Key news in Ethereum ecosystem from last week

25-31 March

Apr 01, 2024

First Spike in Blob Fees Causes Percentage of Lost Blocks in Ethereum to Spike.
Prague Escalation Discussion.
Bitwise Submits Ethereum Spot ETF Application to SEC.
London Stock Exchange Accepts Applications for Ethereum Crypto ETN Trading.
Number of Ethereum Validators Surpasses 1 Million.
Polygon zkEVM experienced a 10-hour outage.

First Spike in Blob Fees Causes Percentage of Lost Blocks in Ethereum to Spike

On March 27, Blob fees spiked for the first time, and the launch of a website called "blobscriptions.io" triggered an influx of Blob trading activity. The type of inscription activity on Ethereum is essentially similar to that on Bitcoin, including users minting irreplaceable and replaceable tokens on the chain. From March 26th to 27th, total hourly blob payments to Ethereum increased from less than $5,000 to more than $15,000. the increase in blob activity resulted in a spike in the percentage of lost blocks on Ether. On average, every half hour, about 2% to 4% of blocks were missed or failed to be included in the canonical chain of Ethereum blocks. increased blob activity caused the percentage of lost blocks on Ethereum to skyrocket. On average, about 2% to 4% of blocks are missing or failing to be included in the canonical chain of Ethereum blocks every half hour. prysm developer Terence Tsao said the rise was caused by a Bloxroute MEV relay issue, which is being investigated by the Bloxroute team. The Bloxroute team has yet to confirm if the issue was caused by their relay.

Prague Escalation Discussion

The Ethereum developers approved the activation of EIP 7610 and 7523 at Prague/Electra Upgrade at ACDE #184, in addition to discussing development updates to other candidate EIPs, such as EIP 7547 (Include Lists), EIP 5920 (PAY opcodes), and EIP 7545 (Verkle Proof Validation precompilation).

https://www.galaxy.com/insights/research/ethereum-all-core-developers-execution-call-184/

Bitwise Submits Ethereum Spot ETF Application to U.S. SEC

Bitwise has filed an Ethereum Spot ETF application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The move comes after Matt Hougan, Bitwise's chief information officer, said earlier this month that the Ethereum Spot ETF should ideally be approved after May. According to Bloomberg ETF analysts, the likelihood of the Ethereum Spot ETF being approved in May is about 30 percent.

https://www.theblock.co/post/285512/bitwise-files-for-spot-ethereum-etf-amid-sec-approval-uncertainty

London Stock Exchange Accepts Applications for Ethereum Crypto ETN Trading

The London Stock Exchange will begin accepting applications for trading in bitcoin and ethereum crypto ETNs on April 8, 2024, and the Exchange proposes that the first day of trading in these crypto ETN securities will be May 28, 2024, subject to approval of the Base Prospectus by the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

https://docs.londonstockexchange.com/sites/default/files/documents/n0324.pdf