Arbitrum announced that its Security Council executed an emergency action to freeze 30,766 ETH linked to the KelpDAO exploit.

The funds were transferred to a secured intermediary wallet following coordination with law enforcement and technical review, without impacting users or the broader network state. Any further movement of funds will require governance action.

A new governance proposal submitted by Aave Labs and ecosystem partners suggests releasing the ~30,765 ETH previously frozen by the Arbitrum Security Council following the KelpDAO exploit.

The funds would support a coordinated recovery effort aimed at restoring the backing of rsETH and compensating affected users. The proposal outlines a multi-step governance process, including delegate feedback, a potential temperature check, and a full on-chain vote.

The March 2026 Security Council election cycle officially concluded on May 3. After a process involving 16 applicants and a decay-based voting mechanism, the community selected six members to join the council:

• Michael Lewellen
• DZack23
• yoav.eth
• Certora
• bartek.eth
• Pablo Sabbatella (OPSEK)

Offchain Labs announced an update to Arbitrum’s Timeboost mechanism, replacing the static reserve price with a dynamically adjusted model.

The new system updates the reserve price every minute based on market conditions and participant behavior, with data accessible through a public API. The change aims to improve auction efficiency, maintain competitive transaction ordering, and support more consistent revenue generation for the DAO.

Arbitrum Governance is currently voting on a proposal to transfer 6,000 ETH and idle stablecoins from the DAO treasury into its Treasury Management Portfolio.

The initiative aims to reduce idle capital and generate yield through strategies such as staking, lending, and liquidity provision. The vote is expected to conclude on May 7.

Arbitrum announced that ERC-7715 is now live on the network, allowing applications and agents to request scoped execution permissions from MetaMask users.

The standard reduces the need for repeated approvals, supports improved UX, and unlocks new use cases for autonomous on-chain applications.

Arbitrum announced the first cohort of its Mentorship Program, selecting 13 teams from over 900 applicants to build new products on the network.

The selected teams span AI, payments, RWAs, and DeFi. Over eight weeks, they will receive support across product strategy, go-to-market, liquidity design, and fundraising, with guidance from ecosystem partners such as Pendle and IOSG Ventures.

Arbitrum highlighted that Praxis is now live on the network, expanding its footprint into the ecosystem.

The launch reflects growing alignment around Arbitrum as a settlement layer for emerging agent-driven on-chain activity.

Arbitrum highlighted that Jumper users are increasingly choosing the network as their preferred L2 for trade execution.

The trend reflects how predictable fees and deep liquidity are positioning Arbitrum as a primary venue for DeFi aggregators and high-volume on-chain trading.

ZKsync announced that Season 1 of its ZKnomics staking pilot program will conclude on May 8, marking the end of the initial rewards phase.

The pilot is part of ZKsync’s broader token mechanics experimentation, with administrators expected to evaluate results before deciding whether to continue, modify, or pause the initiative in a potential second season.

ZKsync introduced ZIP-16, a proposal for the v31 protocol upgrade currently under discussion. The upgrade focuses on expanding interoperability across the Elastic Chain through new interop bundles, enabling native cross-chain token transfers and interactions between ZKsync chains connected via the Gateway.

Beyond interoperability, the proposal introduces a dual fee model, Priority Mode for L1-settling chains, and broader compatibility work for ZKsync OS.

ZKsync announced that Matter Labs has joined the Linux Foundation’s Decentralized Trust initiative as a general member. The consortium focuses on open standards for blockchain, identity, and tokenization technologies.

Matter Labs will contribute expertise in zero-knowledge systems and privacy-preserving infrastructure, particularly for institutional adoption and compliant digital asset systems.

ZKsync announced that ZKsync Lite will be fully deprecated on May 4, marking the end of its original payments-focused rollup.

Lite played a key role in demonstrating ZK scaling in production. The shutdown is part of a planned transition, with block production stopping and the final state becoming permanently frozen, while not affecting ZKsync Era or other chains in the ecosystem.

