Wu's October Technical Report: BIP-444 Controversy, Fusaka Testnet Successfully Completed, BNB Chain Scalable DB Launched, etc.

Compilation | GaryMa Wu said Blockchain

Wu said the team summarized the important developments in the blockchain technology field for October:

Bitcoin

· Bitcoin Core officially released version 30.0, with key updates including the addition of the bitcoin command tool, support for Windows external signature recovery, enabling IPC mining interface (supporting Stratum v2), and a default increase in the OP_RETURN data capacity limit. This version also adjusted the default minimum relay fee (0.1 sat/vB) and minimum mining fee settings, while removing support for legacy BDB wallets, retaining only descriptor wallets. — link

· The Bitcoin core team has released four new security advisories covering issues such as CPU denial of service, rare crashes on 32-bit systems, and disk filling, all of which have been fixed in the released Bitcoin Core v30.0. Maintainer Michael Ford stated that these vulnerabilities are all classified as low risk, and the team announced that maintenance for the v27 branch has been halted, recommending nodes to upgrade to the latest version as soon as possible.

· The Bitcoin community has erupted in intense debate over the BIP-444 proposal. This proposal aims to limit OP_RETURN (to 83 bytes) and embedded data in other scripts (to 34 bytes) through a temporary soft fork for one year, in order to curb the risks of spam transactions and illegal content that may arise after Bitcoin Core v30 removes data limits. Supporters argue that arbitrary data uploads could expose node operators to legal liability and undermine Bitcoin's decentralized model; while opponents point out that this move amounts to protocol-level content censorship, contradicting Bitcoin's permissionless principle and lacks a clear definition of “illegal content.” link

Ethereum

· Fusaka Upgrade Progress: The testnet upgrade has been successfully completed, and the mainnet upgrade is tentatively scheduled for December 3rd; it is confirmed that after Fusaka is activated, the mainnet Gas limit will be set to 60M (currently 45M).

· Glamsterdam Upgrade Preparation: EIP-7732/ePBS has been confirmed as the core proposal for the consensus layer, and EIP-7928/Block-Level Access Lists as the core proposal for the execution layer. The focus of development work is gradually shifting, and the deadline for non-headline EIPs will be set one week after the date of the Fusaka mainnet.

· The Ethereum Foundation has announced that it will expand its investment in privacy technologies by establishing a “Privacy Cluster” coordinated by Igor Barinov, consisting of 47 researchers and engineers focused on the development and deployment of full-stack privacy technologies. This cluster integrates the achievements of the PSE team supported by the Foundation since 2018, which has launched over 50 open-source privacy projects, including Semaphore, MACI, zkEmail, and TLSNotary. Current key projects include: Private Reads/Writes and Private Proving for low-cost privacy transactions and verifications, zkID and privacy identity tools focusing on selective identity disclosure, IPTF (Institutional Privacy Task Force) aimed at institutional needs, and Kohaku for building privacy wallets and SDKs. — link

· Ethereum developers discussed the EIP-7791 proposal that may be introduced in future upgrades during this week's meeting. This proposal adds the GAS2ETH instruction, allowing smart contract developers to receive a small fee in addition to the network gas fee when users call the contract. This mechanism may provide a new micro-revenue model for creators and public goods projects, with developer income becoming more stable as the user base grows. — link

Ethereum L2s

· The Optimism Superchain 16a upgrade plan to the mainnet is a maintenance upgrade that will replace U16 with a more secure and flexible approach.

· The Polygon PoS “Rio” hard fork mainnet is now live, introducing a new block generation model, near real-time finality without reorganization, and witness-driven stateless validation, aiming for ~5,000 TPS with lighter nodes, significantly optimized for payment scenarios.

· The ZKSync Atlas upgrade introduces a new generation of high-performance Sequencers and the Airbender zk proof system, claiming to support 25k-30k TPS and sub-second finality.

