According to reports, the Arbitrum Committee has voted to unfreeze $71 million worth of Ethereum to mitigate the estimated loss of approximately $290 million caused by the Kelp DAO vulnerability. This proactive intervention by the governance layer highlights the decision-making shift of L2 protocols in the face of security risks. Meanwhile, significant progress has also been made in Ethereum's underlying scaling efforts. According to the Ethereum Foundation, the Glamsterdam upgrade has largely achieved its core goals, including reaching consensus on the 200 million (200M) Gas Limit lower bound post-upgrade, establishing a stable-running ePBS external builder process, and finalizing the parameters of EIP-8037, aimed at safely increasing network throughput and preventing state bloat.

The evolution of the protocol layer is intertwined with complex macro games. Geopolitically, Iran has submitted a 14-point new response to the United States, demanding resolution of core issues such as asset unfreezing, sanctions removal, and a new mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, shifting the focus of the game from a short-term ceasefire to a complete resolution of the conflict. Against this backdrop, signals of inflows of institutional funds remain strong. According to AICoin data, yesterday, the total net inflow for Bitcoin spot ETFs reached $630 million, and Ethereum spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $101 million, with a whale withdrawing 1,051 BTC (approximately $82.35 million) from Binance. These governance decisions, protocol upgrades, and macro variables jointly constitute the current market's risk and expansion signals, suggesting that while the underlying public chain is increasing governance intervention and throughput capacity, macro and policy expectations are reshaping market risk preferences.

Arbitrum Unfreezes $71 Million ETH in Response to Vulnerability

As institutional funds continue to flow into Ethereum spot ETFs and whales frequently move, governance intervention at the Layer 2 protocol level is becoming a key tool in addressing DeFi security risks. According to AICoin, citing Jinse Finance, the Arbitrum Committee has officially voted to unfreeze $71 million worth of Ethereum. This move aims to mitigate the approximately $290 million loss caused by the Kelp DAO vulnerability. Notably, the resolution is explicitly defined as "unfreezing" rather than a routine ecological grant, indicating that this portion of assets has previously been in some form of frozen or controlled state, reflecting the Arbitrum governance committee's emergency response authority in extreme security events.

This incident once again puts the composability risk of DeFi protocols in the spotlight. The vulnerability of Kelp DAO has been characterized as a security risk at the protocol level, rather than a mere market price fluctuation. Although there is still a significant gap between the $71 million unfreezing amount and the estimated total loss of $290 million, this action sends a strong governance signal: within the L2 ecosystem, the governance committee is playing the role of a "lender of last resort" or risk backstop, using administrative intervention to cushion losses and prevent further risk spread. This not only reflects the proactive expansion of L2 governance regarding security boundaries but also prompts the market to re-evaluate the complex dependencies of DeFi protocols in cross-chain and cross-layer combinations.

Iran's New Proposal and Geopolitical Variables in the Strait of Hormuz

While on-chain governance addresses protocol risks, macro-level geopolitical variables are indirectly transmitted to the pricing logic of the crypto market through energy costs and risk sentiment channels. According to Tasnim News Agency, Iran has submitted a formal response with 14 points to the United States' previous 9-point proposal, with core conditions that include a guarantee against military aggression, withdrawal of US military forces surrounding Iran, as well as requests to end the naval blockade, unfreeze frozen assets, pay war reparations, and fully lift sanctions. Notably, Iran has rejected the US proposal for a two-month ceasefire and instead demands resolution of all core issues within 30 days, reflecting their urgency and hardline stance in the negotiation cycle.

The focus of this geopolitical game is on the global energy chokepoint—the Strait of Hormuz. Multiple informed sources have revealed that in its latest proposal, Iran has shown a certain degree of compromise, suggesting the opening of the Strait of Hormuz be conditioned on the US committing to cease attacks and lift the blockade on Iranian ports within the same timeframe. Additionally, Iran has expressed a willingness to negotiate nuclear issues in exchange for sanctions relief. Should Washington respond positively to this proposal, Iran is prepared for further talks in Pakistan next week. Despite Trump characterizing the current blockade of ports as "pirate behavior," the potential restructuring of the Strait of Hormuz mechanism and expectations for a phased easing of geopolitical risks are reshaping the pricing tone of commodities. For the crypto market, fluctuations in macro uncertainty often accompany the redistribution of funds between safe-haven assets and risk assets, especially when the unfreezing of Iranian assets and substantive discussions on sanctions relief enter the picture, globally improving liquidity expectations may provide new narrative support for on-chain assets.

