Glamsterdam, Bitcoin in MetaMask, EIL & 7702 Alignment, PillarX Universal Gas Tank

#blockchain #web3 #ethereum

As the year winds down and the holidays roll in, we’re wrapping up Ethereum’s biggest infrastructure updates like gifts under the tree 🎄

The latest news we'll cover:

Glamsterdam: Next Ethereum Upgrade Targets MEV Manipulation and Block Efficiency
MetaMask Officially Integrates Bitcoin After Long Anticipation
Ethereum Builders Align on EIL, Intents, and the Role of EIP-7702
PillarX Introduces Universal Gas Tank to Remove Cross-Chain Gas Friction
CoBuilders Unveils Local Playground for Ethereum Interop Layer

Pour yourself something warm ☕, sit back, and let’s unwrap what builders have been shipping across the ecosystem.

Glamsterdam: Next Ethereum Upgrade Targets MEV Manipulation and Block Efficiency

Ethereum developers are advancing a major protocol upgrade named “Glamsterdam,” which is intended to address long-standing issues around Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) fairness and block building processes on the network. While the full scope of the upgrade has not been finalized, core developers are targeting a 2026 launch for the coordinated set of changes.

According to reports, Glamsterdam focuses on reducing MEV-related manipulation by formalizing the roles of block building and proposing at the protocol level. One key component is EIP-7732 (enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation, ePBS), which aims to split the responsibilities of proposers and builders more cleanly so that proposers can select blocks without seeing contents beforehand — reducing opportunities for front-running, censorship, or other extractive behaviors.

In addition to ePBS, the upgrade is expected to include EIP-7928 (block-level access lists) or similar enhancements that allow blocks to pre-declare data access patterns. These features can improve execution efficiency, help nodes prepare data in advance, and make transaction ordering more predictable, boosting both fairness and performance across the protocol.

Developers see Glamsterdam as the next step in Ethereum’s evolution following the Fusaka upgrade, which focused on reducing node costs and improving throughput. While Glamsterdam will happen after Fusaka’s rollout, its emphasis on fairness and transparency in block production represents an ongoing effort to strengthen consensus security and user experience on the network.

MetaMask Officially Integrates Bitcoin After Long Anticipation

MetaMask has officially rolled out native Bitcoin support, enabling users to hold, send and receive BTC directly in the wallet without relying on wrapped tokens or external wallets. The launch follows roughly ten months of gradual teases and previews leading up to the public release.

According to the report, the integration allows Bitcoin to appear alongside users’ existing Ethereum and EVM-based assets in the MetaMask interface, simplifying asset management across different blockchains within a single wallet experience.

The article explains that MetaMask handles Bitcoin transactions using Bitcoin’s native transaction model, since Bitcoin does not support Ethereum-style smart contracts. This approach lets users interact with BTC in MetaMask while Bitcoin’s own protocol remains unchanged.

MetaMask’s expansion into Bitcoin is positioned as part of a broader trend toward chain abstraction and unified wallet experiences, where users expect seamless interaction across multiple blockchain networks, from Ethereum and its rollups to non-EVM ecosystems like Bitcoin.

The initial launch focuses on basic Bitcoin functionality; the report notes that more advanced features may follow over time as the ecosystem and user demand evolve, although specific timelines were not detailed in the announcement.

Ethereum Builders Align on EIL, Intents and the Role of EIP-7702

The Ethereum Foundation and ecosystem builders used a recent X Space to clarify the design goals behind the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL), positioning it as a trust-minimized way to enable cross-L2 execution where the user’s own account remains the executor, rather than delegating execution to third parties. Speakers emphasized that EIL is built to make Ethereum “feel like one chain again,” despite the growing number of rollups.

The discussion highlighted that EIL is deeply rooted in account abstraction, allowing a single user action to trigger multiple per-chain operations with gas abstraction built in. A shared mempool and shared bundler model were described as critical for resilience, ensuring that no single bundler outage can block users from executing transactions across chains.

Participants repeatedly framed intents and EIL as complementary, not competing, approaches. Intents were described as best suited for “search problems” such as price discovery, auctions, and quotes, while EIL focuses on deterministic cross-L2 execution that preserves Ethereum’s trust model. Over-reliance on solvers, speakers warned, risks shifting Ethereum toward a request-and-fulfillment trust paradigm.

A significant portion of the Space addressed cross-L2 gas abstraction, which was described as a hard failure-mode problem rather than a simple “pay gas anywhere” feature. EIL expects liquidity providers to front destination-chain gas via signed vouchers without controlling execution, backed by staking, slashing, and dispute mechanisms to protect users.

The role of EIP-7702 was also clarified. Speakers stressed that 7702 enables existing EOAs to achieve smart-wallet-level UX without migrating funds to new accounts. Delegations under 7702 are effectively permanent until changed, which improves flexibility but limits certain “resource lock” guarantees.

Here’s the link to the full X Space recording: https://youtu.be/1aE9KycfijY

PillarX Introduces Universal Gas Tank to Remove Cross-Chain Gas Friction

PillarX announced the launch of Universal Gas Tank, a new feature designed to eliminate one of the most persistent UX problems in multi-chain crypto trading: the need to hold different native gas tokens on every network.

The company positions Universal Gas Tank as a single, unified balance that automatically covers transaction fees regardless of which chain a user trades on. Instead of managing small amounts of ETH, POL, BNB, or other native tokens just to execute swaps, users can deposit any token on any supported chain into their Gas Tank.

Once funded, PillarX converts the deposited assets into USDC, which is then used internally to handle gas payments for future trades. From the user’s perspective, gas fees become invisible, allowing swaps to execute without interruptions caused by missing native tokens.

The feature is powered by Etherspot’s AA solution, which enables gas abstraction, transaction batching, and smart execution flows using ERC-4337-based infrastructure. By leveraging Etherspot’s AA stack, PillarX can abstract gas payments while preserving self-custody and avoiding centralized relayers.

CoBuilders Unveils Local Playground for Ethereum Interop Layer

CoBuilders has released EIL Playground, a fully local development environment designed to help builders experiment with the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL) end-to-end. The team said the goal was to deeply understand EIL’s trust-minimized cross-L2 execution model, where users sign once and transact across multiple chains, by running it entirely in a local setup.

The Playground spins up four local Anvil chains (Ethereum mainnet plus three L2s) and includes mock ERC-4337 bundlers, mock cross-chain liquidity providers (XLPs), and all core EIL contracts pre-deployed. It also ships with a working cross-chain USDC transfer example, allowing developers to test realistic EIL flows without relying on external infrastructure.

According to CoBuilders, everything runs locally and is intended to be plug-and-play, making it easier for developers to explore EIL mechanics, failure modes and execution guarantees. The repository documents how to spin up chains, deploy contracts, and execute cross-chain flows step by step.

Looking ahead, CoBuilders highlighted that the next challenge is using EIL with production smart accounts. The current demo relies on a dummy account with signature checks bypassed, while real accounts must correctly handle paymasterData mutation after signing. The team outlined two approaches: implementing SDK-compatible signing that strips voucher data before verification, or using signature schemes that exclude paymasterData entirely.