Solana

· Solana ecosystem development company Anza tweeted about the SIMD-0266 proposal: “Efficient Token program.” This proposal suggests replacing the current SPL token program with an optimized version called p-token. The p-token can reduce the compute unit (CU) usage of the token program by up to 98%, freeing up nearly 12% of block space for other transactions, directly improving Solana's effective throughput. It is a new implementation of the SPL Token, with no heap allocation, zero-copy data access, and full backward compatibility, allowing clients to replace it directly without changing the code. — link

BNB Chain

· The launch of the Scalable DB marks the entry of the mainnet data architecture into the horizontal scaling stage. This solution addresses the massive pressure of on-chain state, which has exceeded 3.4 TB, through a multi-database storage model + state sharding + shared caching system. Benchmark testing shows that in multi-threaded mode, write performance has improved by 70–75%, read performance has increased by approximately 12%, and node synchronization and validator latency have been significantly reduced.

Hyperliquid

· Hyperliquid enables the HIP-3 network upgrade, allowing eligible developers to create perpetual contract markets without permission. Deployers can launch a perpetual contract DEX on HyperCore by staking 500,000 HYPE. This mechanism is integrated with HyperEVM, supporting smart contracts and governance functions, and includes security mechanisms such as validator penalties and position limits. — link

Avalanche

· Granite Upgrade (Testnet Fuji) Scheduled: October 29 will activate on Fuji, introducing P-Chain epoched views (improved ICM cross-chain messaging), secp256r1 (facilitates biometric/hardware integration) and dynamic minimum block time (faster confirmation).

Security-related

· The cybersecurity company Socket reported that a North Korean hacker group recently uploaded over 300 malicious packages to the open-source code platform npm, launching an attack operation codenamed “Contagious Interview.” These packages, disguised as recruitment code or Web3 tools, steal login credentials, browser data, and cryptocurrency wallet keys after developers download them. The main targets are Blockchain and cryptocurrency developers. Some malicious packages have been downloaded over 50,000 times. — link

· The crypto security organization Security Alliance (SEAL) has launched a new tool called TLS Attestations, which combats phishing websites and verifies malicious web content through cryptographic validation. This tool has completed private testing and is officially online, allowing users to submit reports of suspected phishing sites. The team will verify signatures and validate malicious evidence. SEAL states that this move will help white hat researchers “see what victims see,” enhancing transparency in anti-fraud efforts. SEAL is a nonprofit organization supported by a16z Crypto, the Ethereum Foundation, and Paradigm, among others. — link

Other

· Berachain is launching a new Preconfirmation System proposal, which will enhance transaction confirmation speed by over 10 times and further strengthen Berachain's technological advantages in high performance, fair ordering, and low latency. The mechanism design is based on the self-developed consensus client Beacon-Kit and execution client Bera-Reth, requiring validators to run no additional components, providing optional optimization for high-frequency and reorganization-sensitive applications. — link

· The on-chain derivatives protocol SynFutures announced a major protocol upgrade, introducing an underlying chain upgrade with blocks as low as 5 milliseconds, aiming to create the next generation of derivatives infrastructure that combines trading experience with DeFi openness. The upgrade focuses on millisecond-level execution speed, institutional-grade liquidity, and complete on-chain settlement transparency. SynFutures will launch an internal test in October, and the protocol will also undergo a brand upgrade, with a series of events planned for the future.

· The zero-knowledge proof infrastructure provider Brevis has announced the launch of the multi-GPU zero-knowledge virtual machine Pico Prism (zkVM), achieving real-time proof of Ethereum on consumer-grade hardware. Tests show that Pico Prism completed 99.6% of proofs within 12 seconds under a 45M Gas Block, with 96.8% completed within 10 seconds, averaging 6.9 seconds. Compared to SP1 Hypercube, the coverage increased from 40.9% to 98.9%, with the average time reducing from 10.3 seconds to 6.04 seconds, and GPU costs halved to $128,000. Brevis plans to reduce GPU requirements to 16 RTX 5090s to achieve 99% real-time proof. — link

· The L1 public chain project Kadena announced that it cannot continue operations due to market conditions and has ceased all business activities and proactive maintenance of the blockchain. The official statement indicated that Kadena has notified employees and retained a small team to handle transition and liquidation matters. Kadena emphasized that its blockchain is a decentralized proof-of-work network, operated by independent miners, and that smart contracts and protocols are managed by their respective maintainers. Thus, the network will continue to operate, and approximately 566 million KDA mining rewards will continue to be distributed until the year 2139. The project team plans to release a new version of the binary files to ensure normal operation of the nodes and encourages operators to upgrade as soon as possible. — link