ZKsync announced its participation in the Blockchain Association’s Tokenization Workstream, a policy-focused initiative aimed at shaping tokenized capital markets in the U.S.

The move reflects ZKsync’s growing involvement in policy and standard-setting efforts as tokenization gains traction across traditional finance.

ZKsync shared an overview of how Prividium enables regulated financial institutions to issue tokenized deposits on-chain while maintaining compliance, privacy, and balance sheet control.

The piece highlights traction from Cari Network, where five U.S. banks representing over $600B in deposits are building on Prividium, as well as integrations with institutional providers like BitGo.

ZKsync Governance approved ZIP-15, restructuring the Security Council to better align with the network’s current stage of maturity.

The update reduces the number of signers from 12 to 8 and adjusts member compensation to $3,000 per month, effective May 1, 2026. It also shifts the council toward an entity-only composition, reflecting preferences from institutional partners and banks building on Prividium.

Optimism highlighted that builders can now request wallet execution permissions on OP Mainnet through MetaMask’s implementation of ERC-7715.

The standard enables dApps and agents to execute transactions on behalf of users under predefined constraints, expanding the design space for permissioned interactions and more advanced account abstraction use cases.

Optimism highlighted that Ether.fi launched its non-custodial crypto card on OP Mainnet, migrating over $220M in TVL, 300,000 accounts, and 70,000 active cards.

The migration was completed in three days with no downtime, maintaining full card functionality throughout. The launch represents the largest single TVL event in OP Mainnet history.

Optimism announced a new experiment introducing stake-based transaction ordering, allowing users to stake OP to gain priority access to blockspace.

The model explores alternatives to pure gas auctions by incorporating stake size and duration into transaction ordering, while maintaining safeguards such as instant unstaking and rollback mechanisms. The experiment is currently live on Sepolia.

Optimism announced the launch and expansion of PrivacyBoost, a confidential computing solution developed by Sunnyside, now live on OP Mainnet and integrated with OP Stack chains like Soneium.

The system combines zero-knowledge proofs with trusted execution environments (TEE) to enable privacy-preserving applications with sub-500ms proof generation and high throughput.

Optimism published an article explaining its enterprise adoption strategy through the OP Stack. The piece frames L2 evolution as moving from bespoke designs to standardization and now toward specialization.

OP Enterprise is positioned as a way for companies to deploy customizable chains while preserving interoperability, allowing enterprises to tailor execution, data availability, and proof systems while staying connected to the broader ecosystem.

Optimism announced support for OKX’s Agent Payments Protocol (APP), an open standard designed to enable agents to execute full commerce flows on-chain.

The protocol expands agent capabilities beyond payments to include quoting, negotiation, and programmable transactions.

Optimism announced that Circle’s nanopayments infrastructure is now live on OP Mainnet, enabling transactions as small as $0.000001 with no per-transaction gas fees.

The system allows AI agents to autonomously pay for services using USDC and the x402 protocol, supporting high-frequency, low-value machine-to-machine payments.

Optimism announced that Zipangcoin, a commodity-backed cryptoasset issued by Mitsui & Co. Digital Commodities, is now live on OP Mainnet.

The asset is backed by precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum, marking the first cryptoasset from a Japanese company on the network.

Optimism announced that op-geth will be deprecated on May 31, requiring OP Stack chain operators to migrate to op-reth validator nodes.

The transition aims to standardize the execution client stack, with operators encouraged to begin setup early to avoid disruptions ahead of the deadline.

Optimism Governance launched the Season 9 Security Council elections process for Cohort B, initiating the nomination phase for new members.

Candidates can self-nominate through OP Atlas and require approval from top delegates to advance to the voting phase. Elected participants will serve a 12-month term starting in August.

Optimism highlighted that Ronin will migrate to Ethereum using the OP Stack, with the transition scheduled for May 12.

