ACDT#48: Call Minutes + Insights

The call where developers discussed Fusaka Devnet-4, the largest devnet yet

Good evening,

After a few weeks in the Bay Area, I’m finally back in NYC and back with regular summaries and insights on the Ethereum developer calls.

Today, Ethereum developers gathered for All Core Developers Testing (ACDT) #48. There weren’t many decisions made on today’s ACD call. However, there were important updates shared on the status of testing for the Fusaka and Glamsterdam upgrades.

Below is my full call summary and takeaways on ACDT #48.

Yours truly,

Christine D. Kim

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Fusaka Devnets

• Fusaka Devnet-3 has been running for 10 days. Non-finality and MEV workflow testing are both underway. No major issues reported so far from testing.

• Fusaka Devnet-4 has been running for 3 days. It is the largest devnet yet in Ethereum’s history, with 1,500 nodes and 43,520 validators.

• On Fusaka Devnet-4, developers are planning to test:

  • networking and node syncing times

  • blob scaling values of up to 48 blobs/block target and 72 blobs/block maximum

  • a block gas limit of 100m gas

  • MEV workflows

  • non-finality and adversarial network conditions

• Developers plan to retire Fusaka Devnet-4 on Friday, August 15. Thereafter, they plan to launch shadow forks of the Ethereum mainnet and public testnets.

Gas Limit Testing

• Sync and benchmarking tests for raising the block gas limit beyond 45m gas are ongoing on Fusaka Devnet-3. Live updates on gas limit testing results can be found here.

Glamsterdam

• There are open questions about how to start testing EIP 7732, enshrined proposer builder separation (ePBS), and EIP 7928, block-level access lists, as the headliners for the Glamsterdam upgrade.

  • For now, Ethereum Foundation (EF) EthPandaOps Team Lead Parithosh Jayanthi said client teams can start testing EIP 7732 implementations on local devnets. He will work on a Kurtosis configuration for multi-client devnets.

  • EF Protocol Prototyping Team Lead Toni Wahrstatter said he is sourcing feedback on the data serialization elements of EIP 7928, and that execution specifications for the EIP are a work-in-progress currently being implemented in the Geth client.

• Developers discussed gas repricing EIPs for Glamsterdam, such as EIPs 7904, 7778, and 7981. Jayanthi recommended creating a meta-EIP to track all the EIPs related to gas repricing that will go into the upgrade.

GitHub Pull Requests (PRs)

• The following PRs were mentioned on the call:

  • PR #1993 (add edge case test vectors for EIP-7883 MODEXP gas calculation): This PR adds 16 test vectors for EIP 7883 in the Execution Spec Tests repository. It was recently finalized and merged.

  • PR #4476 (Replace INTERVALS_PER_SLOT with explicit slot component times): This PR defines slot component durations in the Consensus Specs repository with configurable variables formatted in basis points. It was recently finalized and merged.

  • PR #678 (Add eth_config API definitions for EIP-7910): This PR makes several updates to the implementation of EIP 7910. It has yet to be merged.

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🌻That’s all for my summary of ACDT #48. 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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Editor’s note: Some quotes featured in this section have been edited slightly for grammar and clarity.

Takeaway #1:

What influences Ethereum upgrade timelines the most is not proposed timelines on ACD calls, but the actual implementation and testing work that happens outside of the calls to prepare an upgrade for Ethereum mainnet.

On ACDT #48, Jayanthi briefly raised the topic of the Holesky upgrade timeline for Fusaka. As a refresher, developers said on ACDC #162 that they will aim to activate Fusaka on Holesky, a public Ethereum test network, in early September.

Jayanthi noted that certain client teams had raised concerns about meeting the timeline and whether they should prepare non-final releases for the Holesky upgrade to meet the proposed timeline.

Jayanthi said that from “a community perspective,” non-final releases for Holesky are fine.

Prysm developer Preston van Loon responded in the chat:

“Releasing to Holesky off-[development cycle] isn't difficult, but it messes with normal flow for releases.”