Galaxy: Ethereum Developers Discuss Key Upgrades in All Core Developers Consensus Call #135

On
June
13,
2024,
Ethereum
developers
convened
virtually
for
the
All
Core
Developers
Consensus
(ACDC)
call
#135.
This
bi-weekly
meeting,
chaired
by
Ethereum
Foundation
(EF)
researcher
Alex
Stokes,
focused
on
discussing
and
coordinating
changes
to
Ethereum’s
consensus
layer,
also
known
as
the
Beacon
Chain,
according
to

Galaxy
blog.

Announcements

The
meeting
commenced
with
two
significant
announcements.
EF
Developer
Operations
(DevOps)
Engineer
Parithosh
Jayanthi
revealed
that
the
ethPandaOps
team
will
now
maintain
and
develop
the
ethereum-package
Kurtosis
module.
This
software
package
is
essential
for
creating
Ethereum
testnets
and
associated
tools.
Users
are
advised
to
update
their
links
to
the
software,
as
the
maintenance
transition
might
impact
some
functionalities.

EF
Protocol
Support
Lead
Tim
Beiko
introduced
new
processes
for
staging
the
inclusion
of
Ethereum
Improvement
Proposals
(EIPs)
in
upgrades.
He
presented
a
draft
EIP
defining
labels
such
as
“Proposed
for
Inclusion”,
“Considered
for
Inclusion”,
and
“Scheduled
for
Inclusion”.
Developers
were
asked
to
review
and
provide
feedback
on
this
document
before
the
next
ACD
call.

Electra

Discussion
then
shifted
to
the
upcoming
major
release
of
Electra,
version
1.5.0-alpha.3.
Developers
agreed
to
merge
pull
request
#3768,
which
addresses
data
serialization
issues,
into
the
next
release.
Outstanding
issues,
such
as
validator
consolidations
triggered
through
the
execution
layer
(EL),
were
noted
for
further
updates.

Most
client
teams
indicated
readiness
to
release
new
versions
for
testing
within
one
to
two
weeks
after
the
finalization
of
version
1.5.0-alpha.3.
The
timing
for
the
next
Pectra
devnet,
Pectra
Devnet
1,
will
be
revisited
in
a
few
weeks.

PeerDAS

The
call
also
covered
PeerDAS,
a
networking
change
designed
to
enhance
nodes’
ability
to
process
and
validate
large
quantities
of
data
submitted
through
blob
transactions.
Developers
decided
to
activate
PeerDAS
on
separate
devnets
from
other
Pectra
EIPs,
as
merging
them
now
could
complicate
testing.

While
no
clear
timeline
was
provided
for
the
PeerDAS
Devnet
1
launch,
rough
estimates
ranged
from
two
weeks
to
a
month.
The
topic
will
be
revisited
once
client
teams
have
made
more
progress.

Tim
Beiko
emphasized
including
PeerDAS
code
changes
in
the
meta
EIP
for
the
Pectra
upgrade
to
signal
developers’
commitment
to
preparing
it
for
mainnet
activation.
There
were
no
objections
to
this
inclusion.

Raising
the
Blob
Gas
Limit

PeerDAS
changes
will
require
raising
the
current
limit
of
six
blobs
per
block
to
enable
higher
data
throughput.
This
change
would
involve
more
intricate
engineering
work
than
just
adjusting
a
constant
value.
Stokes
proposed
decoupling
dependencies
between
the
EL
and
CL
for
changes
to
the
blob
gas
limit.
EF
Researcher
Dankrad
Feist
highlighted
the
complexities
involved
in
gas
computation
changes.

Developers
agreed
to
continue
exploring
the
best
approaches
for
making
these
changes
and
whether
to
couple
PeerDAS
activation
with
a
blob
gas
limit
increase.
Opinions
were
divided
on
whether
these
changes
should
be
combined
or
staged
across
multiple
forks.

SSZ
Update

Nimbus
developer
Etan
Kissling
provided
updates
on
three
SSZ-related
EIPs.
Implementation
work
has
progressed
across
multiple
clients,
and
developers
will
discuss
devnet
timelines
for
these
EIPs
in
the
next
ACDC
call.

F-Star
Naming

The
naming
of
the
next
Ethereum
consensus
layer
upgrade
after
Electra
was
also
discussed.
The
primary
contenders
are
Fulu,
Felis,
Formosa,
and
Funi.
Developers
were
invited
to
share
their
thoughts
on
the
Ethereum
Magicians
post.

Image
source:
Shutterstock