Research & Development

Starting with the upcoming Fusaka hard fork, EIP-7825 introduces a per-transaction gas limit cap of 2²⁴ (≈ 16.78 million gas). This change is already live on Holesky and Sepolia, and will activate on mainnet with Fusaka. Developers and users who rely on very large transactions should verify that their contracts and transaction builders conform to the new cap.

tl;dr: Over the last couple of days, some L2s noticed that their deployments on Sepolia didn't work properly anymore. This is due to EIP-7594 which changes the format for proofs. In anticipation of Fusaka, we urge all blob originators to update their software to create Cell Proofs instead of blob proofs.

The Ethereum Foundation has opened applications for the 2026 Internship Program: a paid, full-time opportunity to work directly with teams advancing the Ethereum protocol and ecosystem. Interns will join EF teams for 12 weeks over the summer, contributing to active R&D and ecosystem-oriented projects across a wide range of focus areas. The internship is open to candidates worldwide and can be completed remotely or from EF’s offices. A summer meetup will bring the cohort together to connect in person.

Ethereum’s weekly All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this "Checkpoint" series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-5 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update here.

A few months ago, we announced a renewed focus of Protocol on three strategic initiatives: Scale L1, Scale blobs, Improve UX. Following previous updates on Scale L1 and Scale blobs, this note relates to our “Improve UX” track, and its mission: Seamless, secure and permissionless experience across the Ethereum ecosystem, for individuals and institutions. We see interoperability, and related projects presented in this note, as the highest leverage opportunity within the broader UX domain over the next 6-12 months, in our position as a public, core Ethereum R\&D group. The near-term strategy focuses on areas we believe will continue to be fundamental components of interop: Intent-based architecture and general message-passing. For both, our aim is to focus on clear, measurable protocol metrics to drive down latency and cost,

Following up from Protocol Update 001, we’d like to introduce our approach to blob scaling. The L1 serves as a robust foundation for L2 systems to scale Ethereum, and a necessary component of secure L2 solutions is data availability provided by the L1. Data availability ensures that updates L2s make back to the L1 can be verified by anyone. Blobs are the unit of data availability in the protocol today, so scaling the blob count per block is a key requirement to usher in a wave of L2 adoption for use cases like real-time payments, DeFi, social media, gaming, and AI/agentic applications. Our work is structured as a series of incremental changes to Ethereum’s blob architecture. To accelerate our rate of scaling, we are expanding from

Since January 2019, the Ethereum Foundation has held a tradition of engaging directly with the community through our "Ask Us Anything" (AMA) series on Reddit, occurring roughly every six months. These AMAs, previously hosted by the EF Research team, have provided a forum for deep dives into the protocol's evolving landscape, direct Q\&A with core contributors, and a transparent look into the ongoing work shaping Ethereum. We are excited to announce the continuation of this tradition. The next AMA will be hosted by the EF Protocol cluster teams, reflecting the evolution of our organizational structure. While "EF Research" accurately described our focus on foundational research, "EF Protocol" encompasses both the cutting-edge research that explores Ethereum's future as well as the critical development efforts that bring these

In June, we introduced Protocol, reorganizing the Ethereum Foundation’s research & development teams to better align on our current strategic goals, Scale L1, Scale Blobs, and Improve UX without compromising on our commitment to Ethereum's security and hardness. Over the coming weeks, we’ll publish updates on each work stream, covering their ongoing progress, new initiatives, open questions and opportunities for collaboration. We start today with Scale L1 --- expect follow-ups about Scale Blobs and Improve UX soon!