Ethereum at Full Throttle: Institutional Inflows, Record Scaling, and a Push for Openness The Ethereum ecosystem is currently demonstrating powerful momentum, marked by major institutional adoption, critical network upgrades, and a thriving developer landscape. 📈 Confidence in Ether (ETH) is surging. Institutional investor BitMine significantly increased its stake to 2.42 million ETH, now holding over 2% of the total supply. This accumulation is paralleled by major traditional finance moves: REX Shares is launching its REX-Osprey ETH staking ETF, and Morgan Stanley is adding support for ETH trading on E*Trade, offering millions of clients direct access. Further strengthening the market, ETHZilla raised another $350 million specifically to buy more ETH. 🏛️ Ethereum's scaling efforts are hitting milestones. The network achieved a new record of 6 blobs per block, signifying heavy utilization of the data-availability layer by Layer 2s and confirming the success of the Dencun upgrade. Looking ahead, the next major hard fork, Fusaka, is rolling out on testnets. This upgrade is expected to implement several EIPs and includes a planned gas limit increase to 60 million, substantially boosting the network's throughput capacity. Additionally, Powdr Labs published research on Ethereum autoprecompiles, advancing core efficiency for ZK applications. 📱The dApp and tooling ecosystem continues to mature rapidly: 👨‍💻Synthetix is set to launch Ethereum's first native perpetuals (perps) DEX on Mainnet, enabling high-performance derivative trading without relying on cross-chain bridges. 👩‍💻Base Layer 2 hit a new one-day transactions All-Time High of 14.46 million, showcasing the scaling power of the L2 layer. 🧑🏼‍💻Uniswap unveiled The Compact V1, a seamless cross-chain interoperability system designed to enhance security and simplify multi-chain dApp development. New developer tools like MegaETH's open-source Ethereum Debugger and Obol Collective's Validator Manager (for programmable staking) are empowering builders. 🐸 Ecosystem growth is backed by increasing cultural alignment pushed by the restructured EF. Vitalik Buterin published a new post stressing the importance of full-stack openness and verifiability for all digital systems. The Ethereum Foundation (EF) launched the Ethereum Everywhere team to support global communities, and Y Combinator, in collaboration with Base, put out a request for onchain startups, fueling the next wave of builders.