Local Ethereum #16

DeFi United: Hacked. Coordinated. Unbroken.

Greetings! 👋

April was a month of extremes, and a reminder of what makes Ethereum different. One of the ecosystem’s largest DeFi hack in years laid bare the fragility of cross-chain infrastructure, but the community’s response was swift, coordinated, and unprecedented in scale.

We’ve cut through the noise and focused on what has lasting relevance for builders, communities, and anyone paying attention to where Ethereum is heading.

🗺️ Regional Adoption

• U.S.: The SEC issued guidance exempting DeFi front‑ends (swap UIs, wallet interfaces) from broker‑dealer registration, as long as they provide no investment advice, take no custody of user funds, disclose transparent fixed fees, and clearly state their unregulated status. The framework is framed as interim clarity valid for five years.

• Japan: Two major crypto card launches hit in a single week, Bitbank’s EPOS Crypto Card (bills settled in BTC from exchange balance) and SBI’s Visa Crypto Card (spending points auto-converted into BTC, ETH, or XRP). Both lower the barrier for crypto holders to use their assets in daily life, while merchants still receive yen and the crypto conversion is handled automatically in the background.

• Taiwan: Taipei’s Ethereum and OSS+privacy communities are joining forces to co-curate a blockchain and privacy track at COSCUP 2026, a good example of local Ethereum and open source communities building together.

• Singapore: OCBC, Lion Global Investors, and DigiFT launched GOLDX, Southeast Asia’s first tokenised physical gold fund on Ethereum and Solana, subscribable via stablecoin or fiat, as the broader tokenised RWA market has grown 10x to $18.2B since January 2024.

• Romania: The country builds quietly, read our Romania Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.

🪐 Global Ecosystem Update

Scaling, UX, and hardness

• Soldøgn Interop recap, Glamsterdam takes shape above the Arctic Circle: 100+ Ethereum core contributors spent a week in Svalbard hardening the Glamsterdam upgrade, emerging with three key deliverables:

  • A 200M post-Glamsterdam gas limit floor: made possible by ePBS (more execution time per slot), Block-Level Access Lists (throughput headroom), and EIP-8037 (prevents runaway state growth at higher gas limits)

  • Stable multi-client ePBS running with external builders end-to-end

  • Final EIP-8037 gas repricing numbers locked in

  • Meaningful progress also made on Hegotá features: FOCIL and native account abstraction

• ETH Rangers Program Recap: The EF’s six-month public goods security stipend wrapped up. 17 recipients delivered $5.8M recovered or frozen, 785+ vulnerabilities reported, and ~100 North Korean IT workers identified across Web3 teams. A strong proof that securing a decentralized network requires a decentralized defense.

• Gnosis, ZisK, and the Ethereum Foundation unveiled the Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) at EthCC Cannes, a rollup framework that lets smart contracts on connected L2s interact with each other and Ethereum mainnet synchronously in a single transaction, no bridges needed, with ETH as the default gas token.

DeFi, Stablecoins & Payments

• The KelpDAO Bridge Exploit: On April 18, North Korea’s Lazarus Group drained 116,500 rsETH (~$292M) from KelpDAO’s LayerZero bridge by compromising off-chain RPC nodes, then looped the stolen collateral across Aave, Compound, and Euler to borrow ~$236M in WETH, collapsing Aave’s WETH liquidity from $689M to $1.5M in two hours. The fallout left Aave facing ~$200M in bad debt, prompting the DeFi United coalition to raise $328M+ from 126k+ wallets, with the Arbitrum Security Council separately freezing ~30,766 ETH of exploiter funds. Read Chainalysis’s and Glassnode’s full breakdown.

  

  cr: https://defiunited.world/

• Kalshi & Polymarket are both launching perps: In late April, the two dominant prediction market platforms announced plans to launch perpetual futures in the U.S., ahead of an expected CFTC framework, in what would be the first domestic perps offering. The launches land at a pivotal moment in the CEX vs. DEX war, with Polymarket, Kalshi, and Hyperliquid's HIP-4 all entering the arena, the next era's defining race is shaping up to be whether CEX or DEX build the first true financial "Super-App."

  

  cr: https://www.gsr.io/insights/gsr-weekly-update-april-27th-2026

• Tempo launches Zones: Tempo's new privacy framework creates private execution environments that run parallel to its public mainnet, where transaction details are visible to the Zone operator but hidden from outside observers. Funds are locked in a mainnet contract and can only be withdrawn by their owner, operators can order transactions but cannot move user assets. The design sits between fully public chains and cryptographic privacy solutions like Aztec or ZKsync's Prividium: operators see all activity inside a Zone, users see only their own, and the public sees only deposit and withdrawal events.

  

  cr: https://tempo.xyz/blog/privacy-on-tempo

  

  cr: https://www.gsr.io/insights/gsr-weekly-update-april-20th-2026

• The DAT model is under pressure, and needs to evolve: The “raise-buy-appreciate” flywheel that drove digital asset treasury (DAT) companies through 2025 has stalled, asset prices are down, market-to-NAV has compressed to near 1, and some DATs are already selling assets to buy back shares. Galaxy argues that PoS DATs in particular must shift from passive token holders to active capital deployers, generating recurring revenue through strategies like staking, basis trading, MEV capture, DeFi liquidity provision, and acquiring ecosystem businesses, otherwise consolidation or collapse is the likely outcome. Read Galaxy’s full breakdown.

