Good evening,
The Hegota headliner discussions officially kicked off today, with presentations of three ambitious Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).
What stood out most in today’s conversation was the vocal participation of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Buterin is no stranger to these calls, but his sustained engagement throughout today’s discussion may signal an intention to take a more active role in the Hegota headliner selection process than he has in prior fork-scoping debates.
In today’s newsletter, I discuss in more detail why that is, as well as highlight another piece of news, not directly related to protocol development, but involving high-profile developers in Ethereum’s ecosystem.
Let’s get into it.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
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🗒️ Call Minutes
(For background on the ACD process and jargon used on these calls, refer to the Ethereum Governance 101 document in the ACD Toolkit.)
New Breakout Calls
There are three new breakout call series that will kick off in the next few weeks.
Details about each of these call series have been added to the Ethereum Protocol Meetings resource in the ACD Toolkit.
BALs Devnet-2
Developers plan to launch the next block-level access lists (BALs) devnet to test the execution layer (EL) components of the Glamsterdam upgrade next Wednesday, February 4.
Developers agreed to make the following client-level optimizations for BALs a mandatory part of the Glamsterdam upgrade:
parallel execution
batch reads
parallel state root calculations
Ethereum Foundation (EF) Researcher Maria Inês Silva highlighted that these optimizations are necessary for accurate gas repricing in Glamsterdam.
EF Researcher and ACDE Call Chair Ansgar Dietrichs acknowledged that discussion is needed on how to specify the mandatory client-level optimizations for Glamsterdam. He also noted that the above client optimizations should be prioritized for implementation ahead of other Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) in the Glamsterdam Considered for Inclusion (CFI’d) list.
Dietrichs also noted that developers need to agree on how to prioritize EIPs in the CFI’d list for testing on future Glamsterdam devnets.
Daniel Lehrner, a Besu client developer at Consensys, noted that EIP-7954 (Increase Maximum Contract Size) should be prioritized for inclusion in a devnet to enable developers to proceed with accurate client benchmarking.
EF Protocol Prototyping Team Lead Toni Wahrstatter added that developers should also discuss on a future call whether to test a higher block gas limit of 150 million gas on BALs Devnet-2.
Glamsterdam Scope Changes
Developers agreed to CFI EIP-7610 (Revert creation in case of non-empty storage). However, developers acknowledged open issues with the proposal that must be resolved before implementation.
Developers also agreed to implement EIP-7872 (Max blob flag for local builders) and EIP-7949 (Genesis File Format) in Glamsterdam. However, they will not specify these changes in the Glamsterdam meta EIP document because they are non-consensus-breaking client-level optimizations.
EF Geth Client Developer Csaba Kiraly presented on two non-protocol changes related to EIP-8070, Sparse blobpool, for consideration in Glamsterdam:
Kiraly’s presentation on the two EIPs above is available at this Google Slides link.
Developers did not reach a decision on these EIPs.
Hegota Headliner EIP Presentations
Jannik Luhn, a Software Engineer at Brainbot Technologies AG, presented EIP 8105, Universal Enshrined Encrypted Mempool (EEM), as a headliner feature for the Hegota fork.
EIP-8105 is an in-protocol mechanism for encrypting user transactions submitted to the public mempool to protect them from front-running, sandwich attacks, and censorship.
There will be a breakout meeting on EIP 8105 next Tuesday, February 3, at 2 pm (UTC)/9 am (ET).
EF Geth Team Lead Felix Lange presented EIP-8141, Frame Transaction, as a headliner feature for the Hegota fork.
EIP-8141 introduces a new transaction that allows Ethereum accounts to define and interpret signature schemes using any cryptographic system, not just the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). This would enable full account abstraction on Ethereum and prepare Ethereum accounts for use with post-quantum secure cryptography.
Lehrner noted that this type of EIP should be discussed extensively with wallet providers and other ecosystem stakeholders that offer services to help users manage their Ethereum accounts.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed his strong support for EIP-8141.
Etan Kissling, a Nimbus client developer supported by the Institute of Free Technology, presented EIP-7807, SSZ execution blocks, as a headliner feature for Hegota.
EIP-7807 would create a unified block representation across Ethereum’s consensus layer (CL) and execution layer (EL) to enable more efficient communication and verification of block data across these layers.
Ethereum stakeholders have until next Wednesday, February 4, to propose additional headliner features for Hegota.
Developers will discuss EIP-7805, fork choice enforced inclusion lists (FOCIL), as a headliner candidate for Hegota on next Thursday’s ACDC call.
🌕 That’s all for my summary of ACDE #229. Continue reading for pointed takeaways and direct quotes about Ethereum protocol development. To read the rest of the newsletter, make sure you are signed up for a premium subscription:
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🔎 Insights
(Quotes featured in this section may be edited for grammar and clarity. For more information on the people quoted in this section, refer to the ACD Call Directory in the ACD Toolkit.)
The Hegota headliner discussions officially kicked off today, with presentations on three candidate EIPs: EIP-8105, EIP-8141, and EIP-7807.