Glamsterdam Locks In 200 Million Gas to Balance Expansion and Security

Amid improving macro liquidity expectations, the scaling path of Ethereum's underlying architecture has also achieved substantial breakthroughs. According to disclosures from the Ethereum Foundation, over 100 core contributors reached consensus on core parameters of the Glamsterdam upgrade during the Soldøgn Interop held in Longyearbyen, Norway, from April 28 to May 2. One of the most notable progresses was that developers explicitly locked the Gas Limit lower bound post-upgrade at 200 million (200M), marking the countdown to the implementation of enhanced throughput capability for Ethereum's execution layer.

The core logic of the Glamsterdam upgrade is not a blind pursuit of larger blocks but rather solving the side effects of scaling through a combination of technical measures under the principle of "safely increasing Gas Limit." To address the risks of potential state explosion due to high Gas limits, the upgrade introduces EIP-8037, changing state creation costs from dynamic pricing to a fixed byte cost (cost_per_state_byte), fundamentally curbing state bloat from a lower-level mechanism. According to AICoin data, most clients are currently running stably on glamsterdam-devnet-2, successfully completing end-to-end testing of the ePBS (native proposer-builder separation) external builder, validating that the network maintains consensus robustness even in a high-throughput environment.

Given the heightened prosperity of the L2 ecosystem and the increasing frequency of cross-chain activities, the increase of Gas limits on Ethereum's mainnet has profound strategic significance. The consensus on a 200 million Gas Limit not only significantly alleviates network congestion and optimizes user fee experiences but also frees up more ecological expansion space for L2 data archiving and complex DeFi interactions. Through the synergy with EIP-8037, Ethereum has achieved leaps in performance while ensuring decentralized node load remains controllable, paving the way for the implementation of advanced features such as native account abstraction in the subsequent Hegotá upgrade.

ePBS and State Charging New Rules Affect Sorting Costs

In the advancement of the Glamsterdam upgrade project, the multi-client implementation of ePBS (enshrined PBS) has displayed high stability on the test network. According to reports from the Ethereum Foundation and related technical briefs, glamsterdam-devnet-2 has gone live, and the external builder process has successfully completed end-to-end testing. This advancement means that the block generation process and sorting power allocation mechanism are trending toward standardization. Through engineered protections, ePBS can effectively reduce the trust costs between validators and builders. The maturity of this architecture not only optimizes the sorting efficiency of Ethereum's mainnet but also provides clearer underlying references for L2 in cross-chain collaboration and MEV distribution, further enhancing the resilience of the entire ecosystem in complex transaction sorting.

To address the potential state explosion issue triggered by the 200 million Gas Limit, the adjustment plan for state creation costs under EIP-8037 has locked in its final parameters. This proposal changes the original dynamic pricing mechanism to a fixed cost_per_state_byte charging plan. This fundamental shift in pricing logic aims to forcibly limit the speed of state inflation in high-throughput environments. According to AICoin monitoring of developer movements, this move increases the hard costs of state creation to prevent malicious contracts from exploiting low Gas costs for state filling attacks, thereby ensuring that while increasing Ethereum's throughput limits, the storage pressure on ordinary full nodes remains controllable, providing boundary protection for long-term decentralized operation.

Additionally, the preliminary research work for the Hegotá upgrade is also accelerating synchronously. Currently, FOCIL has completed its early prototype and entered the multi-client testing phase, with the core objective of enhancing the consensus layer's anti-censorship capabilities. In terms of the native account abstraction (AA) scheme, core contributors have completed a framework outlining core demands such as alternative signatures, signature aggregation, Gas sponsorship, and L2 anti-DoS attack measures. Although some proposals like EIP-8237 have been postponed to future forks, the advancement of EIP-8061 and EIP-8045 indicates that Ethereum will significantly enhance cost optimization at the application layer and flexibility of signature schemes in the future. These underlying mechanism iterations, in conjunction with governance interventions by L2s like Arbitrum, collectively build a multi-dimensional protection system for Ethereum from consensus to execution and then to application security.

