ACD After Hours: ACDC #178 🌙
ICYMI, a round-up of important news for Ethereum protocol developers
Good evening,
Tonight, instead of focusing on one main story, I’m diving into three developments shaping the Ethereum and broader crypto developer ecosystem right now:
A status update on the Clarity Act, a consequential U.S. bill impacting protocol developers and open-source blockchain development
Leadership changes at the Ethereum Foundation, the leading organization spearheading Ethereum core development
Growing concern about the sustainability of public goods funding for critical Ethereum developer tooling, such as Vyper
Let’s get into it.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
🗒️ Call Minutes
First, a quick summary of the latest Ethereum developer call, All Core Developers Execution (ACDC) #178.
Glamsterdam Devnet Updates
Developers reviewed the scope of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) for Glamsterdam-Devnet-4.
They confirmed eth/70 and eth/71 for inclusion in Glamsterdam-Devnet-4. They deferred a decision on eth/72, as the specifications for this proposal have not yet been finalized.
There are two pull requests (PRs) that require review by the execution layer (EL) client teams before inclusion in Glamsterdam-Devnet-4. They are:
The final EL-focused Glamsterdam devnet, Bal-Devnet-7, is expected to launch next Monday, May 18. Depending on the devnet’s stability, developers agreed to reassess which EL client branches to test on Glamsterdam-Devnet-4.
Refer to this Google spreadsheet for an overview of the testing and inclusion status of all Glamsterdam EIPs.
Glamsterdam Code Changes
Regarding the proposal to cap validator deposit requests, Ethereum Foundation (EF) Developer Operations Engineer Barnabas Busa acknowledged concerns that the changes may create denial-of-service attack vectors on the EL.
Developers share initial benchmarking results implementing the proposal with the Prysm and Teku clients. They agreed to collect additional analysis from other clients and work on client-level optimizations to enable a deposit cap, rather than going with a deposit queue approach.
For background on the validator deposit requests issue, refer to last week’s ACD After Hours post.
There are two outstanding proposals to add a new data serialization format, SSZ, to the Engine API. While they both do the same thing, one proposes refactoring the Engine API with the SSZ addition. Developers leaned towards Busa’s simpler proposal, but agreed to continue discussing both.
Hegota Proposals
EF P2P Networking Engineer Sukun Tarachandani presented various changes to committee attestation broadcast specifications that would help reduce Ethereum block times from 12 to 8 seconds.
EF zkEVM Researchers Francesco Andreoli and Ignacio Hagopian presented EIP 8025, Optional Execution Proofs, for inclusion in Hegota.
🌕 That’s all for my summary of ACDC #178. Continue reading for my insights on Ethereum development and governance. To read the rest of the newsletter, make sure you are signed up for a premium subscription:
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🔎 Insights
Clarity Act Clears U.S. Senate Banking Committee Review
Today, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee approved the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in a 15–9 bipartisan vote and advanced the bill to the full Senate for further review. The vote signals that the legislation still has a viable path to becoming law before the 2026 midterm elections, though additional rounds of negotiation and voting remain.
