Blog

On-Chain Engineering

Deep dives into EVM internals, smart contract patterns, and the infrastructure behind block explorers.

When Provers Race: The Coordination Problem in Decentralized ZK

Concurrent ZK provers collide at 33K gas per failure. Why the coordination problem is hard and what three proposed mechanisms look like.

Antoine · 7 min read

Infrastructure Mar 21 12 min read by Antoine

Best Block Explorers for EVM Chains in 2026

Compare EVM block explorers in 2026: Etherscan, Blockscout, Ethernal, Tenderly, Blockchair, Routescan. Setup speed, pricing, and a decision framework.

Security Mar 20 8 min read by Antoine

The Bug Your Auditor's Tools Will Never Catch

Static analysis and fuzzing miss a whole class of smart contract vulnerabilities. Here's what logical bugs look like and how to find them.

Account Abstraction Mar 18 7 min read by Antoine

One Signature, Every Chain: EIP-8130's Protocol-Level Account Abstraction

EIP-8130 proposes native AA with chainId=0 config sync. No bundlers, no per-chain key rotations. Here's how the mechanism actually works.

DeFi Mar 16 9 min read by Antoine

How Three Infrastructure Failures Turned a $50M Collateral Swap into $36K

A $50M Aave collateral swap returned $36K. Three compounding CoW Protocol failures made the worst possible route the only one available.

AI Agents Mar 16 8 min read by Antoine

The Commerce Layer: How ERC-8183 Makes AI Agent Payments Verifiable

ERC-8183 adds the missing verb to agent commerce: not 'I sent value' but 'I will pay when you deliver.' How the job lifecycle and evaluator work.

AI Agents Mar 14 8 min read by Antoine

The Shape-Shifting Agent: Mutable Configuration Is Ethereum's Next AI Security Problem

ERC-8172 proposes block-delayed metadata updates for AI agents. Here's why the problem is harder than it looks, and what the full defense stack looks like.

EVM Mar 12 8 min read by Antoine

EVM Opcodes 101: What Happens When You Send a Transaction

EVM opcodes are the low-level instructions behind every Ethereum transaction. Learn how stack, memory, storage, and gas costs work.

Infrastructure Mar 10 7 min read by Antoine

What Is a Layer 2, and Why Does Your Rollup Need a Block Explorer?

L2 rollups process thousands of transactions off-chain, but without a block explorer, debugging and verification become guesswork.

Ethernal Dec 19 4 min read by Antoine

Public EVM Block Explorers

Spin up public block explorers for your EVM chains. Custom domains, contract verification, token transfers, and Metamask integration.

Ethernal Oct 3 1 min read by Antoine

Data Retention Changes

Data will now be cleared after 7 days for free plan users.

Ethernal Feb 11 2 min read by Antoine

Ethernal x Tenderly

Set up a block explorer for your Tenderly forks. Debug transactions sent through Ethernal's UI directly in Tenderly.

Ethernal Oct 18 2 min read by Antoine

Ethernal Is Going Open Source!

Ethernal's code is now publicly available on GitHub. The hosted version now has free and paid tiers.

Ethernal May 26 4 min read by Antoine

Transaction Tracing with Ethernal

Easily see which contracts were called or created during the execution of a function. A deep dive into Ethernal's transaction tracing feature.

Ethernal May 3 1 min read by Antoine

Interact with Mainnet Contracts on Your Local Fork

Import contracts from Etherscan into your Ethernal dashboard to interact with them on your local mainnet fork.

Ethernal Apr 29 3 min read by Antoine

Ethernal x Alchemy

Add a webhook in your Alchemy dashboard and get a block explorer for your dapp. Automatic transaction syncing and decoded function calls.