Ethereum teams up with SEAL to fight billion-dollar scam problem

The Ethereum Foundation has announced a new partnership with Security Alliance, also known as SEAL, a security-focused non-governmental organization.

They are joining forces to establish the “Trillion Dollar Security” program, which aims to make the Ethereum network more secure as more funds pass through it.

At the core of this initiative is a tracking tool that went live on February 5. The dashboard is not like a regular security audit that is filed away. Instead, it continuously monitors the security of the Ethereum network across six different areas that are essential for keeping the network safe.

Dashboard tracks six security areas

The six security areas include:

1. User Experience (UX): Tracking transaction readability and permission controls.
2. Smart Contracts: Monitoring code vulnerabilities and developer tooling.
3. Infrastructure & Cloud: Assessing Layer 2 protocols and RPC provider risks.
4. Consensus Protocol: Guarding against client centralization and quantum threats.
5. Monitoring & Incident Response: Coordinating real-time detection of failures.
6. Social Layer & Governance: Analyzing organizational capture and regulatory pressures.

The dashboard monitors eight to 29 distinct safety metrics in each of these areas. The tool also indicates what needs to be done next. Only seven of the 29 proposed safety controls in the user experience component are currently operational, demonstrating the amount of work that remains to be done.

Breaking down the numbers, the user experience area has 29 security measures. Seven are already running, 13 are being built right now, eight are still being researched, and one is planned for later. For the smart contracts area, there are 13 controls being tracked. Four are active, seven are being implemented, and two are still in the planning stage.

The infrastructure and cloud section encompasses 17 different protections. Eight of those are already operational, six are being implemented, two are in the research phase, and one is planned. The consensus protocol part comprises 15 controls. Four are complete, four are being developed, and seven are still being studied. The social and governance category tracks eight mechanisms, with three already in place and five under development.

Fighting the drainer problem

This partnership goes beyond merely creating charts and graphs. The Ethereum Foundation is actually paying for a security engineer to work full-time with SEAL’s intelligence team.

ScamSniffer, a crypto intelligence company, discovered that scammers have taken nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency over the years using these methods. The good news is that SEAL and other investigators managed to bring that number down to $83.85 million in 2025, which was the lowest ever. But there’s been a recent increase in two specific types of scams; address poisoning and signature-based phishing in early 2026.

This new security push marks a change in what Ethereum focuses on. For a long time, the network concentrated on growing bigger and completing “The Merge.” Now the Foundation wants to prove the network is secure. By making security something that can be measured and tracked, Ethereum is trying to show it can handle trillions of dollars for big institutions. The timing matters because Ethereum has major updates coming in 2026.

“The Security Alliance has done important work to combat attacks and the ecosystem has benefited tremendously,” the Ethereum Foundation wrote on X after SEAL made the announcement.

SEAL doesn’t plan to stop with Ethereum. The nonprofit wants to create a place where different groups can share information about threats and give legal protection to ethical hackers. SEAL said this Ethereum partnership is just the first of several they have planned with other blockchain networks. They’re inviting other crypto groups to get in touch: “If your foundation or crypto ecosystem is interested in similar sponsorship opportunities, we’re happy to discuss how this model protects users at scale,” SEAL said.

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