• a16z The new stack for global finance: Stablecoins edition: Stablecoins have evolved from trading instruments into foundational financial infrastructure, enabling a new generation of banking-as-a-service where payments, FX, credit, and investing can be bundled without legacy bank partnerships. The bigger prize isn’t payments but what comes after: credit and wealth management for billions currently underserved by traditional finance. Stripe (Bridge, Privy) and Mastercard (BVNK) are already making consolidation plays to own key pieces of the stack. Read more.

  

  cr: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/global-finance-stablecoins-new-stack

• Two Recommended Long Reads from James Smith, Head of Ecodev at the EF, on how the two biggest stablecoin players actually make money: Tether Is Not a Stablecoin Company and Stripe Is Trying to Make Crypto Disappear.

Privacy

• A practical privacy stack for everyday users: @Techjunkie_Aman shares simple default swaps—Gmail → Tuta, Chrome → Brave, WhatsApp → Signal, Google Drive → Filen—and a deeper tier for the more serious: GrapheneOS, Mullvad DNS, Kagi. For more inspiration, Web3Privacy has a nice series exploring what FOSS stack experts actually use, including Keith from Brave’s selections.

• ZK Privacy skill ships for ETHSkills: A new “Privacy Apps with Noir” skill just landed on ETHSkills.com, drop ethskills.com/noir/SKILL.md into your AI agent and start building ZK privacy apps with Noir.

  

  cr: privacypack.org ; stacks.web3privacy.info

📊 Ecosystem Data

1. Security Watch

   Security is more critical than ever: April 2026’s total value hacked reached $348M, and zooming out, North Korea’s Lazarus Group stole 76% of all crypto hack value in 2026 YTD across just two attacks, with cumulative theft now exceeding $6B since 2017. Track the full landscape on DefiLlama’s Crypto Hack Dashboard.

   

   cr: https://defillama.com/hacks

   

   cr: https://www.gsr.io/insights/gsr-weekly-update-april-20th-2026

2. Stablecoin Market Cap on Ethereum: $165.4B (as at 5th May, 2026)

   Ethereum mainnet holds $165.4B in stablecoin market cap, leading the largest of any network, ahead of TRON ($86.7B), Solana ($15.0B), and BNB Chain ($13.0B).

   

   cr: https://app.rwa.xyz/stablecoins

Opportunities

• Ethereum Security Subsidy Program: A $1M audit subsidy pool for Ethereum mainnet builders, backed by the EF, Nethermind, and Chainlink Labs. Applications close on the 14th of each month. Apply now.

• Road to Devcon 8 India University Program: Grants of up to $300 for Indian universities and student groups hosting Ethereum events (May 15–Oct 15). Apply by May 20, 2026.

• Glamsterdam Grants Round: Open to developers and researchers building tooling and infrastructure for Ethereum’s upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade. Apply now.

• Volunteer × Web3Privacy Now: Volunteer at privacy and digital rights events across Europe and Asia (May–Nov 2026), available in-person or remotely. Apply now.

• Ethereum Protocol Fellowship: Cohort 7: A six-month fellowship (Jun–Nov 2026) for contributors working on Ethereum’s core protocol, clients, and research. Apply by May 13, 2026.

• Advanced Cryptography Program 2026: A free 7-week in-person program at the University of Tokyo (Aug 1 – Sep 12) covering ZKPs, MPC, and FHE. Apply by May 31, 2026.

• Post-Quantum Research Retreat (Cambridge, UK): A week-long collaborative retreat (Oct 9–12) focused on post-quantum cryptography and decentralized systems. Apply now.

• Staking Landscape Survey: Share your perspective on the current staking ecosystem. Participate now.

✨ Highlighted Events in May

• Ethereum Mexico 2026, Ciudad de México, Mexico, May 5–Jun 16, 2026. Conference, hackathon, and workshops focused on AI and payments.

• Consensus Miami, Miami, USA, May 5–7, 2026. A major annual institutional crypto conference.

• zkSummit14, Rome, Italy, May 7, 2026. Conference on privacy and cryptography.

• Web3Privacy Now Meetups, Prague, Rome & Cluj-Napoca, May 7–12, 2026. Privacy-focused community meetups across three cities.

• Post-Quantum Ethereum Meetup in Rome, Rome, Italy, May 8, 2026. Meetup on post-quantum cryptography and Ethereum security.

• ETHPrague, Prague, Czechia, May 8–10, 2026. Regional conference and hackathon.

• muShanghai, Shanghai, China, May 10–Jun 6, 2026. Month-long popup builder city.

• ETHCluj, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, May 13–14, 2026. Regional Ethereum conference.

• ETHMilan, Milan, Italy, May 21–22, 2026. Conference exploring the real-world adoption of Web3.

• ETHBratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia, May 22, 2026. Regional conference.

• Open Value 2026, Trento, Italy, May 23, 2026. Side event at Festival dell’Economia.

• Toronto Tech Week, Toronto, Canada, May 25–29, 2026. Multi-day blockchain and technology week.

• Edge Esmeralda, Healdsburg, USA, May 30–Jun 27, 2026. Month-long popup village.

For more Ethereum-related events, feel free to visit the Ethereum Event List!

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Until next month, stay building, stay curious. ☀️

Riely and the Geode Labs

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