Local Ethereum #14
Prague funds a hacker house on-chain, Hong Kong licenses its first stablecoin issuers, and builders gather from Mumbai to Warsaw.
Greetings! đ
A lot happened this month, and not just on the price charts. From quantum resistance roadmaps to Ethereumâs role in an AI-driven future, the conversations shaping the ecosystem are getting sharper.
Hereâs what matters, from every corner of the globe.
đşď¸ Regional Adoption
Fun experiment
Prague, Czechia: Our friend Mario Havel successfully raised $180k through a Bordel crowdloaning campaign to fund a DeFi mortgage for a new hacker community space. Itâs a kind of peerâtoâpeer lending where individuals lend money directly, instead of relying on donations. There are no banks, no loan sharks, and no middlemen, just the power of Ethereum making it all possible.
Policy
Hong Kong SAR: Hong Kong to issue first stablecoin issuer licenses in March 2026.
Japan: Bank of Japan to test blockchain-based reserve settlement.
Malaysia: Malaysiaâs central bank to launch three stablecoin and tokenized deposit initiatives in 2026.
Europe: European bank consortium targets 2026 launch for euro-backed stablecoin.
đŞ Global Ecosystem Update
Scale L1, Scale Blobs and Improve UI/UX
Protocol Priorities Update for 2026 - 3 new tracks: Scale, Improve UX and Harden the L1.
Justin Drake introduced the âstrawmapâ roadmap, built around five north stars: a fast L1 with short slots and finality in seconds; a gigagas L1 hitting 1 gigagas/sec (10K TPS) via zkEVMs and real-time proving; a teragas L2 reaching 1 gigabyte/sec (10M TPS) via data availability sampling; a post-quantum L1 with durable cryptography via hash-based schemes; and a private L1 with first-class privacy via shielded ETH transfers. For a plain breakdown, check out Jamesâs Idiotâs Guide to Ethereumâs 2029 Strawmap.
Vitalik lays out the quantum resistance roadmap targeting four areas: consensus-layer BLS signatures, data availability (KZG commitments and proofs), EOA signatures (ECDSA), and application-layer ZK proofs (KZG or Groth16).
DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments
âEthereum Foundation believes in Defipunkâ, with focus on strengthening builder relationships and advancing security, decentralization, openness, privacy, standards, risk clarity, research, and content. The initiative spans domains such as DeFi Ă AI, institutional DeFi adoption, stablecoins and payments, and emerging financial primitives that donât fit neatly into existing categories.
Ethereum Foundation has begun staking part of ether treasury, with approximately 70,000âŻETH being staked and rewards directed back to the EF treasury.
In the past 30 days, x402 has processed 75.41M transactions with $24.24M volume.
Visa and Stripe plan global expansion of stablecoin card issuance product to over 100 countries.
Fintech and insurance giant TruStage pilots stablecoin geared for credit unions.
Ether.fi shifts non-custodial crypto card product to OP Mainnet from Scroll.
Stripe adds x402 integration for USDC agent payments on Base.
Robinhood launches public testnet for blockchain built on Arbitrum.
Barclays exploring blockchain settlement tools as banks brace for stablecoin growth.
Ethereumâs tokenized RWA market jumps more than 300% year over year as value tops $17 billion.
Defending DeFi in the Age of AI Offensive Tooling: A reality check on AI-powered attack tools, human audits, and defense strategies, before hype and panic lead to poor security decisions, by BlockThreat.
For more on enterprise + Ethereum, check out the Enterprise Onchain Newsletter by James and David Walsh.
AI + Ethereum
Introducing clawd.atg.eth, an AI agent with a wallet, building onchain apps and tools, by Austin Griffith.
ETH2030: Agentic Coding ETH Client for 2030+ Roadmap, YQ single-handedly coded an Ethereum client using agentic coding, targeting the entire 2030+ roadmap.
Cool experiment by Raul: two trustless agents discover each other over P2P (BitTorrent Mainline DHT) and agree on a content-addressed Wasm program as their shared state machine. They then transact in turns, emitting provable traces along the way.
A better explanation on what ERC-8004 is by Vitto Rivabella.
