Ethereum All Core Developers Execution Call #201 Writeup
On December 5, 2024, Ethereum protocol developers met virtually over Zoom for All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) Call #201. This week, the call was chaired by Ethereum Foundation (EF) Protocol Support Lead Tim Beiko. The ACDE calls are a bi-weekly meeting series where developers discuss and coordinate changes to the execution layer (EL) of Ethereum.
On ACDE #201, developers agreed to include EIP 7623, an increase to calldata cost, in the Pectra upgrade. They also agreed to exclude EIP 7762 from the upgrade. This was a contentious decision that several on the call did not support and thus, it could be a topic revisited on the next ACD call. Developers discussed coordinating the rollout of EIP 7639 (Cease serving history before the Paris upgrade) and EIP 4803 (Limit transaction gas to a reasonable maximum) in Pectra.
Finally, Beiko shared three potential improvements to the ACD call process and announced a new ACD call schedule for the holiday season.
Mekong
After major network disruptions on the Mekong testnet last week, EF Developer Operations Engineer Parithosh Jayanthi reported that the Grandine team has implemented several fixes to their client and the network is operating at 97% validator participation. Jayanthi noted that there are still a few issues needing attention in the Nimbus and EthereumJS clients.
Pectra Devnet 5
Jayanthi highlighted three open pull requests (PRs) for Pectra Devnet 5 specifications and asked client teams to review them post haste so that Devnet 5 specifications can be finalized.
EIP 7742, Uncouple blob limits per block across Cl and EL (consensus)
Add EIP 7691, Blob throughput increase (consensus)
Changes required for EIP 7742 (execution API)
Beiko said he would add EIP 7691 to the Pectra Meta EIP after the call. EF Researcher Ansgar Dietrichs said that he has finalized the update fraction for EIP 7691 and it is ready to be merged into Devnet 5 specifications. Geth developer “Lightclient” asked if anyone has investigated EIP 7702’s transaction pool implementation. A developer by the screen name “Anders K” said that he has made some suggestions about it in the Ethereum R&D Discord interop channel. Beiko recommended further discussion about the EIP 7702 design in that channel.
Finalizing Pectra Scope
Then, Beiko said there are three major questions about Pectra's scope related to the EL. He stressed that it would be ideal for developers to finalize the scope of Pectra before the holidays so that in January, they can move forward with a “clear target” for upgrade implementation.
BLS Gas Repricing
The first question was regarding BLS gas repricing. For months, developers have been conducting benchmarking analyses on the cost of BLS precompiles in EIP 2537. The Nethermind team proposed a new pricing scheme for the EIP based on their benchmarking analysis. However, there was some concern that one aspect of the proposed pricing scheme was underpriced and could use additional testing. A representative from the Nethermind team recommended continuing the discussion on this topic asynchronously from the call. Beiko asked that developers try to decide by next Monday’s testing call at the latest.
Increase to Calldata Costs
The second question was regarding the inclusion of EIP 7623 in Pectra. On ACDC #146, there was strong support from developers to include the code change in the upgrade. However, Geth developer “Lightclient” was strongly opposed. On this call, EL client teams including Lodestar, Reth, and Besu expressed their support for the EIP and affirmed that its inclusion in Pectra would not significantly delay the upgrade timeline. Besu developer Daniel Lehrner recommended excluding EIP 7623 from Devnet 5 specifications to avoid any delays to the testnet’s launch and include EIP 7623 in the next round of testing in Pectra Devnet 6. To this, Beiko said that if developers can launch Devnet 5 before the holidays, then excluding EIP 7623 would make sense. However, if Devnet 5 does not launch in time, then developers should consider launching Devnet 5 with the finalized scope of Pectra and have this devnet be the last devnet before upgrading public Ethereum testnets.
EF DevOps Engineer Barnabas Busa said that in his view the main blocker for Devnet 5 is not EIP 7623 but EIP 7742. Representatives from Reth, Besu, EthereumJS, and Nethermind teams responded by saying they were close to finishing their implementation of EIP 7742.
