Market meltdown, Core dev updates and more - The Daily Gwei Refuel #847 - Ethereum Updates
Speaker
Anthony Sassano
Founder of The Daily Gwei
- •Institutional regime: Crypto has shifted from a retail-driven, counterculture phase to an institution-led era catalyzed by BTC and ETH ETFs, concentrating flows into BTC and ETH.
- •Altcoin fragility exposed: A rapid leverage unwind on perp DEXes triggered the sharpest long-tail drawdown in memory, highlighting thin liquidity and the risk of liquidation cascades.
- •Near-term scaling upgrade: The next Ethereum upgrade centered on PeerDAS targets an early December mainnet, initially lifting blob capacity conservatively with room for fast, parameter-only increases.
- •MEV resilience roadmap: The following fork prioritizes ePBS and Block-level Access Lists to harden censorship resistance and reduce reliance on today’s external builder-relay stack.
- •Lean Ethereum direction: Research is coalescing around light verification and heavy block production, zk-ifying core components, and moving toward eventual L1 ossification while preserving validator control via inclusion lists.
- •Privacy and AI primitives: New wallet privacy rails and an ERC to model AI agents as NFTs set the stage for enterprise-grade privacy and onchain agent ecosystems.
- •L2 consolidation and UX endgame: Arbitrum One and Base lead by usage and TPS; the long tail will persist, but the end-state target is seamless, based rollup UX where users feel like they are simply using Ethereum.
On Institutional Era and Market Structure
Anthony Sassano frames 2009 to 2023 as crypto’s underground epoch and argues 2023 onward is the institutional era. The launch of BTC and ETH ETFs shifted flows toward benchmark assets, with organizations like SWIFT piloting with ConsenSys and Linea, and firms such as BlackRock and Fidelity building product. Anthony’s view is that retail toxicity matters less now because macro allocators and compliance-led buyers set the pace. That undercuts the classic four-year cycle and the old beta ladder where BTC rises, then ETH, then alts. In this regime, size and legitimacy dominate, which explains why BTC and ETH hold up comparatively well while many altcoins struggle to sustain value without structural demand.
On The Altcoin Liquidation Cascade
Anthony details one of the fastest alt selloffs he has seen, with many tokens dropping 40 to 90 percent within one to two hours, while BTC and ETH fell far less. He attributes the depth and speed to accumulated leverage on perp DEXes like Hyperliquid and others, magnified by points farming and cross-margin features. When prices dipped, liquidations cascaded, MEV searchers sold seized collateral, liquidity vanished, and market makers stepped back until the dust settled. A macro headline shock may have nudged the start, but the plumbing was the cause. His bottom line is simple: there is no truly safe leverage, especially in illiquid long-tail assets that can gap well past posted liquidation levels before anyone can react.
On Upcoming Ethereum Upgrades and PeerDAS
Anthony expects the next mainnet upgrade featuring PeerDAS in early December, following recent test forks on Holesky and an imminent Sepolia fork. PeerDAS will increase blob capacity carefully at launch, with a target of six and a max of nine, and then scale via blob-only parameter changes as the network demonstrates stability. With blobs already near capacity, the timing is pragmatic. He recommends tracking plans and status on Forkcast, which consolidates EIP scope, testing milestones, and stakeholder impact.
On ePBS, Inclusion Lists, and BALs
Looking past PeerDAS, Anthony highlights the fork he calls Amsterdam, where two headliners are already accepted: ePBS and BALs. Inclusion Lists are still under consideration. The package addresses the central risk that most validators outsource block building through MEV-Boost. ePBS shifts critical builder-relay logic into the protocol to improve liveness and censorship resistance. BALs add a structured way to control access at the block level. Inclusion Lists would let validators force the inclusion of specific transactions to uphold neutrality. He credits work by researchers including Toni Wahrstätter and resources like mevboost.pics for making builder dynamics transparent.
On Lean Ethereum and the Path to Ossification
Anthony points to the Lean Ethereum roadmap, previously discussed as the Beam Chain effort, now with roughly 15 client teams engaged. The philosophy is to keep verification light and make block production heavy, embracing ZK proofs to compress verification while acknowledging that building blocks will need robust hardware. Validator power is preserved through mechanisms like Inclusion Lists, while rewards design and rainbow staking can split roles to keep home validators relevant. The strategic arc includes zk-ifying core protocol components and gradually ossifying L1 so it changes less often, enhancing reliability without freezing progress. Crucially, this research proceeds in parallel with regular network upgrades.
On Privacy and AI Primitives
Two emerging tracks stand out. First, privacy: the Ethereum Foundation surfaced Kohaku, a wallet-focused SDK and reference browser extension that enables secure, private transactions while minimizing trust in third parties. This aligns with institutional requirements for transactional privacy and the community’s user-sovereignty ethos. Second, AI agents: ERC-8004 proposes modeling agents as ERC-721 NFTs so they can be minted, transferred, delegated, and endowed with onchain reputation and payment proofs. Co-authors from the Ethereum Foundation, Google, and Coinbase are pushing toward portable, composable agents that can operate across L1 and L2s.
On L2 Momentum and Consolidation
During the selloff, Grow The Pie tracked an ecosystem high of roughly 2,835 TPS across L2s, with Arbitrum One near 1,400 TPS and Base close to 1,000. On L2Beat, Arbitrum One and Base remain dominant by total value secured, OP Mainnet holds a surprising third, and Linea has climbed on the back of a token launch and ConsenSys-led business development. Unichain’s TVL roughly halved after incentives wound down, underscoring how mercenary liquidity can be. Anthony expects a power-law distribution where only a handful of L2s achieve durable scale. The endgame is a seamless user experience powered by based rollups, where atomic composition across L1 and L2s feels like using Ethereum without bridges or RPC changes.
- →Monitor the PeerDAS rollout and subsequent blob-only parameter increases, which will directly govern L2 cost curves and capacity.
- →Track ePBS, BALs, and Inclusion Lists decisions, as they reshape builder markets, censorship resistance, and validator economics.
- →Watch L2 consolidation dynamics and enterprise privacy demand, since they will determine where real activity and sustainable fees accrue.