Weekly Blockchain Updates: Ethereum’s Hash Shift & Robinhood Chain’s NFT Surge

As of mid-August 2026, Robinhood Chain has surpassed Ethereum in daily NFT trading volume, reaching $3.13 million, while the Ethereum Foundation announced a major Layer 1 cryptographic overhaul away from the Poseidon hash function. Concurrently, a new USENIX security study revealed that all 15 tested x402 payment providers—including Coinbase—violated at least one security rule.

The Shift Away From Poseidon and Toward Post-Quantum Security

The Ethereum Foundation is actively walking away from Poseidon. Ethereum built this specific hash function for zero-knowledge proof systems, but it is now shifting toward traditional options like SHA and BLAKE. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake announced the decision. He framed it as the payoff of an 8-year, 8-figure rabbit hole in post-quantum cryptography, writing on X that the move “unlocks ultimate security for lean Ethereum.”

Poseidon emerged in 2019. It served as a hash function tailored for SNARKs—the succinct proofs that let blockchains verify computation cheaply. Processing traditional binary-based hashes inside a SNARK used to be expensive, making specialized functions like Poseidon necessary. That trade-off has now flipped.

Drake pointed out that progress in binary-field SNARK engineering enables standard functions like SHA-2 and BLAKE2s to achieve Poseidon-level efficiency within proof systems. He summed up the shift by noting that “the key was not SNARK-friendly hashes, but hash-friendly SNARKs.” Research projects including Binius and Flock helped drive the breakthrough. Drake cited proving speeds of around 1 million traditional hash calls per second on a laptop.

This is a roadmap decision for Ethereum’s Layer 1. Rollups, zkVMs, and other projects already running on Poseidon are not required to switch. Drake linked the hash-scheme pivot directly to broader defenses against quantum computers. Quantum machines could eventually break the elliptic-curve cryptography securing today’s accounts and consensus layer.

The technical target points toward a production-grade leanVM in 2027. Deployments spanning Ethereum’s consensus, data, and execution layers are scheduled to follow in 2028. These dates sit inside Ethereum’s longer-term “Strawmap” coordination document. Consequently, the timeline depends on testing and agreement across independent development teams before anything goes live.

Robinhood Chain Surges Past Ethereum in NFT Volume

Robinhood Chain has overtaken Ethereum to become the network with the single largest NFT trading volume. Daily NFT trading volume on the network hit $3.13 million. Meanwhile, total value locked (TVL) jumped 32% weekly to reach $473 million. Active accounts on the network grew by 3.3% during the same period.

Governance and Stablecoin Shifts Across the Ecosystem

The broader blockchain landscape experienced several structural updates. The ENS DAO formally created the ENS Foundation. An executive director and a five-member board now oversee governance beyond protocol development.

In decentralized finance, Hyperliquid will auto-deploy idle HLP cash into a native lending pool. This adjustment impacts a protocol that currently holds $188.7 million in total value locked. Simultaneously, Jupiter released Lend v2 on Solana, while Uniswap began channeling test-token fees through a buy-and-burn mechanism.

Not every project shared in the growth. MegaETH’s USDm stablecoin supply collapsed from $600 million down to roughly $18 million since the spring.

Security Vulnerabilities in Crypto Payment Providers

Security audit findings released by USENIX added scrutiny to payment infrastructure. The study tested 15 x402 payment providers, including Coinbase. The research found that every single provider violated at least one security rule.

Photo: bitget.com