Ethereum Drops 0.272% Amid Staking Debate, Quantum Threat Concerns

Ethereum's latest price was $4584.16, down 0.272% in the last 24 hours. Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has addressed concerns regarding the network's 45-day unstaking queue, emphasizing its importance for the network's defense. This response comes amidst an ongoing debate within the crypto community about the lengthy waiting period for unstaking. The controversy began when Michael Marcantonio, a representative from Galaxy Digital, publicly criticized Ethereum's lengthy exit queue on X, comparing it unfavorably to Solana's two-day unstaking process. Marcantonio's posts, which have since been deleted, questioned how a network with such a long unstaking period could serve as a reliable candidate for powering global capital markets. Buterin weighed in on the debate, explaining that staking involves a solemn duty to defend the chain. He compared the process to a soldier leaving the army, noting that some friction in quitting is necessary to ensure the unit's functionality. Buterin acknowledged that the current staking queue design may not be optimal but emphasized that reducing the constants naively could make the chain less trustworthy for nodes that do not go online frequently. Meanwhile, the Ethereum network continues to see strong validator participation, with over 1 million active validators and a total of 35.6 million ETH staked, accounting for nearly 30% of the entire token supply. The validator queue website shows an exit queue of 2.5 million ETH with an estimated waiting time of approximately 43 days and 6 hours, and 442,541 ETH waiting to enter the network with an expected activation delay of around 7 days and 16 hours. Marcantonio's comments received mixed reactions from the crypto community. Some, like former Consensys product manager Jimmy Ragosa, suggested that the criticism could cause partners to reconsider their business ties with Galaxy Digital. Others, like educator Anthony Sassano, advised against working with the firm, citing its misunderstanding of the industry and preference for spreading Ethereum FUD. Mike Dudas defended Galaxy, noting the firm's ability to create value with Solana by connecting to several participants. Following the events, crypto lawyer Gabriel Shapiro claimed that Galaxy Digital pressured its head of DeFi to delete posts attacking the network, describing the behavior as manipulative. A crypto whale lost more than $6 million in staked Ethereum (stETH) and Aave-wrapped Bitcoin (aEthWBTC) after falling victim to a phishing scheme on September 18. The attackers disguised their move as a routine wallet confirmation through "Permit" signatures, tricking the victim into authorizing fund transfers without triggering obvious red flags. Yu Xian, founder of blockchain security company SlowMist, noted that the victim did not recognize the danger because the transaction required no gas fees. He wrote, "From the victim’s perspective, he just clicked a few times to confirm the wallet’s pop-up signature requests, didn’t spend a single penny of gas, and $6.28 million was gone." Permit approvals were originally designed to simplify token transfers by allowing users to sign an off-chain message authorizing a spender, thus avoiding on-chain approvals and fees. However, this efficiency has created a new attack surface for malicious players. Once a user signs such a permit, attackers can combine two functions—Permit and TransferFrom—to drain assets directly. Because the authorization takes place off-chain, wallet dashboards show no unusual activity until the funds move, resulting in the assets being gone when the approval executes on-chain. This loophole has made permit exploits increasingly attractive for malicious actors, who can siphon millions without needing complex hacks or high-cost gas wars. The latest theft highlights a wider trend of escalating phishing campaigns, with Scam Sniffer reporting that in August alone, attackers stole $12.17 million from more than 15,200 victims, a 72% jump in losses compared with July. The most significant share of August’s damages came from three large accounts that accounted for nearly half of the total, including one wallet that lost $3.08 million in a single exploit. Security experts have urged crypto users to be cautious when interacting with wallet requests and refuse demands that grant unlimited permissions to their wallets. The surge in losses has been attributed to a rise in EIP-7702 batch-signature scams and direct transfers to malicious contracts. The Venezuelan government's decision to ban cryptocurrency mining operations within its territory prompted a significant exodus of Ethereum miners seeking alternative jurisdictions with more favorable regulatory environments. This migration primarily affected the country's central and eastern regions, significantly impacting the existing Ethereum mining infrastructure there. The ban's implications extend to concerns within the mining community about the broader acceptance and security of mining operations in other countries, potentially influencing long-term network dynamics. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has emphasized the crucial importance of mitigating the network's vulnerability to potential quantum computing attacks. He highlighted this as an urgent, unsolved challenge facing Ethereum and the broader blockchain ecosystem. Discussions are actively underway within the Ethereum research community to explore potential cryptographic solutions and protocol upgrades necessary to safeguard the network against this future threat. The highly anticipated Ethereum protocol upgrade known as "Surge," focused on achieving significant scalability improvements through Danksharding, progressed with a notable technical specification. The formal proposal EIP-7623 has been introduced to enhance network efficiency specifically for rollups. The core change proposed by EIP-7623 involves increasing the calldata cost, significantly reducing the maximum amount of calldata per block. This adjustment directly supports "Proto-Danksharding" (EIP-4844) by optimizing data availability resource usage. Developers have proposed innovative solutions categorized under "The Scourge" to address the significant challenge of Miner Extractable Value (MEV) and the risk of centralized block production. Key proposals include MEV smoothing mechanisms aimed at distributing MEV rewards more equitably among validators, the introduction of Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (EPBS) to compartmentalize block creation responsibilities, and encrypted mempools designed to prevent transaction frontrunning. These solutions aim to fortify Ethereum's decentralization and censorship resistance. Leading Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution provider, Polygon, announced a substantial $85 million allocation from its Community Treasury towards technological advancement. The majority of these funds are earmarked for scaling development, particularly enhancing Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proof technology, a critical component for efficient and secure Ethereum rollups. Additional support is directed towards Polygon PoS development and initiatives focused on interoperability and aggregating liquidity across the chain. The global financial landscape saw increased integration efforts as a prominent banking entity initiated the development of an Ethereum-based asset tokenization platform. This platform is designed to facilitate the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), aiming to improve accessibility and operational efficiency for traditional financial institutions within the Ethereum ecosystem, marking a significant step towards bridging conventional finance and blockchain technology.