A viral run on Zora pushed Base ahead of Pump.fun and LetsBonk, but Solana still leads in users, transactions and overall activity. Base is testing Solana’s dominance in token launches, with a recent burst of SocialFi activity pushing the Ethereum layer-2 network to the top of the industry’s leaderboard. In recent years, Solana has been the go-to chain for new tokens. Its low fees and high throughput are drawing traders away from Ethereum. It’s become a hub for memecoins, with launchpads like Pump.fun spawning tens of thousands of tokens daily. The surge on Coinbase’s Base is coming from a different kind of token economy, built on social media posts, viral moments and a new wave of creator tools. Coinbase recently introduced the Base App by rebranding its wallet, sparking a surge in SocialFi activity on applications like Zora. Read more
Ethereum core dev Zak Cole lost funds after a malicious Cursor extension stole his private key, highlighting increasing wallet drainer attacks on builders. A core Ethereum developer said he was hit by a cryptocurrency wallet drainer linked to a rogue code assistant, underscoring how even seasoned builders can be caught by increasingly polished scams. Core Ethereum developer Zak Cole fell victim to a malicious artificial intelligence extension from Cursor AI, which enabled the attacker to access his hot wallet for three days before draining the funds, he said in a Tuesday X post. The developer installed the “contractshark.solidity-lang” that appeared legitimate with a professional icon, descriptive copy and more than 54,000 downloads, but it silently exfiltrated his private key. The plugin “read my .env file” and sent the key to an attacker’s server, giving access to a hot wallet for three days before funds were drained on Sunday, he said. Read more
Federico Carrone, an Ethereum core developer, pledged $500,000 to the Tornado Cash co-founder’s legal fund after being detained in Turkey over alleged links to a privacy protocol. Ethereum core developer Federico Carrone said that he would contribute $500,000 to Roman Storm’s legal fund amid the Tornado Cash co-founder facing a potential retrial in New York. In a Monday X post, Carrone said his experience in Turkey led to the decision to increase his donation to Storm from $50,000 to $500,000. The developer reported that he had been detained by Turkish authorities for about 24 hours over alleged links to an Ethereum privacy protocol. “[A]fter what happened to me, I need to take a clear position,” said Carrone, adding: “I understand that the [Ethereum Foundation] will be matching donations up to another $500K for Roman Storm’s defense, which means our contribution can have double the impact. Our team is currently moving money to execute the transaction.” Read more
Cointelegraph presents “The Fight for Ethereum’s Soul,” a documentary on the future of the smart contract blockchain protocol. Ethereum went live 10 years ago, bringing programmability and composability to a technological innovation sparked by the advent of Bitcoin in 2009. But what does the future of Ethereum hold? It’s a loaded question that is incredibly difficult to answer given the complexity and decentralized nature of the world’s pioneering smart-contract blockchain protocol. Cointelegraph recently traveled to EthCC in Cannes to speak to the brightest minds in the Ethereum community about its current state and the future of the protocol amid the rise of highly competitive next-generation layer-1 blockchains. These conversations formed the backbone of Cointelegraph’s latest mini-documentary: “The Fight for Ethereum’s Soul.” Read more
Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade arrives in November 2025, quietly boosting scalability and network resilience without changing smart contracts Ethereum’s upcoming Fusaka hard fork is slated for early November 2025, setting the stage for one of the most consequential Ethereum network upgrades in years. Unlike Pectra, the May 2025 fork that delivered visible changes like account abstraction and higher staking limits, Fusaka operates behind the curtain. It bundles 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals focused on scalability, node resilience and efficiency, leaving smart contracts untouched. Read more
Ethereum bulls make a strong case for an ETH price rally toward $10,000 or above in the next six to eight months. Key takeaways: Ethereum is breaking out across multiple bullish setups on the price chart. Analysts see ETH rising to $6,000 soon, with $20,000 possible within a year. Read more
Vitalik Buterin says public companies that buy and hold Ether broaden the token’s access to a wider range of investors, but cautioned on leveraging too heavily. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has thrown support behind so-called Ether treasury companies, but warned the trend could spiral into an “overleveraged game” if not handled responsibly. In an interview with the Bankless podcast released on Thursday, Buterin said the growing number of public companies buying and holding Ether (ETH) was valuable as they expose the token to a broader range of investors. “There’s definitely valuable services that are being provided there,” Buterin said. He added that companies buying into ETH treasury firms instead of holding the token directly gives people “more options,” especially those with “different financial circumstances.” Read more
Transactions on the Ethereum network have hit yearly highs as the SEC deliberates on how to classify liquid staking protocols. Transactions on the Ethereum network have reached a one-year high as the US Securities and Exchange Commission issues new guidance on staking. This comes amid historical highs in Ether staked on the network; according to Dune Analytics, over 36 million Ether (ETH) is now staked on Ethereum, representing nearly 30% of the total token supply. A large number of tokens locked into smart contracts indicates that Ether holders are hunkering down, preferring to render their ETH unsellable for the time being in exchange for staking rewards. Read more
The move follows significant gas fee reductions after the Dencun upgrade, and comes amid intensifying competition across blockchains. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and developer Anders Elowsson have introduced EIP-7999, a proposal to streamline Ethereum's transaction fee structure. Released on Tuesday, the proposal seeks to establish a unified multidimensional fee market, allowing users to specify a single aggregate maximum fee for multiple resources. The proposal, if adopted, would eliminate the need to estimate and manage multiple fee components when submitting transactions and let users specify one all-encompassing maximum fee, making paying for transactions simpler and more predictable. Read more
Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said the Chainlink Runtime Environment could be as transformative as the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said the recently launched Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) may have a transformative effect on the blockchain industry like that of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). In a YouTube video published on Monday by Chainlink, Nazarov said the CRE “can have the same impact that the EVM had on the blockchain industry.” The EVM, introduced by Ethereum, enabled Turing-complete smart contracts, which reduced development time to weeks from months by allowing developers to use loops and state-based operations, capabilities unavailable in Bitcoin Script. Nazarov said the smart contract development ecosystem is complex and has become a web of interconnected on- and offchain systems. Chainlink’s CRE, he said, adds a layer of abstraction that makes managing this complexity easier for developers. Read more