JUST IN: Cathie Wood's ARK Invest launches tokenized venture fund on Ethereum that trades 24/7.

Vitalik: Ethereum is Becoming More Than a Blockchain Speaking at the 2026 Shanghai Blockchain International Week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared a broader vision for where Ethereum is heading. His main point: Ethereum is evolving from a blockchain that executes everything into a global system focused on computation, privacy and verification. Here are the key ideas: 1/ ZK is becoming the foundation → Instead of every node doing the same computation, users or other systems can do the work and generate a proof. Ethereum only needs to verify that proof. 2/ Privacy becomes programmable → Vitalik said blockchain is moving beyond simply answering “Who can send what?” The next question is “Who can see what?” This means applications could control which information is visible without exposing everything publicly. 3/ Scaling through proofs → Complex computations can be split, processed in parallel and compressed into proofs before being verified on Ethereum. This could allow much more computation without putting all of it directly on-chain. 4/ Ethereum becomes a full pipeline → Vitalik described a future involving user devices, private transaction pools, multiple participants, block construction, L2s and finally Ethereum for verification. Ethereum does not need to perform every step itself. 5/ AI changes development → AI can help developers write, test and formally verify increasingly complex cryptographic systems. Vitalik believes this can make advanced Ethereum infrastructure both faster to build and more secure. 6/ Quantum resistance matters → Ethereum is also moving toward quantum-safe cryptography, with STARK-based systems playing an important role in the longer-term roadmap. Ethereum's future may not simply be about making the L1 faster. It is about building a trust layer where computation can happen anywhere, privacy can be programmed, and complex results can be mathematically proven and verified on-chain.

Legislative Trojan horses 🇪🇺 Chat Control 1.0 and 2.0 🇪🇺 Social media ban for children 🇪🇺 Addictive design ban for adults 🇪🇺 Combat fraud and serious crime 🇦🇺 Social media ban for children 🇺🇸 Social media ban for children 🇺🇸 Addictive design restrictions for children 🇳🇿 Social media ban for children 🇮🇪 Social media ban for children 🇫🇷 Social media ban for children 🇨🇦 Social media ban for children 🇬🇧 Social media ban for children 🇬🇧 Addictive design restrictions for children 🇬🇧 Child exploitation & grooming protection 🇬🇧 Force platforms to prioritise "trusted" news 🇦🇪 Social media ban for children 🇪🇸 Social media ban for children 🇬🇷 Social media ban for children 🇩🇰 Social media ban for children 🇳🇴 Social media ban for children 🇦🇹 Social media ban for children 🇵🇱 Social media ban for children 🇸🇮 Social media ban for children 🇹🇷 Social media ban for children 🇮🇩 Social media ban for children 🇲🇾 Social media ban for children 🇧🇷 Social media restrictions for children 🇵🇹 Social media restrictions for children 🇮🇳 Social media ban for children 🇸🇪 Social media ban for children 🇩🇪 Social media restrictions for children 🇮🇹 Social media restrictions for children 🇨🇳 Social media restrictions for children I’m sharing this because more journalists have started following my work, and I want to show what I’m exposing through technical analysis anyone can understand. I’m working on one of my most consequential investigations into legislation and technology built for digital surveillance. It’s called Chat Control. What follows looks like coordination between governments and a handful of tech companies. Tech companies get more data to monetise. Governments gain the ability to monitor who says what, to whom, why, where they go and how they spend money. Technical Trojan horses 🇪🇺 Compulsory identity verification 🇪🇺 Scan private communications 🇪🇺 Weaken end to end encryption 🇪🇺 Expand lawful access 🇬🇧 Compulsory identity verification 🇬🇧 Compulsory on-device scanning for every app 🇬🇧 Algorithms to prioritize trusted news sources 🇦🇺 Compulsory identity verification 🇳🇿 Compulsory identity verification 🇮🇪 Compulsory identity verification 🇫🇷 Compulsory identity verification 🇪🇸 Compulsory identity verification 🇬🇷 Compulsory identity verification 🇩🇰 Compulsory identity verification 🇳🇴 Compulsory identity verification 🇦🇹 Compulsory identity verification 🇵🇱 Compulsory identity verification 🇸🇮 Compulsory identity verification 🇹🇷 Compulsory identity verification 🇦🇪 Compulsory identity verification 🇮🇩 Compulsory identity verification 🇲🇾 Compulsory identity verification 🇧🇷 Compulsory identity verification 🇵🇹 Compulsory identity verification 🇨🇦 Compulsory identity verification 🇺🇸 Compulsory identity verification Spot the pattern. 🔞 Australia set the stage. Other countries are now following with "robust" age assurance language in their TV appearances, including the US, UK and Ireland. The US AGs have added it to the proposed legislation following the Meta lawsuit. 💡 Australia’s own standard says age checks must be "technically accurate, robust, and reliable". "Robust" means fault proof. It brings meaning like "best" endeavours. Age estimation can’t meet that standard. As Australia defines it, age verification determines age "to a high level of accuracy", while age estimation only provides an approximate age. Fault proof age checking requires identity verification. Now look at the tech companies and what they built recently. Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft built identity verification capabilities before governments started saying existing age assurance wasn’t "robust" enough. They knew what was coming. 🪪 Apple has age assurance APIs that can return verified age ranges, including confirmation using government ID, and its Wallet API lets apps verify age or identity from government issued digital ID. 🪪 Google recently built an Age Signals API so apps can receive age ranges and verification status. Android already lets parents block apps by age across the entire device, so this isn’t technically necessary for child safety. Google has also added facial verification to Google Account and Gmail recovery through selfie video matching, presented as account security. 🪪 Meta launched selfie based Facebook verification that checks a video selfie against profile photos and plans to expand it globally. 🪪 Microsoft has rolled out age assurance across Microsoft Accounts using facial age estimation, identity documents and government systems. Refuse to verify and some content and features are blocked. 💭 A handful of tech companies control the operating systems, app stores and identity layers across almost every mobile device. Governments barely need to negotiate outside G7 rooms. If Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft enforce the same rules, billions of people are instantly impacted. The same technical capability keeps appearing: identify verification. Identity the person first, then decide what they’re allowed to do, who they're allowed to speak to, and when they're allowed to move money. p.s. Anthropic and OpenAI have identity verification services and the US government holds a kill switch that decides who has permission to use AI. --- Let me know if I got anything wrong. I have 60 minutes to make an edit. Or just leave a comment so others can see your correction.

