Good evening,
For my readers in the U.S., I hope you enjoyed a restful day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
For my readers elsewhere in the world, happy Monday. I hope you had a good start to the workweek and that this email finds you enjoying a quiet evening after a productive day.
I enjoyed a mix of both work and rest today. Part of my day was spent covering the most recent All Core Developers (ACD) meeting, ACDT #66, where Ethereum developers finalized the shortlist of candidates for the Glamsterdam upgrade.
Below, I summarize the key decisions from ACDT #66. I also discuss Vitalik Buterin’s most recent outburst on X regarding what Ethereum needs to win.
Spoiler alert: It’s nothing we haven’t heard before, and it’s nothing that makes me rethink Ethereum’s trajectory for 2026 and beyond.
However, it is worth considering why this is the case. So, I encourage my readers to read to the very end of today’s newsletter to get my full take, and engage with me in the comments or the Telegram chat afterward with your thoughts.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
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🗒️ Call Minutes
(For background on the ACD process and jargon used on these calls, refer to the Ethereum Governance 101 document in the ACD Toolkit.)
BALs Devnet-1 Updates
Block-level-access lists (BALs) Devnet-1 is operating smoothly. Syncing issues across all clients have been fixed, and fuzz testing has not revealed major bugs in client code.
Benchmarking clients will be an exercise pushed to Devnet-2.
BALs Devnet-2 Scope
Developers agreed to include the following four Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and four pull requests (PRs) to the scope of Devnet-2:
EIP 7843, SLOTNUM opcode
Ethereum/EIPs PR #11083, Consistent naming, plus Engine API changes for EIP 7843
Ethereum/Execution-APIs PR #731, Add EIP 7843 changes
EIP 8024, Backward compatible SWAPN, DUPN, EXCHANGE
EIP 7778, Block Gas Accounting without Refunds
Ethereum/Execution-Specs PR #1401, Implement EIP-7778 Block Gas Accounting without Refunds
EIP 7708, ETH transfers emit a log
Ethereum/EIPs PR #9003, Move EIP 7708 to draft
The only PR they agreed not to include in Devnet-2 due to a lack of consensus on the change was Ethereum/EIPs PR #11094, Switch encoding to push-postfix for EIP 8024.
ePBS Devnet-0 Timeline
Consensus-layer (CL) developers struggled to reach consensus on a timeline for testing enshrined proposer builder separation (ePBS) implementation on a local Kurtosis test network, let alone a multi-client devnet.
Developers agreed to discuss timelines again on this Thursday’s All Core Developers (ACD) call and to explicitly specify which features, such as trustless payments and external block building, will not be enabled on an ePBS testnet initially.
Glamsterdam EIP Decisions
Developers agreed to consider for inclusion (CFI) EIP 8037, State Creation Gas Cost Increase. However, they also acknowledged that further discussion is needed on the proposal’s design, specifically from smart contract developers.
For an overview of all CFI’d Glamsterdam EIPs, see this Google spreadsheet.
MEV-Boost Sidecar Deprecation
Developers discussed the next steps for deprecating MEV-Boost and maintaining specifications for connecting validators directly to external block builders in client software.
Prysm developer “Potuz” emphasized that a shared standard for client flags will be maintained in the builder specifications repository, but other specifications for connecting validators to builders should become client-specific after the Glamsterdam upgrade.
🌕 That’s all for my summary of ACDT #66. Continue reading for pointed takeaways on Ethereum protocol development, featuring direct quotes and additional context on key topics. To read the rest of the newsletter, make sure you are signed up for a premium subscription:
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🔎 Insights
(Quotes featured in this section may be edited for grammar and clarity. For more information on the people quoted in this section, refer to the ACD Call Directory in the ACD Toolkit.)
Vitalik’s social media tear
Ethereum’s most prominent figurehead, co-founder Vitalik Buterin, has been on a tear lately on X.
Since January 1, and continuing as of today, Buterin has published a series of long, emphatic posts laying out what Ethereum needs in order to succeed.
Though long, none of it is especially new.
In summary, what Ethereum needs, according to Buterin is:
