louisa crawford
October 18, 2024 06:38
Ethereum’s ACDC call #144 focused on EIP 7742, Pectra upgrade, and PeerDAS specifications to improve scalability and network efficiency.
As detailed by galaxy.com, on October 17, 2024, Ethereum developers gathered on Zoom for the 144th All Core Developer Consensus (ACDC) call. The conference call, chaired by Ethereum Foundation researcher Alex Stokes, focused on important upgrades and proposals, particularly the inclusion of EIP 7742 in the Pectra update.
Pectra upgrade and EIP 7742 discussion
The developers have reached an agreement to incorporate EIP 7742 into the Pectra upgrade. This proposal aims to allow dynamic adjustment of the network's blob gas limit, potentially increasing both the target capacity and the maximum capacity. However, the inclusion of additional EIPs has raised concerns that there may be delays in activating other Pectra changes on mainnet.
Further discussion centered around testing Pectra and PeerDAS devnet. EF Developer Operations Engineer Barnabas Busa has announced plans to shut down Pectra Devnet 3 without resolving outstanding issues with the Grandine client. Starting Pectra Devnet 4 is contingent on successful execution layer client local tests.
Code specification updates
Key specifications for the Pectra upgrade were reviewed, including proposals such as consensus specifications PR#3900 and PR#3767. The developers decided not to integrate complex changes due to implementation hurdles. The importance of reviewing bug fixes in EIP 7251 was highlighted in parallel to the discussion on adding SSZ support to the builder API.
Teku developer Mikhail Kalinin pointed out potential breaking changes in Pectra that could impact application developers and urged them to carefully consider these implications.
PeerDAS and scaling solutions
The conference also covered the PeerDAS specification and focused on rebasing the specification on the Pectra standard to enhance debugging and testing processes. Discussion of the new engine API specification “engine_getBlobsV1” revealed that it has the potential to improve BLOB transaction processing at the cost of potentially increasing node upload bandwidth.
Francis Li from Layer-2 rollup Base highlighted the need to increase blob capacity within Pectra and suggested adjustments to certain gas targets. This was related to the extensive implementation of EIP 7742 to facilitate dynamic configuration changes.
Upcoming EIP and conference plans
New proposals, EIP 7782 and 7783, were discussed as alternative scaling methods. Concerns were raised about the impact these proposals would have on network bandwidth and ongoing research initiatives. ACDC's conference call on November 14th was canceled due to the Devcon conference in Bangkok, where many developers were scheduled to attend.
This ACDC call highlighted the collaborative efforts of Ethereum developers to improve the efficiency and scalability of the network through strategic upgrades and proposals.
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