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Polygon’s Agglayer activates Pessimistic Proofs.
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EF launches Pectra Proactive Grant Round.
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Block gas limit hits 32 million gas.
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ETH drops below $3,000.
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Agglayer v0.2 is now live on mainnet, introducing Pessimistic Proofs, a new type of zero-knowledge proof that is designed to safeguard the Agglayer from potential vulnerabilities on any individual chain while supporting different security models. Pessimistic Proofs assume that all connected chains may be unreliable. The Agglayer is a network of chains connected to Ethereum through a shared bridge contract with unified liquidity. Looking ahead, Polygon is developing Agglayer v3, which will introduce multi-stack capability, allowing even chains without ZK execution proofs to integrate seamlessly into the AggLayer ecosystem.
The Ethereum Foundation launched the Pectra Proactive Grant Round, a new funding initiative with a $200K grant pool aimed at strengthening tooling, infrastructure, and overall ecosystem readiness ahead of the Pectra upgrade. By supporting proactive development, the program seeks to prevent delays in rolling out the Pectra upgrade. Grant proposals can focus on core protocol support, tooling and infrastructure development, testing and security enhancements, and adoption and impact analysis. To be eligible, projects must be open-source, operate under a free and permissive license, and align with Pectra’s goals and priorities. Proposals are due by February 23rd, with winners selected in March 2025.
According to data from crypto researcher Dataalways, Ethereum’s block gas limit has reached 32 million gas per block. Evan Van Ness noted that this marks the first increase under proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus, with the last adjustment occurring in August 2021, when the limit was doubled from 15 million to 30 million gas. The increase comes as more than 50% of validators now signal support for a gas limit above 30 million. Raising the block gas limit enables higher transaction throughput and allows developers to build more complex applications, as each block can now hold more data. The adjustment does not require a hard fork. The block gas limit is expected to continue rising toward the current 36 million gas limit target.
Over the weekend, ETH’s price plunged over 20%, reaching lows of approximately $2,100 on some exchanges. The decline coincided with the introduction of new U.S. tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. Aave alone processed over $200 million in liquidations. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou estimated total crypto liquidations to be close to $8 billion, reporting that Bybit alone accounted for $2.1 billion. Since then, the market has partially recovered, with ETH trading around $2,800 at the time of recording.
