Ethereum Foundation unveils security initiative to supplant legacy systems

The Ethereum Foundation has launched a security initiative aimed at supporting the broader adoption of onchain technologies, according to a May 14 announcement. The effort is part of an ongoing push to strengthen Ethereum's role in programmable digital assets.

Fredrik Svantes, a protocol security research lead, and Josh Stark from the Ethereum Foundation management team will be the initial co-chairs of the initiative. Three contributors to the Ethereum ecosystem — samczsun, Medhi Zerouali, and Zach Obront — will help guide the project.

Called the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, the effort seeks to analyze, improve, and communicate to Ethereum developers areas where security can be improved, including user experience, wallet security, smart contract security and infrastructure.

According to DefiLlama, Ethereum still is the leading ecosystem for decentralized finance (DeFi), having held between 50-60% of the total value locked across all blockchains since May 2022. The network's TVL stands at nearly $80 billion as of May 14.

“Achieving Trillion Dollar Security is only possible with the support of the broad Ethereum ecosystem,” the Foundation said in a statement. “Billions of individuals are each comfortable storing more than $1,000 onchain, collectively amounting to trillions of dollars secured on Ethereum," it added.

Related: Vitalik Buterin outlines vision as Ethereum ecosystem addresses hit new high

Ethereum’s struggles during this bull market have been well-documented. It has suffered from low traffic and a lack of attention-grabbing use cases, and its layer-2 chains that make Ethereum faster have been plagued by bad UX. But then came the Pectra upgrade.

Pectra, Ethereum’s most significant upgrade since The Merge, has delivered three key improvements, including external accounts as smart contracts, increased staking limits and data blobs per block.

Ethereum’s native token (ETH) price has risen significantly since the upgrade, jumping over 43% since May 7.

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