Tom Lee’s Ethereum treasury company keeps buying the second-biggest crypto through the downturn, while more than 5 million staked ETH is projected to generate $287 million in annual rewards. Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies, an Ethereum treasury company, resumed its Ether purchases last week, bringing it closer to a key business target of owning 5% of the second-biggest cryptocurrency’s supply despite challenging market conditions. The company disclosed Monday that it acquired 9,926 Ether (ETH) during the week ending Aug. 16, bringing its total holdings to roughly 5.82 million ETH, or about 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply. At an ETH reference price of $1,893, Bitmine’s Ether holdings were valued at roughly $11 billion. However, much of the company’s ETH was acquired at signif…
The Hegotá upgrade aims to introduce more native privacy for Ethereum applications. Ethereum developers are currently reviewing 66 proposals to narrow them down as part of scoping the next major Ethereum upgrade, Hegotá, with several proposals aimed at bringing more privacy capabilities into the protocol. FOCIL is currently the only Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) scheduled for inclusion in the upgrade. Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), Keyed Nonces (EIP-8250) and Recent Roots for Frame Transactions (EIP-8272) should also be included to “unlock native privacy, allowing privacy apps to work without having to rely on intermediaries,” wrote Ethereum Foundation contributor Toni Wahrstätter in a Sunday X post. FOCIL, short for Fork-choice enforced inclusion lists, seeks to allow a committee of…
Fidelity plans to add staking to its Ether fund, with 85% of rewards retained by FETH and quarterly cash distributions planned for investors. Fidelity Investments plans to add staking to its spot Ether exchange-traded product, the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), according to its Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The asset manager said FETH could stake up to 100% of its Ether under normal conditions, excluding ETH reserved for redemptions, expenses and liquidity needs. The fund would retain 85% of staking rewards, with 15% going toward staking fees, and plans quarterly cash distributions, although payouts are not guaranteed. Fidelity expects staking to begin “as soon as practicable” after the prospectus date. The preliminary prospectus remains subject to ch…
Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8363 staking overhaul aims to reduce issuance, but critics say it could hurt DeFi, decentralization and institutional adoption. Ethereum researchers just wanted to reduce staking incentives. Instead, they sparked one of the biggest debates over the network’s economics since the Merge. Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8363, or “Tapered Issuance Burn,” would gradually reduce staking rewards as more and more Ether is locked up to secure the network — eventually cutting new protocol issuance to zero once 50% of ETH’s supply is staked. Its authors, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake and Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) co-founder Jerome de Tychey, argue that Ethereum has reached the point where additional staking provides diminishing security returns, whi…
EIP-8363 is a newly published draft proposal that would cut net consensus-layer rewards as the Ethereum staking ratio heads toward 50%. A group of six Ethereum researchers and developers, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake, has proposed changing the network’s issuance policy to cut validator rewards more sharply as the proportion of staked ETH rises. The draft, called the Tapered Issuance Burn and currently being assigned the provisional number EIP-8363, would burn an increasing fraction of validators’ consensus rewards as the amount of staked ETH approaches a fixed threshold of 60.25 million ETH (around 50% of the current ETH supply), at which point the deduction hits 100%. The changes would phase in over 18 months.
