The Ether: Monday, October 26, 2026

Blocks: 26,273,137 - 26,280,313
Slots: 15,512,399 - 15,519,598

Onchain record· ?

Attested this day's snapshot (download json file, ) with EAS on Base ().

Posted to Farcaster.

The day in review

Protocol

Glamsterdam's Hoodi testnet fork slipped at least two more weeks as auditors checked a gas-accounting risk.
Validator tooling scrambled to patch a compromised certificate authority, with Obol, Lighthouse, Consensys and Besu all shipping fixes.

Apps

DeFi grew more institutional via Chainlink, Soneium and Bitso, while an X100 hack and Base's murky pre-IPO tokens flagged risks.

World

Bitmine pushed its ether treasury to 4.95% of supply and ran a record share buyback as it neared its 5% goal.

The Block / Brian Danga:

Bitmine adds 10,452 ETH to reach 4.95% of supply, and repurchases 2.04 million of its own shares in a record buyback

Bitmine, a public company that holds ether in its treasury, is still about 58,000 ETH short of its 5% supply goal, and its holdings value dipped to $15 billion.

More: Decrypt · CoinDesk · Unchained

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Chainlink:

Chainlink CustodySync with Anchorage lets institutions borrow in DeFi while Anchorage keeps collateral and runs margin and liquidation

A bank-grade custodian can now keep a client's assets in custody while the client borrows in DeFi (lending run by code, not a bank), using Chainlink price data to value the loan.

More: The Defiant

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Optimism:

Soneium 2.0 launches a Tokenized IP portal for discovery, primary sales and royalties, run on OP Enterprise infrastructure

Sony-backed Soneium now lets creators sell and earn royalties on tokenized intellectual property.

More: The Defiant

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Top podcasts this day

The Rollup:
Tarun Chitra: Quantum Money Is The Next Frontier For Digital Assets (Full Interview)
video · protocol · 3.8k views · 4d ago
chapters (10)
1. 0:00Intro
2. 2:17Ethereum As Cryptographic Safety Net
3. 4:20World Computer Was Always A Flawed Idea
4. 6:49Temporary Execution Environments Made On Demand
5. 9:59No Cloning Theorem Prevents Double Spend
6. 11:39Quantum Money Goes Beyond Vitalik's Paper
7. 13:25Puck Moves To Quantum Money After Bitcoin Breaks
8. 16:23Post-Economic Life In Digital Assets
9. 19:38AI Agent Full Ported Into A Dog Coin
10. 22:34Compute Is No Longer The Product
ETHGlobal:
How Ethereum Grows Without a Center | Aya Miyaguchi and Tomo Saito at Pragma Tokyo 2026
video · protocol · 4d ago
chapters (16)
1. 0:00Introduction to Ethereum Foundation Mandate
2. 1:01Why Publish a Mandate After Ten Years
3. 1:37Making Ethereum’s Values Explicit
4. 2:34Why Ethereum Accepts Technical Tradeoffs
5. 3:24Ethereum’s Promise in a Changing World
6. 4:08Protecting the Culture That Defines Ethereum
7. 5:15Six Months of Mandate Impact
8. 6:48The Japanese Community Translation
9. 9:18New Organizations and Infinite Garden Growth
10. 10:41The Foundation as a Steward
11. 12:14Opportunities for Builders and Institutions
12. 13:20Privacy, Compliance, and Stablecoins
13. 14:40How Ethereum Can Support Trustworthy AI
14. 16:22Explaining Ethereum Values to New Audiences
15. 17:33Young Builders Enter the Ecosystem
16. 19:59Devcon Mumbai and Closing Remarks
ETHGlobal:
Startale’s Vision for the Future of Onchain Finance | Takashi Tezuka at Pragma Tokyo 2026
video · apps · 4d ago
chapters (14)
1. 0:00Introduction and Speaker Background
2. 1:38Startale, Soneium, SBI, and Strium
3. 3:11Three Shifts in Onchain Finance
4. 4:26Stablecoin Market Growth to 2030
5. 5:38Tokenized Treasuries and Money Market Funds
6. 6:53Institutional Collateral and OTC Trading
7. 8:11U.S. Stablecoin and Securities Regulation
8. 10:23Perpetual Markets and Institutionalization
9. 11:33Japan Stablecoins and Payment Rules
10. 12:50Crypto Tax, Securities, and RWA Policy
11. 15:04Coinbase and Hyperliquid Case Studies
12. 16:46SBI’s Vertical Integration Strategy
13. 17:24Regulated, Programmable, Globally Open
14. 19:09Closing Takeaways and Next Steps
ETHGlobal:
What It Takes to Bring Institutional Finance On-Chain | Masa 'Senshi' Kikuchi at Pragma Tokyo 2026
video · world · 4d ago
chapters (18)
1. 0:00Introduction and JGB Repo Working Group
2. 1:07Mapping TradFi Functions to DeFi
3. 2:31The Full Financial Protocol Lifecycle
4. 3:08UBS Tokenized Fund on Ethereum
5. 4:15What Is an Onchain Japanese Bond?
6. 4:36Wrapper Versus Native Book-Entry Models
7. 6:39Responsibilities Around a Repo Trade
8. 7:30Operations Approval Before Settlement
9. 8:20Where Blockchain Fits Institutional Markets
10. 9:31Connecting Existing Execution Venues
11. 10:10Credit, Liquidity, and Balance Sheets
12. 11:16Finding Hidden Settlement Costs
13. 12:19Delivery Versus Payment Economics
14. 13:00Privacy as Institutional Information Control
15. 14:17Permissioned Visibility for Ethereum
16. 15:07Reusing Legal Agreements and Data Models
17. 17:25Five Questions Before Building
18. 19:10Asset, Constraints, Boundaries, and Control

Also in the news this day

Stories that gathered new coverage this day but broke earlier, so they live on their own day's page.