Crypto security, institutional custody, stablecoin settlement and Ethereum’s approaching Glamsterdam testnet fork shaped the week. MetaMask’s staking infrastructure incident triggered a large validator exit, Bitget began restoring withdrawals after its $387.5 million exploit, while NEAR Intents blocked more than $50 million in attempted flows linked to the attack. Stablecoin infrastructure continued moving into traditional finance as Lloyds and Visa completed a live USDC settlement pilot. On Ethereum, ACDC #188 kept Glamsterdam’s October 6 Sepolia activation on track while developers advanced Quick Slots and a reduced EIP-8365 toward Hegotá.

Catch up on last week's edition here.

This Week at a Glance

A. Regulation

• Aave Founder Stani Criticises ECB MiCA Rules: Aave founder Stani Kulechov criticised proposals emerging from the MiCA review around stablecoin yield and access to DeFi through regulated crypto service providers. The debate also raises questions around possible certification requirements for decentralised protocols.
• SEC Proposes New Crypto Rules for Advisers & Funds: The SEC proposed a crypto-specific custody framework that could allow registered investment advisers and regulated funds to self-custody qualifying digital assets under specified conditions while expanding the types of eligible crypto custodians.
• LIBRA & M3M3 Case Dismissed by U.S. Judge: A U.S. federal judge dismissed the LIBRA and M3M3 class-action lawsuit with prejudice, rejecting the plaintiffs’ RICO, fraud and Meteora-related claims while focusing the decision on whether the allegations met applicable legal standards.

B. Security

• MetaMask Exits Validators Holding $1.4B: Onchain analysis indicates roughly 17,000 MetaMask-operated validators holding around 523,000 ETH entered the exit process following the staking infrastructure incident. Researchers also identified diverted validator rewards connected to the affected operation.
• MetaMask Security Incident Triggers Lido Validator Exits: MetaMask began proactively exiting affected validators after detecting an infrastructure security incident. Lido said stETH holders did not need to take action, while Aave reported no immediate market impact.
• Bitget Resumes Withdrawals After $387M Hack: Bitget began restoring withdrawals after its September 24 security incident, with the estimated affected amount rising to roughly $387.5 million following additional transaction classification.
• NEAR Blocks $50M From Bitget Hackers: NEAR Intents identified and blocked more than $50 million in attempted flows linked to the Bitget exploit, while another roughly $503,000 was frozen during execution.
• How Lazarus Group Became One of Crypto’s Biggest Security Threats: Lazarus Group’s evolving attack strategy shows how crypto attackers are increasingly targeting exchanges, bridges, governance systems and trusted infrastructure rather than relying only on smart-contract vulnerabilities.
• Coinbase Users Report $1.2M Account Lock: Coinbase users reported large balances being restricted, renewing debate around exchange account freezes, compliance controls and the difficulty users can face when resolving prolonged restrictions.

C. Privacy

• Ethereum Foundation Launches zkAPI for Private AI: The Ethereum Foundation and Open Anonymity Project launched zkAPI, allowing users to pay for AI inference and metered APIs with ETH or USDC while using zero-knowledge proofs to separate payment authorization from persistent identity.
• ENS Links Onchain Names With Legal Entities: ENS Labs and GLEIF are exploring a link between ENS names and verifiable Legal Entity Identifiers, potentially giving institutions a standardized way to verify organisations and counterparties onchain.

D. Global

• Lloyds & Visa Test USDC Settlement Across Borders: Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed a seven-day live USDC settlement pilot involving $750,000 in real-world dollar obligations and connecting institutional infrastructure with public blockchain networks.
• Pi Network Joins the OUSD Stablecoin Push: Pi Network partnered with Open Standard as OUSD launched across Ethereum, Base, Solana and Tempo with infrastructure connections spanning Stripe, Mastercard, Coinbase and Visa.
• OpenAI’s Dots Need a Wallet. Is Ethereum Ready?: The rise of autonomous AI agents raises a new payments question around how agents will hold funds, purchase APIs and services and transact independently, with Ethereum, stablecoins, x402 and programmable wallets emerging as possible infrastructure.
• BitMine Surpasses 6M ETH With $17.2B Treasury: BitMine increased its Ethereum treasury beyond six million ETH after another 17,362 ETH purchase, with approximately 84% of its holdings reported as staked.

