High value DeFi projects like Synthetix and Aave are making Ethereum L1 great again, as Ronin, Celo and Phala switch chains to become L2s. In recent months, a raft of alt-L1s joined Ethereum to become L2s, even as other projects on L2s switch back to the Ethereum mainnet. The Ethereum L1 is reasserting its claim to be the home of high-value DeFi it has seven times more TVL than its nearest rival while the L2 model offers millions in potential savings, along with network effects for alt-L1s that join the ecosystem. Back in March, when bearishness around the extractive L2 roadmap was at its peak, mobile payments network Celo quietly closed down its validator network to become an L2. Now, its saving almost $7 million a year in operating costs. In August, blockchain gaming L1 Ronin announced it was coming home to Ethereum in early 2026, five years after network congestion forced its popular game Axie Infinity off mainnet. Ethereum has largely delivered on the scaling roadmap, says Jeffrey “Jiho” Zirlin, co-founde...
High value DeFi projects like Synthetix and Aave are making Ethereum L1 great again, as Ronin, Celo and Phala switch chains to become L2s. In recent months, a raft of alt-L1s joined Ethereum to become L2s, even as other projects on L2s switch back to the Ethereum mainnet. The Ethereum L1 is reasserting its claim to be the home of high-value DeFi it has seven times more TVL than its nearest rival while the L2 model offers millions in potential savings, along with network effects for alt-L1s that join the ecosystem. Back in March, when bearishness around the extractive L2 roadmap was at its peak, mobile payments network Celo quietly closed down its validator network to become an L2. Now, its saving almost $7 million a year in operating costs. In August, blockchain gaming L1 Ronin announced it was coming home to Ethereum in early 2026, five years after network congestion forced its popular game Axie Infinity off mainnet. Ethereum has largely delivered on the scaling roadmap, says Jeffrey “Jiho” Zirlin, co-founde...
High value DeFi projects like Synthetix and Aave are making Ethereum L1 great again, as Ronin, Celo and Phala switch chains to become L2s. In recent months, a raft of alt-L1s joined Ethereum to become L2s, even as other projects on L2s switch back to the Ethereum mainnet. The Ethereum L1 is reasserting its claim to be the home of high-value DeFi it has seven times more TVL than its nearest rival while the L2 model offers millions in potential savings, along with network effects for alt-L1s that join the ecosystem. Back in March, when bearishness around the extractive L2 roadmap was at its peak, mobile payments network Celo quietly closed down its validator network to become an L2. Now, its saving almost $7 million a year in operating costs. In August, blockchain gaming L1 Ronin announced it was coming home to Ethereum in early 2026, five years after network congestion forced its popular game Axie Infinity off mainnet. Ethereum has largely delivered on the scaling roadmap, says Jeffrey “Jiho” Zirlin, co-founde...
The rollout marks the second phase of Ethereum’s three-step roadmap, testing higher gas limits and the new PeerDAS data-sampling system. Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade has been activated on the Sepolia testnet, marking the next major step in the network’s ongoing push to improve scalability and performance. The upgrade marks the second phase of a three-step rollout under Ethereum’s Fusaka roadmap, following the Holesky testnet activation on Oct. 1. The Sepolia deployment focuses on stress testing the network’s new data-availability system and higher block gas limit before developers push the code to the final Hoodi testnet later this month. Fusaka’s rollout is introducing a suite of performance and consensus improvements. The full upgrade aims to increase Ethereum’s block gas limit to 60 million, allowing blocks to process more transactions and complex smart-contract activity while testing whether nodes can maintain stability at higher capacity. Read more
The Kingdom of Bhutan has tapped Ethereum to store the national identities of its roughly 800,000 citizens, leveraging the network’s immutability and decentralization. The South Asian nation of Bhutan is migrating its self-sovereign ID system to Ethereum from Polygon, allowing its nearly 800,000 residents to verify their identities and access government services. The integration with Ethereum has been completed, while the migration of all resident credentials is expected to finish by the first quarter of 2026, according to Ethereum Foundation President Aya Miyaguchi, who joined Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin at the launch ceremony with Bhutan’s prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, and crown prince, Jigme Namgyel Wangchuk. “It’s deeply inspiring to see a nation commit to empowering its citizens with self-sovereign identity,” Miyaguchi posted to X on Monday, adding that the Ethereum integration was a world-first. Read more
Ethereum layer-2 tokens outperformed the market, with Mantle surging 31%, driven by Bybit integration and increasing adoption across scaling solutions. Ethereum scaling tokens outperformed most of the cryptocurrency market after the weekend crash, signaling stronger price resilience among layer-2 (L2) projects built on the world’s largest smart contract network. Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Mantle (MNT) had a 31% rebound on Monday, becoming the third-biggest gainer among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap. The Arbitrum (ARB) and Immutable (IMX) tokens also registered double-digit gains, while the Polygon (POL) token had an 8% rebound in the 24 hours up to the time of writing. Read more
Ethereum devs have introduced Kohaku to enhance wallet privacy and security with modular tools, zero-knowledge recovery options and decentralized transaction handling. Ethereum developers unveiled Kohaku, a roadmap that aims to improve wallet privacy and security through a modular framework designed for developers and advanced users. The project, announced in a Thursday blog post by Ethereum Foundation coordinator Nicolas Consigny, outlines plans to build a set of privacy and security primitives for the Ethereum ecosystem. At its core, Kohaku aims to create a software development kit (SDK) for building secure wallet functions, and a reference wallet that demonstrates how these tools work in practice. The first version will come as a browser extension based on the Ambire wallet, designed for advanced users who want more control and privacy. Read more