Blockaid found Ethereum remained the hardest-hit blockchain in H1 2026, while Solana replaced Arbitrum as the network with the second-highest losses, driven largely by key compromises. Crypto losses topped $1 billion in the first half of 2026 as the industry recorded its highest number of hacks in a six-month period, according to onchain security platform Blockaid. Ethereum and Solana recorded the largest losses from incidents affecting their networks, with roughly $332 million and $326 million in stolen funds, respectively, Blockaid said in its H1 2026 security report published Tuesday. Blockaid tracked 212 security incidents during the period, with the largest single exploit coming from KelpDAO at $292 million, while the platform verified 3.4 times as many high-threshold exploits in H1 2…
Lido launched Curated Module v2, an upgrade that could reduce Ethereum’s validator count by one-third by consolidating validators and introducing new operator rules. Lido, a liquid staking protocol that lets users earn Ethereum staking rewards through its stETH token, has launched an upgrade to its staking infrastructure that aims to improve validator efficiency and decentralization. The upgrade introduces Curated Module v2, which adds support for Ethereum’s 0x02 withdrawal credentials. The change allows validators to increase their effective balance from 32 ETH to as many as 2,048 ETH, according to a Lido update on Monday. Lido said the migration could reduce Ethereum’s validator count to about 628,000 from 880,000, a decrease of about one-third. The migration has not started yet, and the…
Ether trades below its realized price while onchain indicators point to easing selling pressure and recovering demand, though a definitive cycle bottom has yet to emerge. Ether is becoming increasingly attractive from a valuation standpoint, particularly relative to Bitcoin, but onchain data suggests the market has yet to reach a definitive cycle bottom, according to CryptoQuant. In its latest weekly report, the analytics company said Ether (ETH) is trading roughly 17% below its realized price, or the average onchain acquisition cost of all ETH in circulation, of about $2,300. Historically, ETH trading below its realized price has coincided with periods of market undervaluation and long-term bottoms. Ether is also showing signs of improving relative to Bitcoin (BTC). CryptoQuant said that…
Ethereum staking generated 98% of Bitmine’s revenue last quarter as the company’s pivot from Bitcoin mining gained momentum following its March validator launch. Bitmine Immersion Technologies recorded $45.7 million in revenue from Ether staking and validation last quarter, following the launch of its institutional-grade Ethereum staking platform in March. Staking revenue accounted for 98% of total revenue for the three months ended May 31, far outpacing the $624,000 from self-mining Bitcoin (BTC) and the $168,000 from consulting services, according to Bitmine’s latest 10-Q filing. On Monday, Bitmine said it had staked 85% of its ETH holdings, equating to around 4.9 million Ether (ETH). “Bitmine has staked more ETH than other entities in the world. At scale (when Bitmine’s ETH is fully s…
Cambridge estimated that Ethereum consumes 7.87 GWh annually and has the second-lowest market-value-adjusted energy intensity among the PoS networks studied. A new Cambridge study placed Ethereum near the lower end of energy intensity among major proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains, although the network still used more electricity overall than most of the PoS networks studied. The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimated that Ethereum consumes about 7.87 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity annually. When adjusted for market value, the network used roughly 33 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per $1 million, the second-lowest figure among the proof-of-stake networks assessed, behind BNB Chain. Solana used the most electricity among the PoS networks studied, at about 13.48 GWh per year. Its energy…
Despite strong tokenization gains and institutional accumulation, weak onchain and derivatives data leaves ETH vulnerable to a $1,700 retest. Ether (ETH) price gained 3% between Thursday and Friday, outperforming the broader crypto market. The move ties to growing tokenization, Robinhood Chain’s success, and ongoing corporate treasury purchases. However, ETH failed to break above $1,800 amid weak onchain and derivatives metrics. Is Ether price bound to retest $1,700? Key takeaways: The successful launch of the layer-2 network Robinhood Chain has boosted Ether investors’ sentiment. The newly launched blockchain uses ETH as its native gas token and has netted $106 million in bridge deposits. The TradFi trading platform Robinhood offers tokenized stocks to customers in 120 countries, further…
The Ethereum co-founder said AI recognized his intellectual habits, ending a two-week public challenge to identify an anonymous contribution he made. Vitalik Buterin has confirmed that AI-assisted analysis used by Co-Invest CEO Franklyn Wang correctly identified his anonymous contribution to an Ethereum proposal. The identification comes two weeks after Buterin publicly challenged whether current AI tools could pierce online anonymity. Wang's winning submission identified an anonymous rewrite of EIP-7503 by analyzing the way it explained mathematical and technical concepts.
