Weekly Project Updates: Ethereum Raises Gas Limit, Pumpfun Team Cashes Out Over 400 Million USDC, Monad Mainnet Goes Live, etc

1. Ethereum Educator Anthony Sassano: Raising Ethereum Gas Limit to 180 Million Next Year Is Only a “Minimum Target” link

Anthony Sassano, an Ethereum educator, stated that raising Ethereum’s gas limit to 180 million next year is merely a “minimum target”, and some core developers have even discussed increasing it fivefold. He noted that by re-pricing transaction costs — such as reducing the gas required for basic transfers from 21,000 to 6,000 — the network will be able to accommodate a higher limit after efficiency improvements. Previously, Ethereum has raised its gas limit from 45 million to 60 million. Developers indicated that this marks the start of scaling, and subsequent upgrades like Fusaka and Glamsterdam will be leveraged to further boost throughput.

2. Berachain Allegedly Granted Nova Digital $25 Million Refund Right in Series B Financing link

It has been disclosed that Berachain granted Nova Digital, a subsidiary of Brevan Howard, a $25 million “refund right” during its 2024 Series B financing. Nova Digital may request the full return of its investment principal within one year after the Token Generation Event (TGE) on February 6, 2025; according to additional terms, Nova must deposit $5 million with Berachain within 30 days after the TGE to exercise this right. This rare clause was not disclosed to other investors, sparking doubts about whether it violates the Most Favored Nation (MFN) clause and information disclosure obligations, while the price of BERA has also dropped by approximately 66% from Nova’s investment price of $3 per token. Smokey the Bera, co-founder of Berachain, responded that all parties participated in this round of financing using the same documents, but did not answer specific questions or explain the relevant commercial agreements.

Smokey The Bera, co-founder of Berachain, responded via a tweet, stating that recent reports about Berachain are incomplete and inaccurate “smear pieces.” He claimed that Brevan Howard, like other investors, participated in the Series B financing under the same documents, and that Nova’s compliance team requested the addition of a clause to guard against the scenario where Berachain fails to successfully conduct the token issuance and listing, hence the signing of the supplementary agreement mentioned in the reports. He also stated that Nova remains one of Berachain’s largest token holders, and denied claims such as “providing MFN to other buyers in the Series B round” and “Nova not being a locked-up token holder.”

In a subsequent response, Smokey the Bera, co-founder of Berachain, stated that he did not profit from the matter and claimed that the so-called insiders, including himself, had lost funds by several zeros.

3. MegaETH to Refund All Funds Raised via Pre-Deposit Bridge Previously link

MegaETH announced that it will refund all funds previously raised through the Pre-Deposit Bridge, stating that there were oversights in the execution process and that market expectations were inconsistent with the original intention of pre-loading collateral to ensure the 1:1 exchange of USDm on the mainnet. MegaETH indicated that the refund process will be carried out via a new smart contract, which is currently under the audit phase. Refunds will be issued as soon as the audit is completed. Meanwhile, it plans to reopen the exchange bridge between USDC and USDm prior to the launch of the Frontier mainnet.

4. Uniswap’s “UNIfication” Proposal Wins Landslide Victory in Preliminary Vote, Launches $15.5 Million Bug Bounty Program link

Uniswap’s “UNIfication” governance proposal has passed the interim review by an overwhelming majority. It has secured approval in the first snapshot vote, garnering support exceeding 63 million UNI tokens. The proposal unifies Uniswap Labs and the Uniswap Foundation under a coordinated governance framework while activating the protocol-level fee mechanism. Currently, a $15.5 million Cantina bug bounty program has been launched, covering the new fee-switch smart contracts, in preparation for the full on-chain vote scheduled for next week.

5. Decentralized Finance Platform Spark Initiates Governance Vote on Introducing “Programmed Buyback” Mechanism link

Decentralized finance platform Spark announced the launch of a governance vote to introduce a “programmed repurchase” mechanism. It stated that since its Token Generation Event (TGE) in June, the protocol has deposited over $10 million in net revenue into the SubDAO treasury. According to the proposal, 10% of the SubDAO Proxy’s assets exceeding the “target value” will be used for repurchasing SPK on the secondary market each month. The SPK tokens acquired through repurchases will be re-deposited into the SubDAO Proxy as reserves, and the repurchase scale will increase as excess capital accumulates.

