Ethereum Foundation Launches Digital Public Infrastructure, Aids Verification Challenge

Key Insights:

• Ethereum Foundation explores blockchain-based infrastructure for public services and shared systems.
• EVM.fast challenge seeks mathematical limits for Ethereum block verification.
• Ethereum Foundation develops a private aid payment network with humanitarian organizations.

Ethereum Foundation has launched a new resource on digital public infrastructure. This update covers public services, Ethereum block verification, and its work with humanitarian organizations to improve aid delivery while protecting personal data.

Ethereum Foundation is exploring how Ethereum can support digital public infrastructure as more public services depend on connected systems. When several organizations rely on one provider, a problem with that provider can affect all of them. The foundation says Ethereum offers another way to build shared infrastructure without giving one operator full control.

The idea is to allow different organizations to use the same network while keeping control of their own operations. This could help public services that need to work together but do not want to rely on a single company to manage access.

Notably, the new resource examines how Ethereum could meet these needs. It also examines the role of digital identity and payment systems in public services. The foundation sees room for blockchain technology in services where trust, access and data protection matter. Its work focuses on practical uses rather than simply putting existing services on a blockchain.

The Ethereum Foundation has also launched EVM.fast, an open challenge to determine a mathematical bound on the work required to verify an Ethereum block. At present, developers cannot say exactly how much work verification may require in the worst case.

Validators always finish the process, but there is no mathematical proof of the maximum amount of work needed for every possible block.

EVM.fast invites contributors to work on this problem and compete on a public leaderboard. Their task is to find a guaranteed limit that applies regardless of what a block contains. The project was built on Yukon with ZK Security, VerityLab, and Yukon Research.

The aim is to make Ethereum block verification more predictable. If developers can prove how much work is required, it may become easier to keep verification affordable and possible on modest hardware.

This is important because people should be able to check blocks without needing expensive machines. The challenge is open to contributors who can help find an answer to a question that developers have not yet been able to prove.

The foundation’s Technical Foundations team has spent the past few months working with humanitarian organizations on an aid coordination network. The project seeks to help agencies distribute cash and vouchers while reducing duplicate payments and protecting personal information.

Cash and vouchers accounted for about one-fifth of humanitarian aid in 2025, totaling $7.3 billion. Research found that duplicate cases could reach 15%. In Ukraine, cross-agency deduplication reportedly saved an estimated $207 million by the end of 2024.

However, sharing recipient data between agencies remains difficult. Data-sharing agreements can take four months or more. Some organizations still send spreadsheets by email. In 2022, attackers also compromised Red Cross data belonging to more than 515,000 vulnerable people.

Also, the network keeps personal data offchain. Retailers store credentials on their phones and prove they qualify for aid without revealing which organization issued the credential. Payments go to one-time stealth addresses.

The system also allows agencies to recognize the same retailer through a pseudonymous identity. A paymaster using Semaphore membership proofs can cover payments for eligible members without knowing which accounts it pays.

As detailed, the team tested the system on 10 Android phones. Eligibility proofs took 8–10 seconds on low-end phones, about three seconds on mid-range devices, and around two seconds on flagship phones. Memory use stayed below 0.62 GiB.

The work builds on Ethereum tools, including ERC-4337, ERC-5564, ERC-6538, and Semaphore, to support payments and identity checks without exposing unnecessary personal data.

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