ETF, Prediction Markets, and Whale Withdrawals Reflect Risk Preferences

As the underlying protocol steadily advances in expansion and governance interventions, external fund flows and policy expectations are quantifying market risk preferences through multiple channels. According to AiCoin data, institutional interest in Bitcoin and Ethereum remains robust. Yesterday, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $630 million, with BlackRock's IBIT leading with a net inflow of $284 million; Ethereum spot ETFs also performed well, with a single-day total net inflow of $101 million, of which Fidelity's FETH contributed approximately $49.39 million. This ongoing influx of funds not only supports the valuation framework of the secondary market but also reflects traditional capital's positive pricing of technological evolutions like Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade.

On-chain fund movements further confirm the holding confidence of large holders. Monitoring shows that approximately 2 hours ago, a whale withdrew 1,051 BTC from Binance, with a total value of about $82.35 million. In the current market environment, whales moving substantial assets from exchanges to private wallets are typically seen as signals indicating reduced short-term liquidity and a shift toward long-term holding, logically complementing MN Trading Capital founder’s view that “Bitcoin can return to $100,000 without a new narrative driving it.” Meanwhile, crypto concept stocks like CRCL surged over 9.7%, and the token uPEG briefly surpassed a market cap of $22 million (daily increase of over 99%), showing an aggressive tendency of funds searching for high beta returns.

Policy games and regulatory expectations have left clear marks on prediction markets. Polymarket data indicates that the probability of the "CLARITY Act becoming effective in 2026" has risen to 67%, surging 21 percentage points within 24 hours, suggesting that the market is highly betting on the clarification of the regulatory framework. Although British Reform Party leader Farage has been accused of conflicts of interest due to promoting crypto tax relief proposals, and Trump’s remarks on blockading Iranian ports have heightened geopolitical complexity, this political connectivity has increased the weight of crypto assets in the macro narrative. For investors, the surge in the probability of the act's effectiveness and the whale's withdrawal actions together construct a market environment characterized by defensive accumulation on the eve of regulatory boundary clarification.

Risk Coordinates Under Multiple On-Chain Signals

In summary, the unfreezing of $71 million ETH by the Arbitrum Committee in response to the Kelp DAO vulnerability, the consensus reached on the Ethereum Glamsterdam upgrade, and the latest developments in geopolitical games indicate that the current crypto market stands at a profound intersection of protocol security, underlying expansion, and macro uncertainty. According to AiCoin data, the Arbitrum Committee's voting intervention in the Kelp DAO vulnerability has effectively curbed the further spread of approximately $290 million in losses, but it also reflects the strong proactive intervention capability of L2 governance in extreme risk scenarios. Meanwhile, the underlying public chain is preparing for higher throughput and complex applications by enhancing the Gas limit, introducing ePBS, and adjusting state charges. The consensus on a 200 million Gas lower limit during the Soldøgn Interop and the EIP-8037 state repricing plan signify that while pursuing performance expansion, Ethereum has placed mechanisms to prevent infinite state bloat at the core.

Moving forward, the market should closely track the resonance of multi-dimensional variables. From a geopolitical perspective, Iran's submission of 14 points to the United States compresses the resolution deadline to 30 days and proposes a new mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz, a dynamic evolution that will continue to disturb the pricing logic of global risk assets. From a market dimension, AiCoin data shows that the strong net inflow of $630 million into Bitcoin spot ETFs, the withdrawal of 1,051 BTC by whales from exchanges, and the quantified signal of the probability rising to 67% for the CLARITY Act on Polymarket collectively point towards a defensive accumulation by the market on the eve of regulatory boundary clarification. Future close attention should be paid to the governance follow-up of the Kelp DAO event, the landing progress of the Glamsterdam and Hegotá upgrades on the mainnet, and the substantial direction of negotiations between Iran and the United States; these factors will jointly define the next stage of on-chain risk coordinates.

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