Originally built to support Axie Infinity and onboard millions of players on-chain, Ronin’s move reflects a broader trend of application-specific chains adopting the OP Stack to reconnect with Ethereum while maintaining performance and scalability.

Polygon announced that Visa has integrated the network into its global stablecoin settlement program, enabling partners to use Polygon rails for instant money movement.

The integration supports real-time settlement with low transaction costs and high reliability, positioning Polygon as infrastructure for enterprise-grade financial activity.

Polygon announced the launch of sPOL, its native liquid staking token designed to unlock liquidity for staked POL and improve returns for validators and delegators.

The token allows users to stake POL while maintaining liquidity and introduces a mechanism for sharing priority transaction fees with stakers, aligning network activity with validator incentives.

Polygon announced the Giugliano upgrade on mainnet, introducing improvements in transaction finality, network throughput, and fee transparency.

The upgrade reduces finality times by approximately two seconds, increases peer-to-peer throughput under load by up to 4x, and enhances on-chain visibility into gas fees.

Polygon announced that ERC-7715 is now live on the network, enabling applications and agents to request scoped execution permissions from MetaMask users.

The standard reduces repeated transaction approvals and unlocks new interaction models for dApps and autonomous on-chain agents.

Polygon highlighted that MoonPay introduced zero-fee stablecoin onramps for agents on the network.

The integration enables users to convert fiat to stablecoins without fees or spread, simplifying access to on-chain liquidity and supporting agent-driven activity.

Polygon highlighted the launch of Euclid Protocol on the network, bringing access to unified liquidity across 40+ chains.

The integration enables users and applications on Polygon to swap assets across networks without relying on wrapped tokens, helping reduce liquidity fragmentation.

Polygon announced the launch of Surf, an AI-powered savings vault platform for stablecoins, now live on the network.

The product gives users non-custodial accounts to earn yield on USDC across lending markets, leveraging Morpho for execution and cross-chain routing infrastructure for automation.

Polygon announced its participation in the x402 Foundation, an initiative aimed at building open standards for internet-native payments.

The group includes companies such as Coinbase, AWS, Google, Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard, and focuses on infrastructure for seamless value transfer across applications, APIs, and agents.

Polygon introduced a Private Mempool, a transaction submission endpoint designed to protect users from frontrunning and sandwich attacks.

Transactions can bypass the public mempool and be sent directly to block producers, improving execution integrity with a simple RPC endpoint change.

Polygon published an analysis detailing how AggLayer continued operating during the KelpDAO exploit, processing approximately $200M in cross-chain volume without disruption.

The report contrasts AggLayer’s zero-knowledge proof-based architecture with traditional bridge designs that rely on operator committees, positioning AggLayer as a robust interoperability layer for high-value use cases.

EigenLayer co-founder Sreeram Kannan published a piece outlining the concept of “agentic companies,” arguing that AI and crypto will enable software-native businesses owned and operated by autonomous agents.

The article frames blockchains as coordination and capital formation infrastructure for agents, allowing them to function as independent economic entities rather than tools.

Eigen Labs introduced Project Darkbloom, a research initiative exploring how idle compute from consumer hardware, particularly Apple Silicon devices, can power distributed AI inference networks.

The model uses verified nodes, secure enclaves, and attestation mechanisms to provide hardware-backed privacy guarantees while improving capital efficiency versus centralized infrastructure.

EigenLayer published an overview explaining how EigenDA expands blockchain throughput by increasing data availability capacity.

By distributing data across a network of operators with cryptographic guarantees, EigenDA allows rollups to process higher volumes of transactions without being bottlenecked by Ethereum’s native data capacity.

EigenLayer shared a recap of standout Synthesis hackathon projects focused on verifiable AI agents.

Featured examples include Bob Is Alive, an autonomous on-chain artist running inside a trusted execution environment; DealForge, a machine-to-machine deal protocol; and Boss Raid, a multi-agent coordination system for task execution.