ACDE #221: Call Minutes + Insights
The call confirming a 60m block gas limit increase with Fusaka mainnet activation
Good evening,
Today, Ethereum developers discussed the readiness of client teams for the first public testnet upgrade for Fusaka, which is scheduled to activate next Wednesday, October 1.
There are four client teams that have not yet published their releases for next week’s testnet upgrade. However, no objections were raised to proceeding with the testnet upgrade next week.
Developers also agreed to move forward with setting a new block gas limit default of 60 million gas in Fusaka mainnet client releases once all the testnet upgrades have been completed.
Below is my full call summary and key insights for All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) #221.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
(For background on the ACD process and jargon used on these calls, refer to the Ethereum Governance 101 document in the ACD Toolkit.)
Fusaka
The bug bounty program for the Fusaka upgrade is ongoing.
The public testnet timeline for Fusaka has been added to the Fusaka Meta EIP.
An official Ethereum Foundation (EF) blog post announcing the public testnet timeline will be published tomorrow.
The EF EthPandaOps team is aiming to launch a shadow fork of Holesky tomorrow.
Geth, Lighthouse, Nimbus, and Prysm teams are the only clients that have not yet published public testnet-ready versions of their software.
“Kingy” from the Lighthouse team said they will be ready with a new release next Monday.
James He from the Prysm team and “Dustin” from the Nimbus team said they are trying to get a release out this week.
Marius van der Wijden from the Geth team did not comment on the timeline, but said that work is ongoing for their release.
60m Block Gas Limit
EF Protocol Coordination Co-Team Lead Tim Beiko asked if client teams would feel comfortable raising the default block gas limit from 45 million to 60 million gas in Fusaka mainnet releases. There were no objections.
Beiko also reminded Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) authors with EIPs in Fusaka to update the status of their proposals to “last call,” as these proposals are now in the final stages of testing before activation on mainnet.
Glamsterdam
EF Protocol Prototyping Team Lead Toni Wahrstatter stated that a breakout meeting was held on Wednesday regarding EIP 7928, block-level access lists (BALs). Developers are still on track to start testing EIP 7928 on a multi-client devnet sometime next month.
Prysm developer Terence Tsao stated that a breakout meeting for EIP 7732, enshrined proposer builder separation (ePBS), will be held tomorrow, September 26. A new consensus layer (CL) specifications release, v1.6.0-beta, is available. It contains guidelines and tests for the major components of EIP 7732, including the container type and state transition function.
Beiko reminded developers that the deadline for proposing additional EIPs for the Glamsterdam upgrade is coming up. All Glamsterdam EIPs should be proposed within the next month, and no later than when Fusaka mainnet releases are ready.
Beiko also clarified that client teams should review all proposed EIPs for Glamsterdam and create a shortlist of candidates that will be “considered for inclusion” (CFI’d) for the upgrade. Once EIP 7928 and 7732 are further along in implementation and testing, developers can decide which CFI’d EIPs to promote to a “scheduled for inclusion” (SFI’d) status. Refer to the Ethereum Governance 101 post on my Substack for further details on this process.
EIP Process Change
“Wolovim” from the EF Protocol Support team proposed identifying a single point of contact for proposed EIPs in an upgrade to facilitate easier coordination for the implementation and testing of EIPs.
Beiko suggested that the point of contact for an EIP should, by default, be the individual who submits the pull request to propose the EIP for an upgrade.
Ethereum Cat Herders President Pooja Ranjan suggested making the point of contact for an EIP automatically a co-author of the proposal, as there is already a standardized field for detailing information about EIP co-authors.
Ranjan asked where information about an EIP’s point of contact would be listed. Wolovim stated that the information can be featured on the Forkcast website and later formalized into other EIP-related documentation if deemed useful.
Beiko reminded developers that he will be taking time off starting next week, and EF Protocol Architecture Researcher Ansgar Dietrichs will chair the ACDE meetings in his place.
EIP 7819 Discussion
OpenZeppelin Smart Contract Engineer Hadrien Croubois presented EIP 7819, SETDELEGATE instruction, for consideration in Glamsterdam.
The EIP introduces a new instruction that enables smart contracts to create and update EIP-7702 delegation accounts easily and more cheaply.
EF Stateless Consensus Team Lead Guillaume Ballet said this EIP could reduce state growth by reducing the number of proxy or “clone” accounts on Ethereum. He encouraged developers to review a recent analysis on state usage done by his colleague on the Stateless Consensus team, Wei Han, to learn more.
A former OpenZeppelin smart contract developer, using the screen name “Frangio,” asked developers about their views on EIP 8024 (backward-compatible SWAPN, DUPN). Since there were no comments about the proposal, Beiko recommended following up on it in the Ethereum R&D Discord.
🌻That’s all for my summary of ACDE #221. Continue reading for pointed takeaways from the call, featuring direct quotes and additional context on key topics. To read the rest of the newsletter, make sure you are signed up for a premium subscription:
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(Quotes featured in this section may be edited slightly for grammar and clarity. For more information on the people quoted in this section, refer to the ACD Call Directory in the ACD Toolkit.)
Takeaway #1:
Ethereum developers are leapfrogging milestones in protocol development in unprecedented ways.
