Editor | GaryMa Wu Blockchain
Wu Blockchain team summarizes key blockchain technology developments in April:
Bitcoin
· Bitcoin quantum theft prevention scheme discussion:
After implementing a quantum-resistant upgrade and providing users sufficient migration time, destroy Bitcoin vulnerable to quantum attacks.
Prove UTXO control through SHA256 (or other quantum-resistant commitment) preimage.
Submit BIP draft proposing multiple methods to destroy quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin, emphasizing long-term security through mandatory migration periods.
· Bitcoin community engaged in extensive discussion about introducing OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV) and OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK (CSFS) opcodes via soft fork, covering motivations, technical implementation, tool support, alternatives, and potential applications.
Supporting CTV+CSFS: Emphasize optimization potential for DLC, vaults, BitVM, LN-Symmetry, Ark, and Liquid, with CTV being particularly crucial for Ark.
Criticism and caution: Questioning CTV motivations (recursive contract contradiction), tool readiness, DLC/BitVM demand, advocating alternative languages (bll, Simplicity).
Technical supplements: CCV provides contract transfer support, Minsc and other tools improving.
Consensus cleanup: Fixing multiple vulnerabilities, but 64-byte transaction disable and coinbase locktime flag spark controversy.
Ethereum
· Pectra mainnet upgrade scheduled for May 07 around 10:05 UTC / Epoch 364032.
· Vitalik proposed a long-term proposal in Ethereum Magicians community: Replace current execution layer virtual machine (EVM) with open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture.
· Ethereum developers decided to remove EOF from Fusaka upgrade. (Attached Fusaka Meta EIP, i.e., upgrade EIPs under consideration)
Solana
· Anza reported vulnerabilities in ed25519 and secp256k1 precompiled programs in Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), affecting validators running v2.2 with — transaction-structure view enabled. Vulnerability reported by Temporal on April 9, Anza released v2.2.8 fix on April 11, removing alignment assumptions. This vulnerability does not affect fund safety. Anza recommends disabling — transaction-structure view and upgrading to the patched version.
· Anza's core engineering VP stated in a podcast that Solana's block space will be doubled by year-end, reaching 100M CU block limit. Related proposals include SIMD-0207 and SIMD-0256. SIMD-0207 proposed increasing block limit to 50M CU and is already activated on mainnet. SIMD-0256 plans to increase to 60M CU and is under review.
· Solana's early "Confidential Transfers" feature has now expanded to "Confidential Balances". This feature covers confidential transfers, fees, minting, and burning modules. Currently, there's a Rust-based backend implementation, with a JavaScript zero-knowledge proof library expected to launch in 2025. Users will then be able to generate and verify proofs through browser or mobile wallets, enabling client-side confidential transfers.
BNB Chain
· BNB Chain successfully completed Lorentz mainnet hard fork upgrade. This upgrade reduced opBNB block time to 0.5 seconds, BSC to 1.5 seconds. Subsequently, the Maxwell upgrade in June 2025 will further reduce BSC mainnet block time to 0.75 seconds.
Near
· NEAR Infrastructure Committee released a Request for Proposal (RFP) to build a chain-abstraction-based relayer infrastructure. This self-service platform will enable developers to seamlessly sponsor gas fees or allow users to pay transaction fees across multiple blockchains, accepting base tokens (like ETH, SOL) and mainstream stablecoins (USDT/USDC) as gas deposits.
Hyperliquid
· HyperEVM mainnet launched Read precompiles functionality. Read precompiles is a core HyperEVM feature allowing smart contracts to read on-chain states (like prices, order book data) atomically and efficiently. It eliminates dependence on external oracles, enhancing DeFi application reliability, performance, and innovation potential. Through read precompiles, Hyperliquid blockchain seamlessly combines high-performance financial primitives with a generic EVM programming environment, providing developers powerful tools for building next-generation DeFi applications.
Others
· Category Labs tweeted about MonadBFT, a future consensus protocol designed for Monad. MonadBFT optimizes the HotStuff protocol, combining hybrid signature schemes and pipeline design, demonstrating excellent performance and scalability. With features like tail-fork resistance, single-round speculative finality, optimistic responsiveness, and linear complexity, it achieves high throughput (10k tx/s), sub-second finality, and network stability. Its core innovation lies in protecting honest validators' work through a forced re-proposal mechanism, curbing malicious MEV extraction, and improving user experience.
· Researchers proposed a hybrid privacy address protocol combining Curvy protocol and Module-LWE technology, achieving higher scanning efficiency while maintaining Ethereum compatibility.
· Researchers proposed the Trusted Compute Units (TCU) framework, combining trusted execution environments (TEE) and zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVM) to achieve verifiability and privacy protection for complex off-chain computations, suitable for scenarios like federated learning.
· Scroll became the first zk-Rollup to reach Stage 1, with this Euclid update achieving key improvements: 1) Prohibiting arbitrary upgrades, giving users sufficient time to exit before system changes; 2) Eliminating censorship risks, allowing users to submit transactions directly on Layer 1 for forced execution; 3) Ensuring network liveliness, with the network automatically opening to everyone if sequencer or prover goes down, maintaining system operation. Bitcoin community extensively discussed introducing OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV) and OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK (CSFS) opcodes via soft fork, covering motivations, technical implementation, tool support, alternatives, and potential applications.
