Tech, The Protocol, Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, EigenLayer, News Also: Matter Labs Sued; Scroll’s Euclid Upgrade; EigenLayer Adds ‘Slashing’ Feature 

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of crucial tales in cryptocurrency tech growth. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, the Ethereum protocol reporter on CoinDesk’s Tech staff.

In this situation:

• Vitalik Buterin Proposes Replacing Ethereum’s EVM With RISC-V
• Matter Labs, ZKsync Developer, Sued for Alleged Intellectual Property Theft
• Scroll’s Euclid Upgrade Pushes It Into ‘Stage 1’ Decentralization Era
• EigenLayer Adds Key ‘Slashing’ Feature, Completing Original Vision

This article is featured within the newest situation of The Protocol, our weekly e-newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox each Wednesday.

Network News

SWAPPING THE EVM FOR RISC-V?: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared a new proposal that will radically overhaul the system that powers its good contracts. ​​Buterin’s suggestion, which he posted on Ethereum’s main developer discussion board, entails changing the Ethereum Virtual Machine, the software program engine that powers applications on the community, with RISC-V, a well-liked open-source framework that gives built-in encryption and different advantages. The EVM has lengthy performed a vital position in Ethereum’s growth. Other chains that use it may seamlessly join with apps on Ethereum, and builders on EVM-based networks can transition extra easily to constructing functions immediately throughout the Ethereum ecosystem. Buterin argued that transitioning Ethereum to a RISC-V structure will “greatly improve the efficiency of the Ethereum execution layer, resolving one of the primary scaling bottlenecks, and can also greatly improve the execution layer’s simplicity.” — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

MATTER LABS SUED FOR ALLEGED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT: Matter Labs, the corporate behind layer-2 blockchain ZKSync, has been sued by BANKEX, a defunct digital asset banking platform, for mental property theft. According to a complaint filed Mar. 19 with the New York State Supreme Court, former BANKEX workers Alexandr Vlasov and Petr Korolev allegedly stole the corporate’s expertise to begin Matter Labs, which acquired over $450 million in enterprise capital funding and has grow to be a serious participant within the blockchain trade. The grievance, which names BANKEX CEO Igor Khmel and the BANKEX Foundation as plaintiffs, alleged BANKEX was approached by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in 2017 to construct operational software program for “Plasma,” a expertise that was seen on the time as a solution to make Ethereum cheaper to make use of. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

SCROLL EUCLID UPGRADE BRINGS IN STAGE-1 DECENTRALIZATION ERA : Scroll, the Ethereum layer-2 community, shared that it has launched its Euclid improve, which the staff referred to as its most important protocol transformation up to now.According to Scroll Labs, a key consequence of the improve is that it transitions Scroll from a “stage 0” to a “stage 1” rollup, which means the community will retire some centrally-controlled security options in an effort to grow to be extra decentralized. “Euclid represents the biggest leap forward for Scroll since its inception,” the staff wrote in a weblog put up shared with CoinDesk. “It’s a statement about Scroll’s future and its commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the ZK Rollup arena.” — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

EIGENLAYER ‘SLASHING’ FEATURE FINALLY GOES LIVE: Almost one 12 months to the day after Ethereum protocol EigenLayer launched its “restaking” community to unprecedented trade fanfare, the community is lastly including a core characteristic that was, till now, manifestly absent: “slashing.”Eigen Labs hopes slashing — EigenLayer’s system for retaining “restakers” sincere by revoking collateral in the event that they act maliciously — will lastly understand the year-old protocol’s authentic pitch. “We are happy to say now that the whole promise has been delivered,” stated EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan. — Sam Kessler Read more.

In Other News

• Traders shorting Strategy (MSTR), the bitcoin purchaser whose share value gained 13% in March, could also be struggling to search out sufficient inventory to repay the lenders who underpinned their bets the corporate’s worth would fall. More than $180 million value of trades in MSTR inventory did not settle final month, knowledge from the SEC and Fintel present. These occasions, often known as Failures to Deliver (FTDs), occur when a vendor doesn’t ship shares to the client by the settlement deadline, now only one enterprise day after the commerce (T+1). — James Van Straten and AI Boost Read more.
• Bitcoin (BTC) has grow to be the fifth-largest asset by market capitalization, reaching $1.86 trillion and surpassing Google (GOOG) because it breaks by $94,000. This marks the best place bitcoin has ever attained within the rankings, regardless that its market cap beforehand exceeded $2 trillion when its value was over $109,000. At that point, nevertheless, tech shares had been considerably extra elevated than they’re in the mean time. — James Van Straten Read more.

Regulatory and Policy

• Paul Atkins has taken the oath to formally become chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which returns Mark Uyeda to his earlier position as a Republican Commissioner after three busy months of service because the company’s stand-in chief. Atkins completely replaces the previous chair, Gary Gensler, who the crypto trade had broadly seen as its chief antagonist within the U.S. authorities. — Jesse Hamilton Read more.
• Fundraising for stylish crypto funding automobiles has but to totally expertise the anticipated optimistic headwind of the Donald Trump presidency, in line with a new report by the Crypto Insight Group. Momentum “remains positive but slower than [fund] managers anticipated under the new Trump administration,” the Hedge Fund Outlook 2Q25 report stated. — Jamie Crawley Read more.

Calendar

• April 30-May 1: Token 2049, Dubai
• May 14-16: Consensus, Toronto
• May 19-23: Solana Accelerate, New York City
• May 20-22: Avalanche Summit, London
• May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas
• June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes
• Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore

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