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Summary of the latest Ethereum core developer meeting: Goerli fork, changes to the execution API specification, and addition of Verkle proof verification precompiles.

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On November 9th, all core developers of Ethereum participated in the 174th All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) conference call.

Editor's note:

This week, during the 174th ACDE conference call, developers conducted a shadow fork on the Goerli testnet, and the first Goerli shadow fork for testing the Dencun upgrade was successful. Developers plan to further test in shadow forks with more validators to more accurately evaluate the delay of blocks and blobs after the upgrade.

A shadow fork is a testing process for upgrades that does not affect existing network activity. Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan suggested testing the Dencun upgrade on another shadow fork after discussing the refactoring of the CL client.

In addition, developers are discussing changes to the execution API specification to include Blob-related data after Dencun. Developers are discussing updating the "eth_feeHistory" method to include Blob-related data after the Dencun upgrade, and adding the "eth_blobGasPrice" method so that users can obtain potential Blob Gas price data.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Guillaume Ballet emphasized the addition of precompilation to assist smart contract verification of Verkle proofs. On this topic, developers are encouraged to discuss in the Ethereum Magicians forum.

Christine Kim, Vice President of Research at Galaxy Digital, detailed the highlights of this meeting, and BlockBeasts translated the original text as follows:

Original title: "Ethereum All Core Developers Execution Call #174 Writeup"

Original author: Christine Kim

Original translation: Luccy, BlockBeats

On November 9th, Ethereum developers gathered on Zoom for the All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) Call #174 meeting. The ACDE conference call is a bi-weekly series of meetings, hosted by Tim Beiko, the protocol support manager of the Ethereum Foundation, where developers discuss and coordinate changes to the Ethereum execution layer (EL). This week, developers focused on the progress of the following issues:

·The first Dencun Goerli Shadow Fork·Modify the API specification to include blob-related data for execution.·Add proof verification precompilation in Verkle upgrade.· The ACD call schedule for the next two weeks

Dencun Goerli Shadow Fork #0

On November 6th, Ethereum developers conducted a shadow fork on the Ethereum testnet Goerli. A shadow fork is a process for testing upgrades that can be performed without affecting existing network activity. It creates a fork of the network by synchronizing nodes to the network (in the example this week, the Goerli blockchain) and using a small number of nodes to create the fork. The shadow fork preserves the same state and history as the original network, but allows for upgrades to be made without affecting transaction activity or users on the original network.

The Ethereum Foundation's DevOps engineer, Parithosh Jayanthi, said that the first Goerli testnet fork upgrade for Dencun is progressing smoothly. Jayanthi noted that the timely proof, block proposals, and blobs observed on Goerli fork #0 may be due to the small scale of the network, with only 100 validators. To more accurately evaluate the delay of blocks and blobs after the Dencun upgrade, developers prefer to test on a shadow fork with more validators. In addition, Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan suggested testing the Dencun upgrade on another shadow fork after the discussion on the refactoring of the CL client in ACDC #121.

Due to the high cost of conducting shadow forks on larger networks such as the Ethereum mainnet, developers tend to first conduct multiple shadow forks on Goerli before doing so on the mainnet. Beiko also suggests launching an independent, developer-centric Dencun test network before conducting a second shadow fork on Goerli, with the final EL/CL specifications in place.

Changes to API Specification

Next, the developers discussed the proposal from Nethermind client developer (online alias "Flcl42"). Flcl42 suggested updating the "eth_feeHistory" method in the execution API to include Blob-related data after Dencun. Additionally, he proposed adding a new method "eth_blobGasPrice" so that users can obtain potential Blob Gas price data. As an alternative to "eth_blobGasPrice", Flcl42 also suggested that developers could create a new method "eth_gasPrices" to return potential Gas prices for regular transactions and Blob transactions.

However, a Geth client developer named "Lightclient" is skeptical of the "eth_gasPrices" method because it returns regular transaction and Blob transaction data in an aggregated way. In a comment on Flcl42's proposal, Lightclient wrote: "If the caller needs both, they can make a JSON-RPC batch call." Based on this feedback, Beiko suggested adding an "eth_blobGasPrice" method and updating the "eth_feeHistory" method, but deferred creating bundled methods like "eth_gasPrices". Lightclient also suggested that developers reach out to Layer-2 protocol teams to understand their views on these changes to the API specifications.

Verkle Proof Verification Precompilation

Next, Guillaume Ballet, a researcher responsible for the Verkle upgrade at the Ethereum Foundation, emphasized a work proposal to add precompiles to assist in smart contract verification of Verkle proofs. Precompiles are a special type of smart contract that have a fixed address and gas cost on Ethereum, typically enabling applications to perform complex cryptographic computations on the Ethereum Virtual Machine while avoiding excessive execution costs.

Another Ethereum Foundation researcher, Alex Stokes, asked if EIP 2537 could be used to verify Verkle proofs, which is a proposed new precompile for BLS 12-381 curve operations. Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist believes it is not feasible because the BLS precompile must be different from the precompile proposed in the Verkle proof proposal.

Beiko encourages developers to discuss the proposal for Verkle proof verification precompiles in the Ethereum Magicians forum. Stokes requested that Ballet include a link to the implementation of "multiproof_pcs" in the discussion, which was mentioned in Ballet's proposal.

ACD Conference Call Schedule Update

Finally, the developers unanimously agreed to hold two ACD conference calls next week, despite the fact that these two meetings are scheduled during the Ethereum developer conference Devconnect and the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. At the same time, the developers agreed to cancel the test call scheduled for next Monday.

Initially, due to Devconnect and the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, Beiko and Ryan were inclined to cancel or reschedule the next two ACD conference calls. However, given the delayed schedule for the Cancun/Deneb upgrade, Ben Edgington, a Teku client developer, expressed concern about the actual impact of this decision. "As time goes on, delays here and there will add up to be very serious. We have seen this situation time and time again. I know everyone is working very hard to push Deneb/Cancun forward because I am inside the process, but from the outside, canceling two consecutive core development calls doesn't look good to me," Edgington added.

Edgington's views received support from other developers during the conference call. Beiko and Ryan agreed to continue the next two weeks of ACD conference calls and requested that any customer teams unable to participate in the conference call share their progress asynchronously on the Ethereum research and development Discord.