event currentTarget changes after setTimeout

Answer 1

Inspired by Joseph Marikle's comment, I found the real cause:

DOM Standard § 2.9. Dispatching events describes the algorithm, which I'm partially reproducing here:

To **dispatch** an event to a target […] run these steps:
[…]
5. If target is not relatedTarget or target is event’s relatedTarget, then:
    […]
    9. While parent is non-null:
        […]
        8. Otherwise, set target to parent and then:
            […]
        9. If parent is non-null, then set parent to the result of invoking parent’s get the parent with event.
        […]
    […]
    12. Set event’s eventPhase attribute to CAPTURING_PHASE.
    […]
    14. For each tuple in event’s path, in reverse order:
        1. […] invoke […]
    15. For each tuple in event’s path, in order:
        1. If tuple’s target is non-null, then set event’s eventPhase attribute to AT_TARGET.
        2. Otherwise, set event’s eventPhase attribute to BUBBLING_PHASE.
        3. […] invoke […]
[…]
6. Set event’s eventPhase attribute to NONE.
7. Set event’s currentTarget attribute to null.
[…]

To **invoke** […] run these steps:
[…]
5. Initialize event’s currentTarget attribute to struct’s invocation target.
[…]

So, after the event has finished processing all phases (capture, at_target, bubbling), then currentTarget gets assigned null.