Backed by Joe Lubin, BitMine and SharpLink, the independent organization will serve as a liaison for financial institutions exploring Ethereum as competition for institutional capital heats up. An Ethereum founder and some of its biggest treasury holders are behind a new independent nonprofit launched to coordinate the blockchain's institutional outreach, underscoring the ecosystem’s push to attract more banks, asset managers and financial institutions as competition from rival blockchains intensifies. The nonprofit, Ethereum Institutional, was introduced on Wednesday with backing from Ether (ETH) treasury companies BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink, as well as blockchain co-founder Joe Lubin and other contributors. It plans to expand beyond New York, London, Hong Kong and Singa…
BitMine and Joe Lubin back a new non profit called Ethlabs that aims to spur adoption. Binance shutters services in Europe after failing to secure a license. About 60% of users who placed their first World Cup bets on Polymarket had never interacted with blockchain protocols before, suggesting prediction markets are becoming an entry point into crypto. The finding is based on a 90-day Bitget Wallet study that tracked the onchain activity of 857,000 active Polymarket users. Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet, told Cointelegraph that earlier crypto onboarding efforts largely focused on making blockchain technology easier to understand through simpler wallets and better user interfaces, but users were still expected to learn how crypto worked before they could participate. “P…
Ether’s technical setup points to a potential drop to $1,375, a move that could lift one whale’s unrealized profit to $2.39 million. An Ethereum whale who shorted Ether (ETH) during the October 2025 crypto crash has returned after eight months of silence. Key takeaways: On Friday, wallet '0xf83f...6728' opened a 20x-leveraged ETH short worth $19.72 million as Ether reached the $1,500 support zone after dropping 18.25% over the last two weeks.
Ethereum’s latest “funding crisis” has triggered a fierce debate over whether to tax staking rewards or to pursue funding from large ETH holders for new organizations like EthLabs. Ethereum is running out of money, according to former insiders. The warning has sparked one of the fiercest Ethereum governance debates in months: should the network fund developers by taxing staking rewards, or just rely on wealthy Ether holders to bankroll its ecosystem? At the center of the debate is a controversial proposal from Kleros co-founder Clément Lesaege. He suggested redirecting up to 10% of validator rewards to ecosystem funding through a protocol-level mechanism called Validator Redirected Revenue.
Sharplink says the new nonprofit, Ethlabs, “exists to ensure the network is ready to absorb” the demand that institutions will place on it with stablecoins, tokenization and AI. Former Ethereum Foundation contributors and Ether treasury firms Bitmine and Sharplink have backed a new research and development nonprofit that aims to make Ethereum ready for institutional use. Sharplink said on Monday that the organization, Ethlabs, was formed to “ready Ethereum for the next phase of institutional adoption,” with the company pitching in with Bitmine, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and other Ethereum contributors on its funding effort. “As stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds and autonomous AI commerce move on-chain, they are converging on Ethereum as the neutral, credibly permissionles…
The warning comes as the Ethereum Foundation reduces spending, adjusts its treasury strategy and undergoes a wave of leadership departures. Former Ethereum Foundation contributor Trenton Van Epps warned that Ethereum is facing a core development funding crisis that will highlight the need for new funding sources in the next three to nine months. The former contributor wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the Ethereum Foundation's spending reduction and the expiration of the Client Incentive Program in April left the network's core development ecosystem requiring about $30 million in annual funding. Citing recent conversations with core development contributors, Epps said Ethereum risks entering a “slow-burning funding crisis."
The SPHINCS- proposal aims to reduce the cost of post-quantum signature verification on Ethereum while the network works toward a longer-term solution. Ethereum could begin adding post-quantum protections to accounts for as little as $0.07, without waiting for a hard fork, according to the Ethereum Foundation's Kohaku project lead Nicolas Consigny. In a Saturday X post, Consigny shared a paper proposing a cheaper way for Ethereum users to protect their accounts against future quantum-computing threats. The approach adapts SPHINCS+, a post-quantum signature standard developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, to work more efficiently on Ethereum. Dubbed “SPHINCS-,” the proposal aims to reduce onchain verification costs without requiring a protocol change or precompil…
BEAT has reached its most overbought readings on record, raising the odds of a 35% price decline in the coming days. BEAT, the native token of AI music platform Audiera, has exploded higher over the past month, surging more than 1,500% to a record high of $9.20 even as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) fell roughly 25% and 30%, respectively, in the same period. BEAT/USD vs. BTC/USD and ETH/USD 1-month price performance. Source: TradingView
