. The court determined that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts do not qualify as "property" under IEEPA because they cannot be owned, controlled, or altered by any party, including their creators. The decision overturns a prior ruling from August 2023, when a U.S. district court judge sided with OFAC in a Coinbase-backed lawsuit challenging the sanctions. The lawsuit was initially filed in September 2022 by six individuals affected by the sanctions. Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, says that the sanctioned smart contracts should now be removed from the sanctions list, allowing U.S. persons to resume using the privacy protocol.

Flashbots launched BuilderNet, a new decentralized block-building network for Ethereum aimed at addressing centralization, improving censorship resistance, and distributing power more equitably within the ecosystem. Initially operated by Flashbots, Beaverbuild, and Nethermind, BuilderNet uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to process encrypted order flows securely and distribute MEV rewards among participants. Block builders, the entities responsible for assembling transaction bundles into blocks and submitting them to validators, currently face centralization challenges. Flashbots reports that over 90% of Ethereum blocks are built by just two parties: Beaverbuild and rsync. BuilderNet enables multiple operators to collaborate on block building, ensuring secure sharing and processing of orderflow. Contributors are then compensated with refunds based on the value they add to the blocks.

EigenLayer introduced EigenGov, a governance framework designed to facilitate decision-making among EIGEN holders, developers, operators, and stakers. EigenGov derives legitimacy from EIGEN holders while delegating decision-making authority to councils. EIGEN holders retain the power to veto council decisions. Instead of traditional delegation systems, tokenholders endorse council candidates based on expertise. EigenGov also employs a dual-track model: a Core Track for stable, production-ready governance focused on security and robustness, and a Vision Track for experimenting with governance solutions in a controlled environment.

WalletConnect launched its WCT governance token. Over 160,000 wallets are eligible to claim a share of 50 million WCT tokens, split between 30 million for users and 20 million for contributors. The allocations were based on network usage, onchain activity, and past airdrop behavior. While tokens are initially non-transferable, users can decide to stake them for 1 week to 2 years with staking rewards beginning December 19th.

• Uniswap launches $15.5m bug bounty

• Onchainkit introduces Wallet Modal

• Optimism announces Retro Funding changes

• Future of Superchain native interop

• CFTC to regulate Digital Assets

• Ithaca introduces EXP-0002