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, zero-knowledge proofs, security, privacy, and developer tooling. The quarter reflected a continued emphasis on strengthening Ethereum's core infrastructure.

A significant portion of funding went toward zero-knowledge proof research and development, including formal verification of zkVM systems and optimizations to ZK trace construction. Security and cryptography also received sustained investment, with multiple grants targeting cryptanalysis of the Poseidon hash function used widely across ZK applications.

The Q1 allocation continues a pattern of EF infrastructure investment that includes the $1M Ethereum audit subsidy, the $1M Ethereum Security QF round, the ETH Rangers security program, and the Road To Devcon 8 Academic Program, all aligned with the EF's stated mandate to protect self-sovereign computation and enable coordination at scale.

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Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot to five new chains, including Base and Polygon. The additions bring Visa's total supported blockchains to nine, joining existing support for Ethereum. The pilot aims to push Visa's stablecoin infrastructure into mainstream finance. The pilot has reached a $7 billion annualized run rate.

The pilot builds on regional rollouts across Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and CEMEA, as well as the recent expansion of USDC settlement to U.S. banks and over 130 stablecoin-linked card programs. Visa's multi-chain approach aims to give its partners more flexibility in how they access liquidity, while the network handles the underlying complexity of cross-chain settlement.

The expansion fits a broader trend of legacy financial infrastructure piloting Ethereum-aligned stablecoin rails. SWIFT is testing a stablecoin and onchain messaging system on Linea, and Polymarket recently announced its own native USD stablecoin to replace bridged USDC.e.

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• SoP relaunches as Protocol Institute.

• LayerZero contributes 5k ETH to DeFi United.

• DeFi United technical recovery plan.

• Ethereum issuance reduction discussions.

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The Summer of Protocols, originally seeded by the Ethereum Foundation, relaunched as The Protocol Institute, a new initiative to advance the study, design, and stewardship of protocols across research, entrepreneurship, governance, culture, and education. Read more →

LayerZero pledged 5,000 ETH to DeFi United and another 5,000 ETH to support Aave market liquidity, bringing its total commitment to 10,000 ETH. DeFi United's total fundraise has surpassed 137,708 ETH (~$315M). Read more →

Aave published its technical plan for DeFi United, using temporary rsETH oracle adjustments on Ethereum and Arbitrum to liquidate 107,000 rsETH held across seven exploiter addresses on Aave and Compound. Recovered rsETH will be redeemed through Kelp to clear the deficits. Read more →

• Ethereum issuance reduction discussions-

• from: Dima Gusakov, Evan Van Ness, and Tom Lee.

• Nouns statement on Proposal 955.

• Charon v1.10 release.

• This week in Enterprise Onchain.

• Privacy Boost on Soneium.

• Human Protocol with Griff Green.

• Etherscan to hide low-value txs.

• Foundation goes offline.

• Puffer contributes to DeFi United.

• EtherFi cuts off 8 L2s.

• Polymarket CLOB update.

• CoW Swap turns 5.

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