Personal updates, Core protocol news and more - The Daily Gwei Refuel #863 - Ethereum Updates

Anthony Sassano recorded this episode on May 22, 2026, after roughly two months without a Refuel episode. He said he will not commit to any specific posting frequency going forward, and was explicit that his reduced involvement stems from personal life priorities rather than ETH price performance, noting he was most active in crypto during 2018 through 2020 when ETH was in far worse shape than at the time of recording.

Having spent nearly every waking hour in crypto from 2017 through early 2025, Sassano said that level of sustained involvement caused serious decline in his physical and mental health. Now almost 34, he recently learned he will become an uncle, wants to have his own children, and cited those reasons for redirecting attention. He still spends roughly 30 minutes each morning on Twitter and checks the Daily Gwei Discord but has taken up personal writing as a hobby. He criticized the trend of publicly shaming people who step back from the industry, calling it toxic and a sign of insecurity among holders who expect others to keep working to appreciate their bags.

Approximately 10 of roughly 200 Ethereum Foundation staff have recently departed, and the EF has issued no official explanation. Speculation has centered on the EF crops mandate as a cause, but after speaking with many people at and around the EF, Sassano found everyone has conflicting accounts and said the full truth is unknowable. The mandate may have been a partial factor but almost certainly was not the sole reason. He also noted the EF is known for paying below-market rates. His primary concern is whether the Ethereum roadmap continues to be delivered, not internal personnel changes. He described Ethereum as entering what he called the quantum lean era, which will look very different from prior development phases, and said people specialized in past upgrades may have no suitable role at the EF going forward. He emphasized the EF is not beholden to ETH holders and does not function like a shareholder-accountable entity. Only the Geth team sits directly under the EF; all other core development teams are independent organizations.

On the protocol roadmap, Glamsterdam is on track and progressing through testing phases, with a testnet expected possibly in May and mainnet targeted around Q3, likely August or September. Glamsterdam includes ePBS and Block Level Access List among its scheduled EIPs. The following upgrade, Hegota, is expected in late Q1 or Q2 of next year and is currently in the scoping phase, with Fusaka confirmed for the consensus layer and Frame Transactions considered a strong candidate for the execution layer. A post-quantum Ethereum website has launched at pq.ethereum.org with Justin Drake as one of the leads under the lean Ethereum initiative. The full L1 roadmap through 2030 and beyond is available at strawmap.org.

On market sentiment, Sassano argued Ethereum receives disproportionate criticism relative to its actual price performance and that sentiment across the ecosystem always follows price regardless of how well the technology is performing. He noted Solana is down approximately 60 percent against ETH since its peak hype period in 2024 and 2025, and that many prominent Solana bulls have since shifted to promoting Hyperliquid. He characterized Hyperliquid as a centralized on-chain exchange that has found genuine product market fit, and said there is nothing wrong with that model. His broader point was that projects sitting in the middle of the centralization-decentralization spectrum lack product market fit because they are outcompeted on both ends, and that no new or existing L1 is meaningfully competing with Ethereum on decentralization. He described Lightup as a true ZK rollup on Ethereum with a functioning escape hatch as an example of genuine L2 architecture. Durable value, in his view, concentrates at one pole or the other, with assets in between unlikely to accrue long-term value.

An exploit involving rsETH, the Kelp restaked ETH product, caused significant fallout with Aave and contributed to broad outflows across liquid staking and liquid restaking protocols. Total staked ETH fell from approximately 41 million to 39 million over the period in question. Lido saw a 7 percent outflow over the last month, Stakewise 11 percent, Rocketpool 22 percent over six months, Ethify 24 percent, and Mantle 27 percent. Sassano attributed the outflows partly to holders now understanding risks they previously did not, and argued the APY offered by LRTs and LSTs does not adequately compensate for those risks. The decline was partially offset by large new stakers including Tom Lear and SharpLink, and a staked ETH ETF has also begun contributing to the reshuffling, which he views as healthy overall.

Sassano described the episode as a soft exit from his public Ethereum commentary role. Ryan from Bankless has stepped back significantly, with David now leading the show and content shifting toward topics such as Zcash. Sassano does not expect to appear on Bankless regularly going forward, plans to reduce Twitter activity substantially, and is developing a separate YouTube channel focused on his writing as well as a book that remains some time from completion.