Given the lack of opposition to EIP 7623 and the affirmation of its low complexity for implementation by EL client teams, developers agreed to move forward with the inclusion of EIP 7623 in Pectra. EF Researcher Alex Stokes said the EIP should be removed if, upon further testing and implementation, the code changes turn out to introduce more complexity to Pectra than expected. Mario Vega, who is part of the EF Testing Team, said he will have an estimate by next Monday’s testing call about the work needed to create sufficient test cases for EIP 7623.
Increase to Mininum Blob Base Fee
The third question was regarding the inclusion of EIP 7762 in Pectra. This EIP increases the minimum base fee for blob transactions to speed up price discovery for blob space. EF Researcher Ansgar Dietrichs said the EIP has been updated to only include the increase to the minimum base fee and an excess gas reset, which in total Dietrichs said should only be a four-line code change in clients. “I think given that it's so tiny, and it has a meaningful improvement to UX for roll ups, and they've been signaling that this would be valuable for them, I would be in favor doing it,” said Dietrichs. Max Resnick, Head of Research at Consensys’ Special Mechanisms Group, added that the update rule for the excess gas reset creates minimal testing overhead to what is already required for the increase to the minimum base fee.
Geth developer “Lightclient” was strongly opposed to the inclusion of EIP 7762 in Pectra due to concerns about the EIP’s impact on the Pectra timeline. He added, “It’s only 8 months into the blob market, let’s let mature a bit before we start meddling.” Lightclient questioned how effective the EIP would be in solving the problems related to blob fee discovery without further research, discussion, and time. Resnick responded to Lightclient’s concerns saying that EIP 7762 does not seek to address all the problems of the blob fee market, but simply to improve it in light of the blob capacity increase in Pectra, which will ramp up usage of blobs on Ethereum. Without EIP 7762, Resnick reaffirmed that blob repricing would happen more slowly and inefficiently.
Nethermind developer Ben Adams also pointed out that developers were already “meddling” with the blob fee market through the blob capacity increase in Pectra so opposing EIP 7762 on the grounds of leaving the blob fee market untouched for further investigation makes no sense. EF Researcher Alex Stokes called the EIP a “hot fix” to problems in the blob fee market. Busa and Jayanthi cautioned developers that every addition to Pectra, even a small one, will delay Pectra and therefore, these types of decisions should be made sparingly.
Prysm developer Terence Tsao wrote in the Zoom chat that this is an EIP rollups would benefit from. Beiko asked if this EIP could be added to Pectra in a month’s time given the lack of consensus for the code change on the call. Resnick said doing so would create additional testing overhead, as the tests written to increase the minimum base fee would have to be rewritten to include an excess gas reset. Stokes said that he would like to hear more feedback about the EIP from rollups but then also said that he is “weakly in favor” of the EIP.
Tsao and Dietrichs said that further feedback about the EIP could be gathered from rollup teams during next week’s Rollcall meeting. Beiko recommended then tabling the decision until after the Rollcall meeting and revisiting this topic on the next ACD call in one week’s time. Resnick wrote in the Zoom chat that Base and Arbitrum teams have already expressed support for the EIP. Lightclient, Nethermind developer Ahmad Bitar, and others were strongly in favor of making a decision on this week’s call rather than delaying the finalization of Pectra scope further.
Beiko said that if developers finalize a decision about EIP 7762 on this call, EIP 7762 will not be included in Pectra due to a lack of sufficient consensus. Lightclient was the only developer on the call to express strong opposition to the EIP. Others were either undecided or in favor of the EIP. Busa said that if the scope of Pectra is not finalized on the call, Devnet 5 cannot ship before the holidays. Dietrichs argued pushing back the decision about EIP 7762 for another week would reduce its likelihood for inclusion in Pectra, as it would increase the chances that the EIP requires developers to launch an additional devnet after Devnet 5. To be clear, the inclusion of EIP 7623 may also mean that developers need to launch an additional devnet.
In any case, given the strong desire among developers to decide about EIP 7762 post haste, Beiko reiterated that in his view there is not enough consensus to include the EIP in Pectra. Client teams that expressed their support for the EIP included: Nethermind, Besu, and EthereumJS. The client team that expressed opposition was Geth. Others did not share a clear opinion on the call.
Beiko said that any opposition to his decision could be revisited on next week’s ACD call.
