The Ether: Tuesday, July 21, 2026
The day's top ranked stories.
All days are in the daily archive and posted to Farcaster.
blocks: 25,577,370 - 25,584,544
slots: 14,813,999 - 14,821,198
ETH Daily:
Aztec's privacy-focused layer 2 for Ethereum now lets users run cryptographic proofs on their own devices instead of servers, making the network faster and more decentralized.
More: The Block
ETH Daily:
Morpho's new protocol lets users lock in interest rates for lending over set terms, starting with USDC loans backed by Bitcoin, reducing uncertainty in crypto lending.
More: Bankless
ethresear.ch:
A research framework for preserving state consistency across different blockchain domains or systems.
Flashbots Forum:
Flashbots is requesting that builders be included in MEV-Share's downstream forwarding mechanism to expand participation in fair MEV distribution.
Nethermind releases:
A patch release that applies Microsoft security fixes to the .NET runtime and makes the eth_getLogs block-range limit configurable for node operators.
Lighthouse releases:
The Lighthouse consensus client has shipped a new version with bug fixes and routine maintenance.
Optimism Governance:
A forum post claims part of Optimism's upcoming Lagoon upgrade would accept forged gas refunds from a malicious sequencer. The Optimism team has not verified it, and it is not exploitable while Lagoon remains unactivated.
Optimism Governance:
The Swell liquid staking protocol is being transferred to AltLayer, a restaking infrastructure provider, through a formal governance process on Optimism.
Ethereum Magicians:
A new Ethereum standard proposes using NFTs as tickets for prediction markets that automatically price outcomes using logarithmic market scoring rules.
ethrex releases:
The ethrex Ethereum client adds fixes for stalled syncing nodes, bad-block tracking, and better mempool handling under heavy load.