Ethereum All Core Developers Consensus Call #148 Writeup
On January 9, 2025, Ethereum developers met over Zoom for All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) call #148. It was the first ACD call of the year. The call was chaired by Ethereum Foundation (EF) Researcher Alex Stokes. The ACDC calls are a biweekly meeting series where developers discuss and coordinate changes to the consensus layer (CL) of Ethereum, also known as the Beacon Chain.
On ACDC #148, developers shared updates on Pectra testing and implementation progress. Stokes highlighted an important initiative by “Kev” to define hardware requirements for validator node operators. Developers agreed that the name of the seventh CL fork or upgrade should be named after the star “Gloas”.
Pectra Devnet 5 Open Questions
EF Developer Operations Engineer Parithosh Jayanthi flagged one open issue in CL specifications that needs resolving by developers for Pectra Devnet 5 launch. In addition, Jayanthi noted that hive tests for both EL and CL clients have been updated and most clients are doing well against these tests.
Stokes noted that there is another open issue impacting EL clients related to the system contract in EIP 2935, serve historical block hashes from state. Stokes said that he would follow up with Geth developer “Lightclient” on the status of this issue after the call.
Then, developers discussed the status of CL client teams on their implementation of updated builder specifications for Pectra. Lighthouse developer Sean Anderson said builder specs are a “work in progress” for his team. Representatives from other client teams like Prysm and Teku said they were in a similar situation.
Pectra Devnet 5 Timing
On the topic of Pectra Devnet 5 timing, Stokes recommended touching base on the status of implementations with EL client teams on the next ACDE call before finalizing a date for Pectra Devnet 5 launch. EF Protocol Support Lead Tim Beiko recommended touching base on the Monday testing call, earlier before the next ACDE, and ideally try to launch Devnet 5 sometime next week. Stokes agreed the earlier the better so long as EL client teams are also ready for launch.
If Devnet 5 launches in the next week or two, Stokes said that optimistically speaking, developers could start upgrading Ethereum’s public testnets, Sepolia and Holesky, in February and aim for a mainnet activation sometime in March. Jayanthi and Lightclient both commented that coordination for a Devnet 6 launch is likely needed before or during public testnet upgrades.
Beiko asked what everyone’s thoughts were on upgrade ordering and whether the Ephemery testnet, a new Ethereum public testnet that resets once every month, should be upgraded alongside Sepolia and Holesky. Stokes and EF Security Researcher said Sepolia should be upgraded before Holesky. Beiko said that client releases for Sepolia and Ephemery could be bundled together so that they are upgraded concurrently. Stokes said that bundling client releases for Sepolia and Holesky would also help speed up the timeline for mainnet activation.
To be clear, bundling client releases is only effective if there are no issues found in code during public testnet upgrades. Assuming two weeks of time between the Sepolia and Holesky testnet upgrades, any updates made to client software in light of the Sepolia upgrade will require developers to release updated software for the Holesky upgrade.
Developers did not reach a decision about next steps for Pectra testing such as when to launch Devnet 6, either before or during Pectra activation on Sepolia, or how to plan client releases for the Sepolia, Holesky, and Ephemery testnets. There was some discussion in the Zoom chat about kick starting a bug bounty program for Pectra after the Sepolia upgrade, but this was not confirmed on the call.
ENR Field Updates
A developer by the name of “Pop” has proposed three new fields to Ethereum Node Records (ENR) specifications. ENR specs define information for node connectivity. As stated in the documentation for ENR on GitHub, “A node record usually contains the network endpoints of a node, i.e. the node's IP addresses and ports. It also holds information about the node's purpose on the network so others can decide whether to connect to the node.”
Pop explained the three new fields enable nodes to establish outbound and inbound connections on both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Stokes asked developers to review the proposal on GitHub. Pop said that the changes are backwards compatible so they can be merged and finalized independently from Pectra.
PeerDAS Updates
There were no updates shared on the call about PeerDAS, an improvement to blob scalability that is currently slated for inclusion in the Fusaka upgrade.
Validator Hardware Requirements
A developer by the screen name “Kev” has created a document defining the minimum hardware requirements for Ethereum validators. As stated in the document, these efforts have several benefits. “A clear hardware specification is crucial for ensuring meaningful benchmark comparisons across different implementations, enabling informed decision-making about protocol upgrades and their hardware implications, [and] providing clear guidance for node operators with respects to the future.” Stokes asked developers to review the document and provide feedback on it to Kev.
G-star Upgrade Name
Finally, developers discussed the name for the CL’s seventh upgrade, the upgrade after Fulu. Based on an Ethereum Magicians post, the G-star name with the highest number of votes was “Gloas”. The accompanying EL fork expected to be activated at the same time as Gloas is already named Amsterdam. Stokes mentioned that one of the reasons for going with Gloas was that the portmanteau for the combined EL and CL upgrades could then be “Glamsterdam”.
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