At this point, not owning a CryptoPunk is riskier than owning one

INTEL: CME GROUP TO EXPAND CRYPTO DERIVATIVES SUITE WITH BITCOIN CASH AND UNISWAP FUTURES

Rob (@robbieklages) says the more bearish everyone gets on ethereum:native, the more bullish he becomes: "Every dinner in New York last week, every meeting today, everyone is so bearish ETH." "They're ready for it to be dethroned as the number-two asset. And the more bearish takes I hear, the more bullish I get." "The barbell, hard money on one side, the revenue meta on the other, has outperformed for six months. But it's crowded now." "There are assets that aren't crowded, contrarian, poised for reflexive upside. I think ETH is in that spot." "Especially with capital flowing out of AI into digital assets, and we're still early in that trend."

ETH’s potential is the TAM of money, pass it on

Ethereum L1 is the base layer where tokenized asset will be issued for pure product reasons ✅ global liquidity ✅ smooth interoperability in the @etheconomiczone ✅ innovation by composability ✅ the best security $ETH is the system’s store-of-value commodity

Where should the issuers tokenize assets? Base Layer or Execution Layers? "We want assets to be tokenized on the L1" — not for ideological reasons, but for product reasons. Assets issued on an L1 distribute more easily across L2s and can be used as collateral in app-chains within seconds. The UK regulator has already said that blockchains can serve as the official ledger of record for money market funds. That changes everything about why L1 security properties matter. FT @_julianMA @binji_x @decentrek

Trillions are tokenizing. Therefore, gas tokens are strategic commodities. Nothing could be more obvious.

We got an important step closer towards unified liquidity between L2s and Ethereum via @etheconomiczone. Here is a @CoWSwap trade settled on L2 while using liquidity from L1. Bridging tokens out and receiving other tokens back all happens atomically! Public testnet soon!