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6. Pumpfun Team Suspected of Cashing Out Over 400 Million USDC, Involving Institutional Private Placement Funds from June link

In the past week, the team behind the Pumpfun project transferred 405 million USDC to Kraken. Meanwhile, 466 million USDC was moved from Kraken to Circle, the issuer of USDC, which is suspected to mark the completion of fund withdrawal. This sum of money was obtained by Pumpfun through the private placement of PUMP tokens to institutional investors last June, with the private placement price set at $0.004 per token.

In response to Lookonchain’s claim that Pumpfun has deposited 436.5 million USDC into Kraken since October 15 and that it has engaged in related-party transactions with Circle, @sapijiju, co-founder of Pumpfun, replied on X that the claim was “false information”. He stated that Pumpfun has never cashed out, nor has it any connection with the transactions involving Kraken and Circle. He emphasized that the changes in USDC on the blockchain are part of Pumpfun’s capital management and asserted that Pumpfun has never had any direct cooperation with Circle.

7. Etherscan Fully Removes Free API Access to Base, Optimism and BNB Chain During Devconnect ARG link

Etherscan, a renowned blockchain explorer, has completely removed free API access to Base, Optimism, and BNB Chain during the recent Devconnect ARG. Etherscan stated that its free API service remains operational, with chain ID coverage maintained at 90% and continued operational support from most foundations. The reason for reducing the chain coverage by 10% is the failure to secure sufficient funding from those ecosystems. Lefteris Karapetsas noted that the removed chains, such as Base, Optimism, and BNB Chain, are fully capable of bearing the costs of providing such essential services, and he called for joint cooperation rather than leaving Etherscan to shoulder the expenses alone.

Kaan Uzdogan, a developer from the Ethereum Foundation, pointed out that the real issue behind Etherscan’s termination of free API tiers for certain chains including Base and Optimism lies in verified contracts, as the source codes of these contracts are not stored on the chain. Although anyone can build a browser based on the on-chain and fully public EVM data, the source codes of verified contracts are off-chain and centralized, relying entirely on the owner of that database.

8. Avail Launches Nexus Mainnet to Promote Multi-Chain Unified Execution and Liquidity Aggregation link

Avail announced the official launch of its Nexus mainnet, which provides a cross-chain execution layer for multi-chain ecosystems including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Monad, HyperEVM, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. It aims to achieve the unified scheduling of assets, users, and liquidity without the need for traditional cross-chain bridges or switching Gas tokens. Adopting an intent-driven architecture and multi-source liquidity aggregation, Nexus enables transactions to withdraw funds from multiple chains simultaneously and achieve predictable results through exact-out execution. In the future, it will introduce unified verification via Avail DA, allowing cross-chain behaviors to be based on verifiable data rather than independent inter-chain validation.

9. Cosmos Community Launches Research and Proposal Collection for ATOM’s Revenue-Driven Token Economic Model link

The Cosmos community has put forward a proposal aiming to launch the research and solution — solicitation initiative for ATOM’s new token economic model. The core idea is to adopt a token economic model based on revenue and fees. The key directions under current discussion include gradually increasing staking rewards to favor long — term stakers more; lowering the inflation level; unifying ATOM as the reserve asset, Gas asset, and settlement asset of the ecosystem; and designing a variable inflation model linked to accumulated fees.

10. Monad Mainnet Completes Over 2.66 Million Transactions on Its Official Launch Day link

On the first day of the official launch of the Monad mainnet, slightly more than 140,000 new addresses initiated their first transactions, with the cumulative number of completed transactions exceeding 2.66 million. The 24 — hour TPS of Monad stood at 32.75.

Prior to this, the sale of MON tokens on Coinbase has been completed, attracting 85,820 participants who committed a total investment of 269 million US dollars. According to the tokenomics of MON released by Monad, the total supply of MON tokens is 100 billion. Initially, 50.6% of the total MON tokens will be locked up and gradually unlocked by the end of 2029. In addition to 7.5% of the total MON token supply offered through Coinbase, Monad has also reserved over 3.3 billion MON tokens (accounting for approximately 3.3% of the 100 — billion total token cap) for community airdrops.

Arthur Hayes made sharp comments on Monad during the Altcoin Daily program. He claimed that the so — called “next — generation ETH killer” is merely a trap featuring “high FDV and low circulation”, which is designed to allow founders and venture capitalists to cash out. He also stated that Monad is incompetent to compete with Ethereum and is even inferior to Solana. Initially, he was bullish on MON reaching 10 US dollars, but turned bearish and predicted it would plummet to zero after its price dropped.

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