Ethereum's Glamsterdam rollout faced an unexpected pause this week after core developers halted the scheduled Hoodi testnet fork over concerns that gas-repricing changes could break assumptions used by existing DeFi contracts. ACDE #248 deferred a mainnet activation date while researchers investigate affected deployments, even as developers pushed ahead with Hegotá testing and frame transactions. Beyond Ethereum's protocol, the week brought new US and international stablecoin rules, concerns over India's crypto-exchange accountability, a compromised certificate authority, new privacy tools, record ETH staking, and wider banking adoption of digital payments.

Catch up on last week's edition.

This Week at a Glance

A. Regulation

• US Finalizes Rules for Payment Stablecoin Issuers: The OCC finalized a major set of GENIUS Act rules on October 21 covering reserves, redemptions, custody, risk management and audits, with implementation planned for January 2027.
• France Considers a 31.4% Tax on Crypto-to-Stablecoin Swaps: French lawmakers advanced a proposal that would remove certain tax deferrals for swaps into regulated stablecoins from 2027. Further legislative approval is still needed.
• South Korea Tightens Oversight of Cross-Border Crypto Transfers: New foreign-exchange reporting requirements are scheduled to take effect December 3, requiring more visibility into international virtual-asset transfers.
• Swiss Regulator Clears Retail Spot Bitcoin ETF: FINMA approved a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund for retail investors, accompanied by investor protection, risk-disclosure and custody conditions.

B. Security

• CoinDCX Disputes Reports of a Fresh Hack: CoinDCX denied a new breach following scrutiny of roughly $16 million in wallet transfers. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT questioned explanations of the activity; the dispute remains unresolved.
• India's Crypto Exchanges Face a Trust Test: An EtherWorld analysis examines how incidents involving WazirX, BitBNS and CoinDCX are increasing pressure for accountability, disclosures and stronger mechanisms for investor protection.
• eMudhra Certificate Compromise Exposes Web3 Dependencies: CERT-In flagged compromised intermediate CA certificates, illustrating how crypto wallets and decentralized applications still depend on traditional browser and web certificate security.
• Ledger Reseller Spy-Implant Dispute Escalates: Reports of modified hardware wallets sold through CryptoBilis intensified scrutiny of wallet supply chains and sparked disagreement between Mark Karpelès and Ledger leadership over earlier warnings.

C. Privacy

• Privacy Pools v2 Expands Private Onchain Payments: 0xbow launched Privacy Pools v2 across seven networks on October 20. The update introduces shielded payments, swaps and yield-related features while retaining zero-knowledge compliance screening.

D. Global

• HSBC Takes Its Stablecoin to Millions of PayMe Customers: HSBC launched RedCoin in Hong Kong, bringing Hong Kong dollar-backed digital payments to its PayMe platform's reported 3.3 million users.
• Ethereum Staking Reaches a New Peak: Nearly 43.8 million ETH was staked, representing an estimated 35.9% of supply, as institutional participation increased despite lower annualized rewards.
• Vitalik Buterin Supports Flexible Cryptography Through EIP-8288: The proposal explores client-side STARK proving and recursive aggregation to extend Ethereum's cryptographic capabilities without proliferating new EVM precompiles.

Ethereum Protocol

1. Ethereum Protocol Update: ACDE #248

   • Developers canceled the October 26 Glamsterdam Hoodi testnet activation without selecting another date, after ChainSecurity identified contracts potentially exposed by gas repricing changes.
   • The upgrade's mainnet timing and any possible specification adjustments will be reconsidered only after an assessment of affected contracts and remediation options.
   • All Core Developers Testing (ACDT) calls will reserve 90 minutes instead of 60.
   • Bogotá Devnet 2 targets the week of October 27 and will test EIP-8253, EIP-4758, EIP-8298 and EIP-8151, with Nethermind, Geth and ethrex participation.

2. Native Account Abstraction / Frame Transactions #007

   • Contributors supported further work on a single maximum-fee accounting approach for frame transactions, while acknowledging open complexity questions around multiple gas dimensions.
   • Contributors reviewed EIP-7906 changes to reduce unnecessary introspection complexity, including whether certain transaction-diff functionality was essential.

3. P2P Networking #010

   • No consensus was reached on the Snap ENR entry proposal. The issue remains open pending asynchronous feedback from Execution Layer (EL) client teams before any PR is merged.

4. RPC Standards #037

   • The execution-apis v1 release was included in the meeting agenda.
   • Participants discussed inconsistent JSON-RPC error codes for comparable transaction-validation failures.
   • Standardization of Parity trace_* outputs and opcode tracer step formatting were among the topics considered.

Ethereum Standards Updates

ERC-7963 advanced to Review, while EIP-8408 and EIP-8450 entered Draft status. EIP-8141 received key updates to frame transactions, fee accounting and signature handling.

Glamsterdam specifications evolved through refinements to EIP-7928, EIP-7732 and EIP-8198. Core developer discussions, editorial reviews and Hegotá updates continued shaping Ethereum’s standards roadmap.

Read the full update on EIPsInsight.

Client & Infrastructure Updates

• Execution Layer:

  • Nethermind 2.2.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Geth 1.17.10 - NEW RELEASE
  • Erigon 3.8.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Besu 26.10.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Reth 2.8.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • EthereumJS 10.1.3

• Consensus Layer:

  • Teku 26.10.2 - NEW RELEASE
  • Nimbus 26.10.2 - NEW RELEASE
  • Prysm 7.3.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Lodestar 1.50.1 - NEW RELEASE
  • Lighthouse 8.3.2 - NEW RELEASE

Podcasts

1. Uneasy Money: Is the Internet Breaking Because Bots Never Get Lazy?: Kain Warwick, Taylor Monahan and Austin Griffith discuss the eMudhra certificate-authority issue, automated attacks against crypto wallets, software vulnerabilities and the security trade-offs introduced by increasingly capable AI agents.
2. ROLLUP: Black October | Uptober Lasted 4 Hours | JPMorgan's Bitcoin Forecast | Gold Alchemyst: Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman discuss weakening crypto-market sentiment, institutional forecasts, new security threats and developments affecting stablecoins.

Upcoming Events

• Encode London: October 23–25 | London
• Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #3: November 2 | Mumbai
• Devcon 8: November 3–6 | Mumbai
• Pragma Mumbai: November 4 | Mumbai
• ETHGlobal Mumbai: November 5–7 | Mumbai

Jobs

• Offchain Labs: Senior Backend Engineer
• Offchain Labs: Security Engineer
• Offchain Labs: Senior Backend Engineer, Nitro
• ether.fi: Blockchain Engineer
• ether.fi: Smart Contract Lead

Community Spotlight

At Devcon 8 in Mumbai, the EIP Hub will create a dedicated meeting point for Ethereum developers, standards contributors, researchers and newcomers to discuss how protocol changes move from proposals to implementation. The four-day program will span the EIP process and governance, core Ethereum protocol development, application standards and ERCs, and enterprise Ethereum.

The hub aims to turn complex standards discussions into accessible conversations and encourage builders and students to participate directly in Ethereum's open development process.

Explore the EIP Hub and its program

Want to post a job? Write to us at contact@etherworld.co