EIP-4444 & EIP-7639 Rollout
Developers have reportedly agreed to drop pre-Merge block bodies and receipts data by May 1, 2025. A developer on the call by the name Piper Merriam said the plan was ironed out last month when developers were gathering in Bangkok, Thailand for Devcon. The benefit of dropping pre-Merge data from clients will result in “a couple of hundred gigabytes of free disk space” on nodes, said Merriam. The full plan for EIP 7639, which will be one step towards enabling full history expiry on Ethereum as defined in EIP 4444, is outlined in this HackMD post. Merrian stressed that it is important for client teams to start working on EIP 7639 posthaste to ensure that the target date of May 1, 2025, can be met.
Erigon developer Andrew Ashikhmin said that developers should finalize other improvements to the Ethereum Wire Protocol before layering on EIP 7639. The current version of the protocol facilitating the exchange of Ethereum block information between nodes is eth/68. Ashikhmin reiterated that his team has proposed improvements for inclusion in version eth/69. Merriam and Lightclient debated the rollout of EIP 7639 in version eth/70 or eth/71. They agreed to iron out the details of implementation asynchronously from the call. Since the call, Merriam has summarized the debate about wire protocol versions and history expiry in this document.
Lightclient said that EIP 7639 should be rolled out alongside the Pectra upgrade. Given that the EIP is a networking change and will not change the core protocol of Ethereum or require a hard fork, Lightclient asked how coordination for it should be conducted. Beiko said that he has made some recommendations to the ACD call process that developers will discuss later in the meeting that may address Lightclient’s concerns.
EIP 4803, Limit Transaction Gas
Then, developers discussed a retroactive EIP, a code change that would restrict protocol rules from genesis, for inclusion in Pectra. EIP-4803 makes any transaction invalid where the gas limit exceeds 2^63-1. Though this EIP does not require a hard fork and will not affect any accounts or contracts, Beiko said in the Zoom chat it will require some additional testing. Lightclient raised questions about the constant, 2^63-1, used in this EIP that Beiko recommended being discussed asynchronously from the call. He also recommended revisiting the topic of the EIP’s inclusion in Pectra after Pectra is further along in testing and implementation.
ACD Improvements
Beiko said that client teams held a workshop about ACD process improvements shortly before Devcon and they decided on three potential action items. The first is the creation of a “declined for inclusion” label that would clearly identify EIPs that have been rejected from inclusion in a specific upgrade. Beiko stressed this label does not indicate that the EIP is rejected from all future Ethereum upgrades. There was a suggestion made on the call that the label should include the name of the fork that it is rejected from for added clarity. There were no objections to the suggestion and three votes in favor of it.
The second action item was about the inclusion of non-consensus changes in Meta EIPs. EIPs like EIP 4444 and EIP 4803 do not require a hard fork so they can be more difficult to prioritize and coordinate among developers, said Beiko, adding that moving forward, developers should list all non-consensus changes in Meta EIPs for better coordination. Beiko stressed that the inclusion of non-consensus changes in a Meta EIP can indicate a future timeline for finalizing a non-consensus code change by the time of a fork or indicate that a non-consensus code change has already happened by the time of a fork. Ethereum Cat Herder Pooja Ranjan said she may have further comments and questions about this suggestion that she will raise asynchronously from the call.
The third action item was related to how all the labels for EIPs, which are proposed for inclusion (PFI), considered for inclusion (CFI), scheduled for inclusion (SFI), and now rejected from inclusion (RFI), relate to devnet inclusion. Obviously, EIPs that are RFI will not be included in an upgrade devnet. However, Beiko noted that there is inconsistency and confusion about how the other three stages impact an EIP’s status for implementation on a devnet. Due to a lack of time on the call, Beiko said this topic will be tabled for discussion until next week’s ACD.
ACD Holiday Schedule
Beiko announced the 2024 ACD call holiday schedule from late December to early January. It is as follows:
The testing call on Monday, December 23 will happen as planned.
The ACDC call scheduled on Thursday, December 26, and the testing call scheduled on Monday, December 30, will both be canceled.
The ACDE call scheduled on Thursday, January 2 will be replaced by a Pectra testing call instead.
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