Ethereum Developers Discuss Pectra Upgrade and Client Diversity at Consensus Call #136

On
June
27,
2024,
Ethereum
developers
convened
over
Zoom
for
the
All
Core
Developers
Consensus
(ACDC)
call
#136.
These
bi-weekly
meetings
focus
on
discussing
and
coordinating
changes
to
Ethereum’s
consensus
layer
(CL),
also
known
as
the
Beacon
Chain.
This
session
was
chaired
by
Ethereum
Foundation
(EF)
Researcher
Alex
Stokes,
according
to

Galaxy.com.

Key
Discussions

Developers
delved
into
new
research
on
client
diversity
data
collection
and
multi-client
block
validation.
They
also
shared
updates
on
the
Pectra
upgrade,
revealing
that
Pectra
Devnet
1
is
nearing
readiness,
pending
execution
layer
(EL)
client
readiness.
Teku
developer
Mikhail
Kalinin
updated
the
community
on
EIP
6110
specifications,
while
PeerDAS
Devnet
1
is
live
with
three
different
CL
client
implementations.

New
Research

Jorge
Arce-Garro
from
Nethermind
presented
research
on
improving
client
diversity
data
reporting
by
node
operators.
Funded
by
an
EF
grant,
the
research
explores
three
methods
to
facilitate
client
type
communication
by
validator
node
operators,
evaluating
each
approach’s
complexity,
security,
and
anonymity
protection.
Feedback
on
the
research
is
welcomed
on

Ethresearch.

Geth
developer
Péter
Szilágyi
updated
on
EL
cross-validation,
an
idea
he
first
proposed
in
November
2023.
This
aims
to
enhance
Ethereum’s
resilience
against
catastrophic
bugs
by
enabling
block
verification
with
multiple
clients.
While
the
implementation
across
all
clients
won’t
require
a
hard
fork,
it
necessitates
significant
changes
to
the
Engine
API.
Szilágyi
noted
a
20%
performance
hit
to
block
import
due
to
these
changes
but
emphasized
the
need
for
further
testing
and
benchmarking.

Pectra
Upgrade
Progress

EF
DevOps
Engineer
Parithosh
Jayanthi
reported
that
his
team
is
waiting
on
EL
client
teams
to
launch
Pectra
Devnet
1.
Kalinin
has
finalized
changes
to
EIP
6110,
which
introduces
a
queuing
mechanism
for
processing
new
validator
deposit
requests
from
the
EL
on
the
CL,
and
is
seeking
developer
feedback.

PeerDAS
development
is
progressing,
with
the
second
devnet
live
and
undergoing
stress
testing.
Some
issues
have
been
identified
and
are
being
addressed
by
client
teams.
Stokes
highlighted
ongoing
questions
regarding
PeerDAS
implementation,
particularly
around
blob
gas
limit
and
base
fee
calculation,
with
multiple
proposals
under
consideration.

Nimbus
developer
Etan
Kissling
shared
updates
on
EIP
7688
and
EIP
6493,
related
to
upgrading
Ethereum’s
data
serialization
methods.
While
these
EIPs
are
not
yet
included
in
the
Pectra
upgrade,
certain
developers
are
pushing
for
their
inclusion.
Kissling
aims
to
include
EIP
7688
in
Pectra
Devnet
2,
but
this
has
raised
concerns
among
client
teams
and
the
EF
DevOps
team.
Developers
agreed
to
reassess
the
readiness
of
EIP
7688
at
a
later
date.

Kissling
also
noted
progress
on
EIP
6493,
with
the
EthereumJS
EL
client
having
a
working
implementation
and
a
client
demo
in
development.

Image
source:
Shutterstock