LEDGER FACED CUSTOMER DATA BREACH: Hardware wallet giant Ledger is grappling with a data exposure incident, this time linked to its third-party payment processor, Global-e. An email notification sent to customers by Global-e and initially shared by pseudonymous blockchain sleuth ZachXBT on X said the breach involved unauthorized access to Ledger users' personal details like names and contact information from Global-e's cloud system. The email did not disclose the number of clients affected or specify when the exploit occurred. In 2020, Ledger experienced a data breach that exposed information of 270,000 customers through e-commerce partner Shopify. In 2023, Ledger was hacked for nearly $500,000, affecting several decentralized finance applications. Global-e said it detected unusual activity and swiftly implemented controls while launching an investigation, which verified the improper access."We retained independent forensic experts to conduct an investigation into the incident and we were able to determine that some personal data including name and contact information were improperly accessed," it said in the email. — Omkar Godbole | Read more.
STARKNET GOES DOWN FOR A FEW HOURS: Starknet said service had been fully restored following a four hour outage, adding that some transactions submitted during a narrow window may not have been processed correctly. "Starknet is back online and fully operational," the team behind the Ethereum layer-2 network posted on X. The team warned that transactions sent between 09:24 and 09:42 UTC could have been affected, and said a full retrospective, including a detailed timeline, root cause analysis and long-term prevention measures, will be published at a later date. Downtime can have knock-on effects across decentralized finance and other onchain applications, including stalled swaps, delayed withdrawals and difficulty updating positions. It can also disrupt sequencer-based networks, where transaction ordering and block production depend on a smaller set of operators than on Ethereum itself. — Margaux Nijkerk | Read more.
VITALIK BUTERIN'S TWO GOALS FOR ETHEREUM: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin used a New Year's message on Thursday to reflect on a year of major technical progress — and to argue that the network's real test lies in fulfilling its original mission, not in chasing the latest crypto narratives. In his New Year's post on X, Buterin said Ethereum made meaningful progress in 2025 by becoming faster, more reliable and better able to handle growth without sacrificing its decentralized design. He pointed to improvements that allow the network to process more activity, reduce bottlenecks and make it easier for people to run the software that keeps Ethereum operating. Taken together, he said, those changes move the blockchain closer to becoming a new kind of shared computing platform rather than just another blockchain. But Buterin was clear that technical milestones alone are not the end goal. "Ethereum needs to do more to meet its own stated goals," he wrote, cautioning against what he described as efforts to "win the next meta," whether through tokenized dollars, political memecoins or attempts to artificially boost network usage for economic signaling. Instead, Buterin returned to a long-standing vision of Ethereum as a "world computer" — a shared, neutral platform for applications that can operate without reliance on centralized intermediaries. That vision, he writes, centers on applications designed to function without fraud, censorship or third-party control, even if their original developers disappear. Buterin pointed to the "walkaway test," the idea that systems should continue running regardless of who maintains them, as a core benchmark. He also emphasized resilience, arguing that users should not notice if major infrastructure providers go offline or are compromised. — Siamak Masnavi | Read more.
ETH STAKING QUEUES CLEAR UP: Ethereum's staking queues have emptied out and the network can now absorb new validators and exits almost in real time. This means the rush to lock up ETH has faded for now and staking is settling into a steady-state instead of a scarcity trade. Queues are simply the time spent to start or stop staking on the Ethereum network, acting as a sentiment gauge and a measure of liquidity. In one sense, the lack of queues is a feature, not a bug, as these are proof Ethereum can handle staking flows without locking up liquidity for weeks. At the same time, staking rewards have compressed toward 3% as total staked ETH grew faster than issuance and fee income, limiting incentives for renewed surges in either direction and leaving queues near zero even as overall staking participation remains elevated. Lower yield can reflect crowding, but also a higher 'trust premium' — more ETH is choosing to sit in staking rather than on exchange order books. What this means is that "staking pressure" is no longer a daily narrative. When queues are long, ETH supply is effectively being locked faster than the network can onboard validators, and that can create a sense of scarcity. When queues sit near zero, the system is closer to neutral. People can stake or unstake without waiting weeks, which makes staking feel less like a one-way door and more like a liquid allocation. This changes the psychology around the ether trade. - Shaurya Malwa & Sam Reynolds | Read more.
