• Ethereum Foundation releases its 2024 report.

• Fileverse releases a Devcon Collab Portal.

• Blockscout launches a Merits Program.

• Puffer Finance launches UniFi on tetsnet.

The Ethereum Foundation published its 2024 report, outlining its non-profit role in supporting the Ethereum ecosystem through funding, development, and education. Guided by three core values—long-term thinking, subtraction, and stewardship of open-source values—the EF aims to enable sustainable ecosystem growth. The report details spending allocations and treasury holdings, noting that the EF allocated $105.4M in 2022 and $134.9M in 2023 across internal teams and broader ecosystem initiatives. The EF’s treasury stands at $970 million, with the majority held in ETH. The report also highlights a conflict of interest policy, which sets guidlines for EF members to manage and disclose conflicts.

Fileverse, an onchain file-sharing platform, launched the Devcon Collab Portal, a community hub for Devcon SEA attendees to build and access a communal knowledge base. The hub enables users to create posts, message other attendees directly, browse talks, submit resources, and explore details about Devcon community hubs. With support for decentralized identities like ENS, users can easily connect and interact with each other while retaining control over their digital identity. Fileverse offers a range of tools for managing onchain files, including uploading, sharing, setting privacy options, and making files accessible through IPFS.

Blockscout launched the Blockscout Merits Program, a gamified reward program aiming to incentivize user engagement in open-source, decentralized block exploration. Users can earn "Merits" by completing daily tasks, joining campaigns, using Blockscout tools like Swapscout, and referring friends. In addition to Merits, users can earn NFT Badges with varying rarities, awarded for special achievements. The badges can be displayed in the Merits Dashboard and can be traded in secondary markets. Blocksout plans to introduce a leaderboard and partner campaigns, aiming to help users learn and explore Blockscout.

Puffer Finance launched UniFi, its Layer 2 based rollup solution, on testnet, initially open to builders. UniFi provides sub-second transaction speeds and near instant asset withdrawals. As a based rollup, it uses Ethereum L1 validators for transaction sequencing. In its mainnet release, Puffer plans to introduce atomic composability, allowing users to execute instant cross-layer interactions between L1 and L2 within a single Ethereum block.

• Sky keeps SKY brand 

• Multilane sequencing model

• SNARKifying the Ethereum Protocol

• Devcon distributes waitlist tickets

• ETH ETFs $79m net inflows

• Eclipse goes live on mainnet

• Jed's blog on Infinex journey

• Mekong Pectra testnet goes live.

• OP Labs proposes ERC-7802.

• Velodrome Superchain 1.0 goes live.

• Degen Chain is considering a chain relaunch.

The Ethereum devops team, Ethpandaops, launched Mekong, the first short-lived testnet for the upcoming Pectra upgrade. Mekong includes all eight scoped EIPs for Pectra, including EIP-7702 for enhanced UX, EIP-7251 for increasing the maximum effective staking balance, and EIP-6110 for new deposit and exit mechanisms. Application developers, tooling providers, and stakers, can now test Pectra’s changes ahead mainnet deployment. Mekong is named after Southeast Asia's Mekong River, aligning with the location of Devcon VII. Ethpandaops also launched a landing page where users can access a JSON RPC endpoint, a block explorer, and request funds from a faucet. The Pectra upgrade is anticipated to launch on Ethereum mainnet in the first half of 2025.

OP Labs introduced ERC-7802, a new minimal interface standard for cross-chain token transfers that allows tokens to be minted and burned across multiple blockchain ecosystems. ERC-7802 aims to create a unified standard for cross-chain transfers across Ethereum rollups, sidechains, and third-party bridges. ERC-7802 includes two main attributes: Bridge Agnosticism, which separates cross-chain logic from token contracts, allowing bridges to manage minting and burning without embedding bridge-specific details within tokens. And Extensibility, which provides a foundation for future enhancements, such as rate limits or transaction fees. ERC-7802 was developed with contributions from Uniswap and DeFi Wonderland.

Velodrome Superchain 1.0, the first version of Velodrome’s MetaDEX on the Superchain, is now live with its initial deployment on Mode Network. The launch allows users to cast votes with veVELO on OP Mainnet for pools on Mode, bridge rewards to LPs on Mode, and place voting incentives on either OP Mainnet or Mode. The deployment uses Superlane, a Hyperlane module that enables cross-chain communication and interoperability across OP Stack chains. Velodrome Superchain aims to be the primary liquidity hub on the Superchain, with planned support to expand to additional chains. Mode is the third-largest Superchain, after Base and OP Mainnet.

Degen Chain, an L3 on built on Arbitrum Orbit, is considering launching a new chain after facing ongoing challenges with its rollup provider, Conduit. In a community update, Degen claimed that Conduit withheld sequencer fees, demanded a new contract, and engaged in months of stalled negotiations. Degen stated they have been attempting to migrate the Degen L3 chain from Conduit since August. In response, Conduit indicated that they are prepared to facilitate an offboarding without catered support and only need an address to transfer rollup upgrade permissions.

• Ink, Kraken L2, goes live on testnet

• Core devs host 200th ACDE Call

• SWELL token claims go live

• Wevm releases npm i ox@0.1.0

• Azura's Strategic Fartcoin Reserve

• L2Beat introduces DABEAT.

• Nethermind introduces Surge Rollup.

• Crypto rallies following U.S. election results.

Layer 2 analytics platform L2Beat launched DABEAT, a portal for tracking transaction data across various Data Availability (DA) layers, including Celestia, EigenDA, NearDA, and Avail. DABEAT offers in-depth risk assessments across the DA ecosystem, categorizing between public DA layers and custom Alt-DA layers. Each DA layer is evaluated on key metrics such as total value locked, slashable stake, fallback mechanisms, economic security, as well as committee security, upgradeability, and relayer reliability. Additionally, L2Beat introduced the Risk Grissini, a new model for evaluating risks specific to DA and bridge systems.

Nethermind introduced Surge Rollup, a new rollup implementation based on the Taiko stack. Designed to extend Ethereum’s capabilities, Surge Rollup aims to empower developers, builders, and autonomous agents. Coined as an "ultra-based" rollup, Surge Rollup is launching at Stage 2 and uses ETH as its gas token. Based rollups leverage Ethereum’s block builders to sequence transactions. Surge Rollup features Gigagas Capacity and introduces open-source Power-Ups, which are plugins that extend the rollup’s functionality. The Power-Ups include transaction preconfirmations and proving infrastructure like Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) developed in collaboration with Flashbots Rollup Boost.

The U.S. election resulted in the election of over 275 pro-crypto candidates, with 258 in the U.S. House of Representatives and 17 in the U.S. Senate, as reported by Stand With Crypto. Following Donald Trump’s victory as a pro-crypto president-elect, the crypto market saw a surge, adding over $200 billion to the total market cap. Bitcoin’s price reached a new all-time high, while Ethereum rallied more than 10% in the past 24 hours. With a pro-crypto majority now in Congress, the environment for crypto regulation is expected to become more favorable. SEC Chair Gary Gensler is anticipated to cease his role following the new administration.

• Gaia partners with ENS

• Starknet roadmap update

• Unichain begins posting blobs