I'm very impressed with @fileverse (a decentralized, open-source encrypted documentation platform). New bugs are being fixed every month, and recently it's finally reached a point where I can confidently send documents to others for commenting or collaboration without any further issues.

Ethereum's @VitalikButerin. Tor's @RogerDingledine. This is a fascinating conversation from the FTC conference in Buenos Aires, where they delve into the true meaning of "privacy," the trade-offs behind it, and how incentive mechanisms can distort the community. 🌐 Click here to watch:

The attacks I've seen here against Europe over the past few days, even from some people I usually find amusing and knowledgeable, have become increasingly outrageous… I understand the EU has some problems—the GDPR's click-through notifications are stupid, the chat controls are terrible, they need to reduce bureaucracy and provide more support for entrepreneurs, their friendliness towards Ukraine often doesn't extend to Gaza, Sudan, or elsewhere, and the claim that criminals are sentenced to longer terms than they are is utterly absurd—but to take an apocalyptic stance on these issues, reminiscent of barbarian sacks of Rome, is simply too much. This feels more like an organized smear campaign than constructive criticism. (I don't believe the argument that "the target isn't Europe, but the EU": I've seen many examples of attacks on London, so no, many of these attacks are indeed against Europe.) This is completely inconsistent with my experience of spending an average of two months there each year for the past decade. @elonmusk I think you should consider that turning X into a global symbol of free speech and then turning it into a "Death Star" for coordinated hate attacks is actually detrimental to the cause of free speech. I am very worried that in a few years, the values I cherish will suffer a huge backlash.

For years, I've complained internally within EF about our lack of expertise in P2P: we spent countless hours studying cryptoeconomics, BFT consensus, and blocks, yet took everything for granted about the P2P network layer. I believe this has changed, and PeerDAS proves it. @raulvk and the rest of EF have made outstanding contributions to the smooth operation of PeerDAS, not only developing a roadmap for improving propagation speed, enhancing network resilience, and simultaneously ensuring network layer privacy, but also formulating corresponding plans. It's great to see this work continue to move forward.

If the official X app stops working (for example, if you're using @GrapheneOS), or your banking app isn't functioning properly, the problem might be with hardware authentication. Unfortunately, despite our many achievements in open internet, open code, open protocols, and open file formats, hardware authentication issues remain relatively unknown. And this is a significant problem for the internet.

We need a reliable, trustless on-chain gas futures market. (For example, BASEFEE's prediction market) I hear people ask, "Fees are low now, but what about two years from now? You say fees will remain low because BAL, ePBS, and the future ZK-EVM will increase gas limits, but do I believe you?" An on-chain gas futures market can solve this problem: people can clearly understand others' expectations of future gas fees and even hedge against future gas prices, effectively prepaying a specific amount of gas fees for a specific period.

@vitalikbuterin was a guest on the @greenpillnet podcast, delivering an in-depth year-end interview discussing public goods financing within the Ethereum ecosystem. Thanks to @devanshmehta for co-hosting. We discussed how the public goods financing landscape is shifting from "feel-based" financing to verifiable, dependency-driven mechanisms, and why now is the best time to reform public goods financing using new tools such as programmable cryptography, AI-assisted evaluation, and deep financing models. Vitalik shared his views on dependency, trust neutrality, open-source licensing, diversity, accountability, Ethereum localization, and priorities developers should consider in the coming year. 00:00 – Welcome to the Greenpill Podcast 01:50 – Vitalik Joins: Why Public Goods Funding Matters 02:19 – Why Public Goods Funding is Crucial for Decentralization 04:18 – The Spirit of Cryptocurrency: Censorship Resistance, Institutional Design, and Funding 06:42 – The Shift from “Atmosphere” Public Goods Funding to Verifiable Mechanisms 08:25 – Why 2026 is the Best Time to Reform Public Goods Funding 10:19 – Where Does Public Goods Funding Actually Come From? 12:45 – Open Source Licensing, Taxation, and Funding Dependencies 17:34 – “Funding Dependencies” as a Stable Mechanism 19:35 – Why Universal Quantum Finance Doesn’t Work in a Chaotic World 21:59 – Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down: Multi-Centered Public Goods Funds (PGFs) 25:29 – How to Establish Accountability in Public Goods 27:22 – Funding Open Source Projects is a Priority for Ethereum 29:31 – Privacy as a Public Good and Why It’s Upstream of the Public Goods Fund (PGF) 31:54 – The Real Perspective of Open Source Software Developers on Cryptocurrencies 33:52 – Combining Social Advocacy with Funding Support 35:56 – What Should Public Goods Fund (PGF) Builders Focus On in 2026? 38:13 – Focus on New Projects, Not Legacy Projects 39:44 – Ecosystem Cycles and “Sedimentation Layers” 41:39 – Yield-Based Financing (One-Eighth) and Fund Management Strategies 43:40 – Accountability: From Atmosphere to Rigorous Mechanisms 47:35 – Incentives, Feedback, and the Psychology of Public Goods 50:43 – Profit-Sharing Licensing and Sustainable Public Fund Pools 53:46 – Security, Issuance, and Public Goods 56:12 – Technological Democracy and Long-Term Risks 58:31 – The Relationship Between PGF and DIAC (Defense/Decentralized Accelerator) 01:00:05 – How to Solve the Free-Rider Problem Without Coercion 01:02:12 – Mechanisms and Coercion: Credible Neutrality 01:04:16 – Institutions, Power, and Capture Risk 01:06:16 – Individuals and Institutions in PGF 01:08:41 – Why PGF is more fault-tolerant than governance 01:11:01 – Diversity: Numerous funders

While the release of Fusaka and the expansion of blob functionality are significant, even more noteworthy is our goal this year: to release two complex branches, which we successfully accomplished. This achievement wouldn't have been possible without the collaborative efforts of our customer teams, EF, and the community. A fresh mindset and comprehensive, highly efficient execution played a crucial role.

Based on average mining difficulty statistics, I roughly calculated that the total hash rate of Bitcoin mining seems to have only recently broken the 2**96 milestone? This seems to be a good reason to stick to (close to) 128-bit encryption (that is, @drakefjustin is right).

Friendly reminder: Fusaka is not Ethereum's last upgrade this year—the BPO fork will activate on December 9th, increasing the Blob target value from 6 to 10. Following this, another BPO fork will activate on January 7th, increasing the Blob target value from 10 to 14. Accelerate!