GM, frens! ☕️

Here’s what we’re getting into this week:

Plus:

Happy Uptober! Or at least happy October while we wait to see if it actually earns the name. The space has taught us not to celebrate too early, but hoping for a good month is still free 🙃

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Dogecoin was originally built for one simple job. You buy it, send it around or receive it - with the whole point being going around starting discussions whether a meme can become “real money”.

That limited design never stopped DOGE from becoming one of the largest assets in the industry.

It did mean that most of the interesting activity happened somewhere else. Holders could deposit DOGE into an exchange or hand it to a custodian, but the Dogecoin network itself had no lending markets, stablecoins or smart contract apps 🪙

Almost 13 years after Dogecoin launched, somebody is finally trying to change that 👇

DogeOS opened its Chikyū public testnet on September 30. It gives devs an EVM compatible environment where they can build Ethereum style applications and use test DOGE to pay transaction fees.

The important detail is who checks those proofs.

DogeOS has not announced a mainnet date either. For now, people can build, test and find out whether Dogecoin holders actually want to do anything with their coins beyond keeping them in a wallet and waiting for the price to go up.

That brings up the obvious question: does every chain and every coin need its own DeFi market? 🤷‍♂

Probably not. Plenty of chains already have lending protocols and exchanges that barely anybody uses. Copying the same five applications onto another network does not create demand by itself, and Dogecoin does not become more useful merely because somebody deployed a swap button beside it.

Still, this is a better direction than building another exchange or another custodial app. DogeOS at least gives devs a place to try ideas around an asset with a huge community, pretty large liquidity and millions of holders 🐶

Some of those ideas will be pointless. Others will fail because nobody turns up. That is fine. DeFi is one large marketplace of ideas too, and the market is perfectly capable of deciding which ones deserve to survive.

Dogecoin does not need lending markets to remain Dogecoin. But if people want to see what else DOGE can do, an open environment where anyone can build is a much better answer than telling them to deposit everything into another company’s account. Definitely.

Four years from now, using Ethereum may feel very different even if the wallet address still looks the same.

A wallet could check balances without telling an outside server which accounts its owner is watching. A business could use Ethereum without exposing every payment, balance and internal account rule. Large applications could process thousands of actions across different computers, then send Ethereum a compact proof showing that everything was done correctly ✔

Users would not need to trust those computers. They would verify the proof 🥸

That’s what Ethereum Vitalik Buterin described in his latest vision for 2030. He calls it a “cryptographic world computer” although by his own admission it may barely resemble what people currently think of as a blockchain 👓

The base network becomes less of a computer doing every job itself and more of a judge checking that everybody else did their jobs correctly.

Ethereum already began heading in this direction with layer 2 networks and PeerDAS. The 2030 version would take the same idea much further by placing proof verification, parallel computation and privacy much deeper inside Ethereum itself 👇

Privacy would no longer be limited to hiding the amount sent in a payment.

The network itself would also change.

Glamsterdam is scheduled to activate on the Sepolia testnet on October 6. Mainnet is expected during the final quarter of 2026, although devs have not confirmed the date ⏰

Its two main features begin preparing Ethereum for the kind of parallel work that Vitalik describes:

Glamsterdam also changes gas costs to better reflect the real cost of creating and accessing Ethereum’s growing state. Some older contracts use fixed assumptions about how much gas certain actions require. Those contracts may need updates before the upgrade reaches mainnet ⛽

The next major upgrade is Hegota, now expected in 2027. Vitalik thinks it may be Ethereum’s final “normal” fork, meaning the last upgrade whose technology would still look familiar to somebody working on Ethereum a decade ago 📆

EIP 8363 would have burned a growing portion of validator rewards as more ETH became staked. Once roughly half the supply was staked, validators would receive no net issuance reward 🧨

The proposal was removed from consideration for Hegota after criticism over its economic effects and the short amount of time given for such a large monetary change. It remains a draft and could return later, but it is not part of the upgrade 🤔

The fact that there’s debates surrounding these features is a good reminder that Ethereum 2030 is not a finished plan waiting to be installed, but rather a direction. There’s definitely plenty of challenges remaining 🫠

The network could become more complicated internally even as it becomes easier to use. Most people will never know whether their transaction was processed through a recursive proof, several offchain computers or a parallel mempool. And they probably should not need to know, if you think about it 🤨

By 2030, fast and cheap transactions will probably not be special. Every serious network will offer them. Instead, Ethereum is betting that the harder thing to copy will be a neutral place where many different systems can prove their work and settle together without one company controlling the result. And that’s a much stronger future than simply trying to win another speed race 🐌

Ambire Mobile V1 was already a great wallet, but the devs eventually turned most of their attention toward building the browser extension. Mobile users carried on asking when it would return with everything Ambire had added since 📱

Good news: it’s back 🔥

Ambire Mobile is now available on iOS and Android, bringing the extension’s full wallet setup to phones. Users can manage their portfolio and DeFi positions, swap and bridge tokens, use Safe multisigs, connect hardware wallets and pay gas through the Ambire Gas Tank ⛽

Existing users can transfer their accounts between the extension and mobile app by scanning an encrypted animated QR code. The information travels directly between the devices without going through a server or cloud backup.

