Darius Baru
Aug 9, 2024 06:46
Ethereum developers discussed Pectra updates, PeerDAS implementation, and research findings at the All Core Developers Consensus Call #139.
According to galaxy.com, on August 8, 2024, Ethereum (ETH) developers gathered via Zoom for the All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) Call #139, which is held every two weeks. The meeting, chaired by Ethereum Foundation (EF) researcher Alex Stokes, focused on various updates and changes to Ethereum’s consensus layer (CL), the Beacon Chain.
Pectra Update
EF researcher Xiao Wei Wang is working on the next official release of the Pectra CL specification, alpha.4, which will incorporate numerous fixes. EF developer operations engineer Barnabas Buza reports that Pectra Devnet 2 has achieved 85% network participation despite a few bugs in the execution layer (EL) clients, particularly EthereumJS and Erigon. Most CL clients, however, are stable. There has also been discussion about the need for better communication around the Devnet 3 release, leading to plans for a series of weekly meetings to test the updates.
The developers reaffirmed that Pectra Devnet 3 will maintain the same set of EIPs as Devnet 2, but will feature the updated EIP 7702 design. Lodestar developer Gajinder Singh highlighted an issue discovered in EIP 7251 in Devnet 2, which requires further testing. Additionally, a new Engine API specification, “getBlobsV1”, has been introduced to fetch blobs from the EL blob transaction mempool, and Teku developer Enrico del Fante has proposed a clarification to prevent misuse.
PeerDAS Update
Discussions about the need for a “blobsidecar” engine API request began when a representative from the Prysm client team shared an update on their PeerDAS implementation. A formal specification to remove sampling from PeerDAS was drafted to reduce upgrade complexity, but concerns were raised that it would be difficult to reintroduce sampling in a future hard fork.
Research Update
Three key research topics were discussed. First, they reviewed the edge cases in integrating staked ETH balances as per EIP 7251, and recommended that this be reflected in the CL spec. Second, they recommended that changes to Ethereum’s networking layer, specifically the addition of a “quic ENR entry,” be further detailed in a GitHub pull request. Finally, blockchain analytics firm ProbeLab shared data on Ethereum node distribution, identifying 8,335 nodes, 42% of which were run by the Lighthouse client and 36% by users in the United States.
The meeting concluded with Prysm developer “Potuz” asking developers to review a pull request for changes to the execution payload structure, emphasizing the need for a timely decision as integrating these changes into the CL spec is complex.
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