Good evening,
Today, Ethereum developers debated the execution layer (EL) Hegota headliner, and as I mentioned in prior newsletters, the main contender appears to be EIP-8141, Frame Transactions. However, because the proposal lacks sufficient consensus within the Ethereum developer community, it is possible that developers will not settle on any EL headliner feature for Hegota and simply ship this upgrade with a consensus layer (CL) headliner only.
Tonight, I’m unpacking the debate over the EL Hegota headliner, the current developer sentiment behind both options, and my outlook on where this debate is likely to land.
Let’s get into it.
Yours truly,
Christine D. Kim
🗒️ 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.)
First, here’s a quick summary of the latest Ethereum developer call, All Core Developers Testing (ACDE) #231.
Testing updates
Ethereum Foundation (EF) Developer Operations Engineer Barnabas Busa highlighted parallel testing efforts across multiple developer-focused test networks, also called devnets. The devnets he highlighted included: Blob-devnet-0, Bal-devnet-2, NFT-devnet-10, and Perf-devnet-3. For a more detailed update on the testing efforts happening across these devnets, refer to the All Core Developer Testing (ACDT) call summary in Monday’s newsletter.
Busa confirmed that developers are aiming to launch Bal-devnet-3 and Epbs-devnet-0 next week. The specifications sheet for Bal-devnet-3 is available for client teams to review here.
Miscellaneous updates
Sina Mahmoodi from the EF Geth team shared an update on the new execution layer (EL) history archive format called “EraE.” The idea is that expired history data from Ethereum full nodes will be generated through EraE files. Mahmoodi requested feedback from client teams on the latest EraE specifications.
Mercy Boma Naps-Nkari, a developer working on a lean Ethereum consensus-layer client called “Zeam,” requested feedback on a new pull request for standardizing execution API methods in the
txpoolnamespace.EF Geth Team Lead Felix Lange highlighted that the
txpoolnamespace standardization efforts are not geared towards external Ethereum users, but rather protocol developers. He said the standardization is motivated by the goal of making client debugging and testing on devnets easier.
Hegota EL headliner discussions
The authors of EIP-8015, Universal Enshrined Encrypted Mempool, retracted their proposal from consideration in the Hegota upgrade. Instead, they are now supporting LUCID, an alternative design for enabling encryption in the public mempool. For more details about this decision, listen to this Wednesday’s Ready for Merge podcast episode featuring the authors of EIP-8015 and LUCID.
For background on the three remaining Hegota EL headliner proposals, refer to the following prior newsletters:
Erigon client developer Andrew Ashikhmin favored prioritizing FRAME as the EL headliner for Hegota.
Besu developer Daniel Lehrner said his team is supportive of LUCID.
Geth developer “Lightclient,” who was also one of the authors of the FRAME proposal, supported FRAME.
Nethermind developer Lukasz Rozmej was not confident in any of the Hegota EL headliner proposals, nor were Reth developer Dragan Rakita and Geth developer Marius van der Wijden.
Nimbus developer “Dustin” said his team is supportive of SSZ as a headliner for Hegota.
Lightclient strongly opposed prioritizing LUCID in Hegota, citing concerns about the proposal’s maturity and readiness for implementation.
Rakita expressed several concerns about the complexity of FRAME and its potential negative impacts on smart contract and wallet developer tooling.
Danno Ferrin, a developer at Tectonic, raised concerns about how the FRAME proposal handles the large size of post-quantum (PQ) signatures, which can be multiple kilobytes and require signature aggregation for efficient verification.
Developers agreed to reconvene next week for a dedicated breakout call on FRAME.
They also agreed to postpone a final decision on any of the Hegota EL headliner proposals until the next ACDE call in two weeks.
🌕 That’s all for my summary of ACDE #231. Continue reading for my insights on Ethereum development and governance. 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.)
Ethereum developers are currently leaning toward either prioritizing FRAME as the execution-layer (EL) headliner for Hegota or shipping the upgrade without an EL-focused headliner altogether.