Mobile V2 also includes transaction simulation and clear signing, warnings for suspicious contracts and first time recipients, custom RPC support and separate privacy controls for third party services. The built in browser comes with more than 500 verified apps, while Ledger, Trezor, Keystone, Keycard and imToken hardware wallets are supported through Bluetooth, USB, NFC or animated QR depending on the device 🔒

The Gas Tank works across supported EVM networks and can be topped up with more than 100 tokens. EIP 7702 support also lets users batch several actions and sign once without replacing their existing address.

Access is currently rolling out through invite codes, but W3oF readers have an exclusive one. Enter gmweb3onfire during onboarding to get inside 🤝

Security incidents are often judged by how much money disappeared. But that sometimes can hide the more important questions.

MetaMask disclosed on September 30 that somebody had compromised part of its infrastructure. Its first statement offered little beyond saying that MetaMask wallets faced no immediate threat and that an investigation was underway 🤯

The affected operation was MetaMask Staking, previously known as Consensys Staking, rather than the browser wallet itself. It runs Ethereum validators for Lido, MetaMask’s pooled staking service and other clients 👇

The attacker instead reached another part of the setup: the address receiving tips whenever one of MetaMask’s validators produced a block 📦

Bitquery found that 18 blocks sent their tips to an attacker controlled wallet on September 30. The total theft was just 0.36 ETH, worth less than $1,000. The wallet had received its initial funding through Tornado Cash earlier that morning 🥷

The amount was miniscule, of course, but the access behind it is more important 🫥

A validator signs a message telling block builders where to send its tips. Somebody inside MetaMask’s setup either got the validator keys to sign a new address or changed the configuration on the machines responsible for signing those messages ✏

The attacker’s wallet was funded at 10:27 UTC. MetaMask’s first validator exit appeared 19 minutes later. The first diverted block arrived another 85 minutes after the exits had begun.

Validator signing keys cannot be rotated. Once there is a serious chance that they have been exposed, the safe response is to exit the validators, withdraw the ETH and create new ones with new keys.

That process takes time. Lido expects the final affected MetaMask validators to complete their exits by October 7. Returning the ETH and staking it again could take up to 45 days because of Ethereum’s queues. The validators will miss rewards during that period 🪙

But that doesn’t clear MM.

Its public updates still do not explain how the attacker entered the infrastructure, whether signing keys were copied or which internal systems were compromised. Saying that wallets were unaffected is good and all, but it does not answer what happened inside a staking business responsible for more than half a million ETH 🤪

And yes the stolen amount makes this incident look almost harmless. But it was not - somebody gained enough control to redirect validator earnings and make thousands of signing keys impossible to trust.

Putting traditional assets onchain has always sounded easier than it really is. Creating a token takes minutes. Making it behave like a legally issued stock or fund means dealing with identity checks, sanctions, stock splits, court orders, etc.

Base is now baking those requirements directly into the network:

Its Cobalt upgrade went live on September 30, adding new transaction tools and expanding B20, the token standard Base introduced for stablecoins, stocks and other financial assets 🪙

The biggest change for traders is called Validity Transactions. A user can submit a transaction that becomes eligible only when certain conditions are met.

The more interesting part concerns B20 assets:

Cobalt also adds scheduled multiplier changes for corporate actions such as stock splits. Instead of minting a new pile of tokens, the issuer changes how many shares each token represents. Wallets and apps then display the adjusted amount 📃

TLDR: a token representing a regulated stock does not suddenly escape sanctions, ownership disputes or court orders because it lives on Base. The company issuing it still has legal duties and will demand the controls needed to satisfy them.

The benefit is giving those assets a shared onchain standard to join wallets, exchanges and DeFi protocols to big players.

Coinbase already uses B20 for tokenized US stocks representing companies including Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet. They are backed by shares held with a regulated custodian and are available only in eligible countries outside the United States. Minting and redemption remain restricted to approved participants who have passed KYC 👨

Base plans to keep pushing in this direction. Its upcoming work includes reducing block times from two seconds to 200 milliseconds, adding native smart accounts, supporting sponsored gas and transaction batching and adopting parts of newest Ethereum upgrades.

That is less romantic than promising stocks without banks, laws or administrators. It may also be far more useful in real life situations. The real question is whether Base degens accept the trade: more access and composability in exchange for assets that still answer to an issuer when the law comes calling 😬

“Why Crypto Options Have Never Taken Off” - domdosu:

The state of tokenization report by Pantera Capial is out:

“How To Trade Prediction Markets Like Memecoins” - blocmates:

That’s it for this week, frens.

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We’ll be back next week with another round from this… very normal industry. Until then, take care.

Yours, The 🔥 Team

_{W3oF is brought to you by Ambire Wallet.}