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Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade is moving through the engineering pipeline. In a recent core devs call, teams locked in a refined set of execution-layer EIPs, including a per-transaction blob cap and new EVM opcode, and still had time to give a thumbs up to a 45m gas limit hike. The fork aims to make the protocol more scalable and developer-friendly.

— Macauley

One billy in Euler active loans:

Lending markets are fast becoming one of the most competitive sectors in DeFi. As seen above, Euler recently hit a billion in active loans. 72% of these loans are on Ethereum.

For comparison, Fluid also recently hit $1b in active loans, SparkLend has $1.7b and Morpho has $2.3b, according to Blockworks Research data. Unsurprisingly, Aave leads far ahead with $16.5b in active loans.

— Donovan Choy

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Katana is a DeFi chain built for higher sustainable yield and deep liquidity.

It concentrates liquidity into core applications and channels the chain’s revenue back to the users. Creating a better DeFi experience that benefits the active users on the chain.

Earn KAT tokens: Pre-deposit with turtle club

Ethereum devs prep Fusaka

Ethereum core developers are tuning the protocol’s execution engine for higher throughput and flexibility ahead of the upcoming Fusaka fork. On the June 19 All Core Devs call, contributors aligned on a batch of EIPs for inclusion in Devnet-2 and tee’d up more aggressive performance upgrades for a prospective Devnet-3 (to be confirmed).

The result is a tightly scoped but technically meaningful upgrade, focused not so much on new features, but optimizations. When we covered Fusaka in April, it was still a somewhat mushy amalgamation of ideas: a tentative gas limit increase, early discussions about blob fee fixes and unresolved questions around contract size limits. Two months later, the fork has hardened into a clear package.

Developers have now committed to a 45 million gas ceiling, capped blob submission per transaction, a streamlined 48 KB contract limit (EIP-7907) plus a brand-new opcode (EIP-7939) in CLZ (for “count leading zeros”). Previously contentious parameters like the blob fee floor (EIP-7918) have been settled, setting the stage for Devnet-2 on Monday.

Let’s start with the gas limit increase, which is already under testing and not strictly part of Fusaka. This change, if successful, could bump Ethereum’s transaction capacity by over 11%, but requires careful benchmarking. Developers flagged the need to keep block propagation within safe latencies as a key variable to monitor.

“All the clients seem to be OK with moving ahead with 45 million once the releases are done,” the EF’s Parithosh Jayanthi (commonly referred to as “Pari”) said on the call.

Alongside the throughput boost, developers are refining how blob data — introduced with EIP-4844 during the Dencun upgrade — will be handled. While 4844 enabled cheaper off-chain data availability, it didn’t limit how many blobs a single transaction could include. EIP-7892 closes that gap, capping per-transaction blob usage to prevent any one rollup or dapp from monopolizing blobspace. Meanwhile, EIP-7918 sets a base fee floor and caps the total number of blobs per block, a move to balance scalability and network safety, explained Ben Adams of the Nethermind client team.

“Putting a lower limit on the max size of blobs means you can include more blobs — paradoxically,” Adams said.

Without a floor, the blob base fee can drop to near-zero during low demand, leading to inefficient use of blockspace.

Another low-level improvement greenlit for Devnet-2 is EIP-7939, which introduces a CLZ opcode to the EVM. This might sound obscure, but it’s the kind of tool that power devs reach for when squeezing performance or doing clever things with randomness or proofs. Most modern VMs already have it, and now Ethereum will too. A niche but handy boon for developer ergonomics, with minimal consensus impact.

Also of note is EIP-7951, the long-awaited precompile for secp256r1 — a type of cryptographic curve used in digital signatures. Its inclusion will unlock native support for keys commonly used in mobile and enterprise platforms — including WebAuthn-based authentication — thus bringing Ethereum one step closer to seamless and secure off-chain integration.

The refined Fusaka scope has drawn pushback from some high-profile stakeholders, notably Paradigm Chief Technology Officer Georgios Konstantopoulos, who resurfaced long-standing frustrations around the “stack too deep” error and the 24 KB bytecode size limit — two of the most cited pain points in Solidity.

The thread sparked a mild rebuttal from client developers, with Prysm developer Potuz noting that EOF had, in fact, aimed to resolve these issues. They had been prioritized until recently, driven in part by Paradigm’s Reth team changing their minds on a prior endorsement.

While Fusaka may lack a headline feature, it targets what many say Ethereum needs most in 2025: better performance without undue risk. It’s shaping up to be a quiet flex by Ethereum’s core devs.

— Macauley Peterson

LayerZero votes on fee switch:

LayerZero DAO is commencing its biannual vote today to consider turning on the fee switch.

If passed, a protocol fee will be charged per omnichain message, calculated as 100% of each message’s DVN and Executor fee. Protocol fees will then go toward a ZRO buyback and burn. 

The previous fee switch vote in December 2024 failed despite garnering a 96% “Yes” response, as it fell short of the 60% quorum — with only a 10.9% vote turnout. The quorum for this recent vote has been lowered 16% to 55.4m ZRO.

LayerZero is the dominant interoperability protocol today, facilitating about 70% of all cross-chain messages across 130+ blockchains year to date. Its Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard is the most widely used multichain token standard, with 340+ live tokens issued on it, such as PYUSD, USDe and WBTC.

ZRO saw its token generation event almost exactly a year ago today, and has been down 57% since. 23% of its circulating supply is also set to unlock today.

— Donovan Choy

What is the “revenue meta”?

Ryan Connor: The revenue meta framing highlights the weird path dependency of crypto. Path dependency is so unpredictable and moves so slowly; it could force you to take your eye off the ball. Web2 tech also started out as volatile and risky. As late as 2016, 2017, professional money managers in TradFi said Google was too risky. Then during the ‘08 crisis, Google’s revenue only fell 3% — it stopped being risky because the fundamentals of the business changed. The path dependency — people couldn't handle it and thought that things were never going to change because tech was risky. And the “revenue meta” — people are doing that with revenues. They think it's temporary, or they think it's just another narrative that we're going to cycle through, when in fact, that's just how it works. And we're finally there in crypto [where] we've matured to the point where we can start looking at revenues.

Chess clocks ticking, pull-up bars waiting, dunk tank ready — all hosted by the 0xResearch and Blockworks Research teams.

Expect real arguments, fast plays, and a crowd that knows the difference between conviction and cope.

📅 June 24-26 | Brooklyn