Ethereum Protocol

1. Ethereum Protocol Update: ACDC #188

• Glamsterdam remains scheduled for Sepolia on October 6 at 13:53 UTC, with the public-testnet activation unchanged.
• Hoodi remains tentatively targeted for October 27, dependent on the outcome of the Sepolia activation and subject to confirmation at ACDE.
• EIP-8365 moved to CFI for Hegotá in reduced form, covering the deposit guard while splitting the forced-exit mechanism into a separate future proposal.
• EIP-8333 was withdrawn by Lodestar following concerns around coupling checkpoint behavior to epoch-boundary blocks.

2. PQ Transaction Signatures #016

• EIP-8288 signature aggregation emerged as the next major implementation target, moving the post-quantum work toward aggregation rather than treating individual large signatures as the final network format.
• Nethermind and ethrex are expected to integrate LeanVM verification, bringing post-quantum verification experiments closer to execution-client implementations.

3. FOCIL Breakout #043

• FOCIL Devnet 0 moved closer to launch, continuing the strategy of testing FOCIL independently before combining it with Frame Transactions in a broader Hegotá devnet.
• Testing surfaced a missing piece around inclusion-list bits in the payload-attributes stream, requiring further Engine API / implementation coordination.

Ethereum Standards Updates

Six ERCs moved to Last Call, while ERC-7813 reached Final and EIP-8411 entered Draft. Glamsterdam is approaching its Sepolia activation on October 6, with Hoodi tentatively planned for October 27.

Hegota advanced EIP-8365 and EIP-8198 to CFI, while EIP-8379 was declined and other candidates remain under review. This week’s featured proposal, EIP-8411, explores faster execution payload propagation to improve Ethereum’s networking efficiency.

Read the full update on EIPsInsight.

Clients Latest Releases

• Execution Layer:

  • Nethermind 2.1.0 - NEW RELEASE
  • Geth 1.17.7 - NEW RELEASE
  • Erigon 3.7.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Besu 26.9.0 - NEW RELEASE
  • Reth 2.7.0 - NEW RELEASE
  • EthereumJS 10.1.3

• Consensus Layer:

  • Teku 26.9.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Nimbus 26.9.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Prysm 7.2.0 - NEW RELEASE
  • Lodestar 1.49.0 - NEW RELEASE
  • Lighthouse 8.2.3 - NEW RELEASE

Podcasts

1. Uneasy Money: The $388M Bitget Hack Started With a Security Vendor: Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan, Austin Griffith & Pablo Sabbat examine how a third-party security product was exploited in the Bitget attack, North Korea attribution, THORChain neutrality, NEAR SHIELD & Vitalik Buterin’s longer-term Ethereum roadmap.
2. DEX in the City: The Hosts Sign Off With Their Best Advice for Women in Crypto: Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Jessi Brooks & Vy Le reflect on working in crypto, navigating the industry through multiple market cycles, regulatory experiences after FTX & lessons for people entering the sector.

Upcoming Events

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• EDCON 2026: Oct 17–18 | Kuala Lumpur
• Ethereum Stablecoin Summit: Oct 19
• ETHVenice 2026: Oct 21 | Venice
• Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #3: Nov 2 | Mumbai
• Devcon 8: Nov 3–6 | Mumbai
• Pragma Mumbai: Nov 4 | Mumbai
• ETHGlobal Mumbai: Nov 5–7 | Mumbai

Jobs

• Jump Crypto: Crypto Production Engineer: Work on validator infrastructure, RPC nodes, distributed systems, monitoring & blockchain production infrastructure.
• Offchain Labs: Senior Backend Engineer — Remote backend engineering role focused on blockchain scalability, distributed systems & infrastructure across the Ethereum ecosystem.
• Cypherock Wallet: Software Engineer: Engineering role covering cryptography, Rust, functional programming, Ethereum & secure digital-asset key management.
• Ethena Labs: Execution Trader: Remote trading role at the Ethereum-based USDe protocol covering digital-asset markets, execution & DeFi infrastructure.

Community Spotlight

EtherWorld has joined EDCON 2026 as an official community partner, supporting one of Ethereum’s major global community gatherings ahead of the event in Kuala Lumpur. The partnership will focus on helping amplify Ethereum ecosystem conversations, community participation and key developments around the conference.

EDCON 2026 will take place on October 17–18 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bringing together developers, researchers, builders and community members from across the Ethereum ecosystem. For EtherWorld, the collaboration extends its ongoing focus on Ethereum protocol developments, education and community coverage while connecting its readers with another major ecosystem event.

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