Web4.0: The Birth of Superintelligent Life and the Autonomous Web, by Sigil Wen. Is it better than Web3.0?
A great read: AI Needs Crypto - Especially Now by a16z Crypto.
Vitalik sketches a near-term vision for Ethereumâs role in an AI-driven future. His updated view focuses on the shorter term, where Ethereum plays an important role but remains just one piece of a bigger puzzle: building tooling for more trustless and/or private interactions with AIs, using Ethereum as an economic layer for AI-related interactions, making the cypherpunk âmountain manâ vision a reality, and building better markets and governance.
đ˘ Ecosystem Data
Client diversity
Lighthouse currently holds 51.48% of consensus client share, crossing the majority threshold. Consider switching to a minority client for client diversity!
cr: https://clientdiversity.org/#distribution Total value locked on Ethereum
As of writing (Mar 5, 2026), Ethereumâs total value locked (TVL) sits at $295.6B, largely flat compared to late February despite ongoing market volatility.
RWA growth on Ethereum
RWA growth on Ethereum exceeded the combined total of the next five chains in 2025.
cr: https://rwa.xyz/ ERC-8004 continues to gain traction
Ethereum mainnet now hosts ~13.9k registered agents with ~2.5k feedback entries, up from 11k agents and ~2k feedbacks last month.
đĄ Opportunities
Ethereum Foundation 2026 PhD Fellowship: Supporting PhD students in Ethereum-related research. Apply by April 1, 2026
Ethereum Protocol Studies 2026: EFâs protocol study program with new tracks in cryptography and Lean Consensus/zkEVM, plus a year-round self-paced learning platform. Started February 23, visit epf.wiki to join.
LI.FI Vibeathon on build autonomous agents: Build autonomous agents that move capital across chains. Submit by March 9, 2026.
muShanghai Pop-Up City: Month-long builder city in Shanghai (May 10-June 6) with theme weeks on AI, biotech, robotics, and gaming. Apply now.
Kolektyw3 Community Hub @ ETHWarsaw: Ethereum community hub in Warsaw with meetups, workshops, and coworking for Polish builders. Opening event March 12 - grab your spot, cowork or donate!
ETHCluj 2026 Volunteer Program: Volunteer at ETHCluj (May 13-14) for full conference access plus meals. Apply by April 10, 2026.
Community Privacy Residency 2026: 3-week residency (July 15-August 6) to build open-source privacy tools. Tracks: Countersurveillance, Privacy & Cryptography in AI, and Community Infrastructure. Apply by March 29, 2026.
⨠Highlighted Events in March and April
Aleph March â26, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 4-26, 2026. Month-long pop-up city.
Aleph Hackathon, Argentina & LATAM, Mar 20-22, 2026. Online & IRL hackathon.
ETHSF 2026, San Francisco, USA, Mar 9-14, 2026. Week-long of curated talks, workshops, and collaboration.
Ethereum Unblock SF, San Francisco, USA, Mar 10-12, 2026. Three-day design sprint.
Funding the Commons SF: Intelligence at the Frontier, San Francisco, USA, Mar 14-15, 2026. Two-day conference.
ETHMumbai, Mumbai, India, Mar 12-15, 2026. Hackathon.
EthCC, Cannes, France, Mar 30-Apr 2, 2026. Europeâs largest annual Ethereum conference.
BEAST MODE | zkEVM, Cannes, France, Mar 28, 2026. EthCC side event.
FORT MODE | post-quantum consensus, Cannes, France, Mar 29, 2026. EthCC side event.
ETHGlobal Cannes, Cannes, France, Apr 3-Apr 5, 2026. Hackathon during EthCC 2026.
ZuKas, KaĹ, Turkey, Apr 10-May 9, 2026. Month-long pop-up village.
Ethereum Zurich, ZĂźrich, Switzerland, Apr 10-12, 2026. Two-day conference.
ETHSilesia 2026, Katowice, Poland, Apr 16-19, 2026. Four-day conference + hackathon by ETHWarsaw.
For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List! đ
Thanks for reading! Spring is just around the corner - see you soon!
Best regards,
Riely & the Geode Labs team
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