Ethereum maintains its leading position in the L1 blockchain market with its superior Total Value Locked (TVL), continuously attracting concentrated capital and users. Its mature smart contracts and decentralized architecture deepen the ecosystem, attracting institutional participation. Although other chains have advantages in efficiency and cost, Ethereum still leads significantly in stability and application composability. Future competition will focus on performance and application scenarios.

Gate News Announcement, March 12th, Bitcoin L1 native smart contract platform OP_NET announced the completion of a $5 million funding round. This round was led by Further, with participation from ANAGRAM, Arcanum Capital, Humla Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, G20 Ventures, and UTXO

Gate News Report, March 11: According to Blockworks data, Solana has surpassed all L1 and L2 blockchains in network revenue for the second consecutive month.

The securities token platform Progmat incubated by MUFG has partnered with Ava Labs, planning to migrate its system to the Avalanche L1 blockchain by 2026 to enhance interoperability with Ethereum-compatible chains, while continuing to collaborate with Datachain to support token issuance and settlement on other chains.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that IoTeX announced on the X platform that after a suspected private key leak led to a hacking attack, the L1 has been restored and upgraded to operate normally. The new version v2.3.4 includes a default blacklist that automatically filters malicious EOA addresses to enhance network security. A comprehensive compensation plan for affected bridging users will be announced within 24 hours.

The Ethereum Foundation has established the Ethereum Platform Team, aimed at improving user support and application integration for L1 and L2. The team will focus on protocol development, technical integration, and strategic tracking, evaluating the successes and shortcomings of the Ethereum system, and promoting the value enhancement and widespread adoption of L2.

Foresight News reports that crypto payment provider Alchemy Pay announced plans to launch the Alchemy Chain L1 public chain testnet on February 23. The public chain will be built on the Solana Virtual Machine architecture and will offer a payment system that allows users to transact using fiat currency and cryptocurrencies for large-scale commercial applications.

Co-Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, Wang Xiaowei, stated at the Consensus 2026 conference that currently no other L1 can compete with Ethereum. She emphasized the importance of censorship resistance and privacy protection tools, as well as application layer innovation, especially in the future development of identity.

Ethereum will undergo its most groundbreaking architectural upgrade since the "Merge." Today marks the official launch of the first L1-zkEVM Workshop, where a brand-new block verification system based on zero-knowledge proofs is being showcased for the first time. This solution is expected to enable faster block confirmation, reduce resource consumption, and significantly lower operational barriers. Ladislaus.eth, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, stated that this could be one of the most impactful upgrades in network history. The core of this roadmap is EIP-8025 "Optional Execution Proof," which allows some validators (zkAttesters) to confirm blocks through cryptographic proofs without re-executing each transaction. For existing nodes, this is an optional upgrade and will not be mandatory, but adopters will gain clear efficiency advantages.

Ethereum Name Service provider ENS announces that it will officially cancel the originally planned Layer 2 project Namechain in ENSv2 and instead directly release the upgraded protocol on the Ethereum mainnet. ENS lead developer nick.eth stated that the drastic decrease in network fees over the past year has made the premise of "going L2 to reduce costs" no longer valid. In an official blog post, nick.eth pointed out that the gas cost for ENS registration has decreased by about 99% in one year, driven by a series of structural changes brought about by Ethereum's scaling upgrades. The recently launched Fusaka upgrade has increased the single-block gas limit to 60 million, twice the goal set for early 2025. He also revealed that Ethereum core developers are aiming to cap the 2026 target at 200 million, which is a threefold increase from the current baseline, and this plan has not yet accounted for any potential increments from zero-knowledge rollup solutions.