Thread by @TimBeiko

Had a big #ACDE today: set the Shapella mainnet date (!!), covered every potential Cancun EIP so far, discussed local block building, and a node operator survey by @EthCatHerders 😸

Agenda: github.com/ethereum/pm/is…
Recording: youtube.com/live/ViLwzeIuJ…

Recap below 👇

https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1631382005312286721

@EthCatHerders First, apologies, there were some issues in the recording, where only my audio was coming out when we recap'ed the Goerli fork + started discussing mainnet dates. Starting at 9:00 on the recording should work, and I briefly summarized the first few minutes of the call 😅

@EthCatHerders That said, @parithosh_j shared his observations of the Goerli fork. While we did see a drop in participation rates, it was due to clients not having updated rather than any issue with Shapella. Once this was fixed, the network was running smoothly!

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j As a note, validators have three pieces of software they must update: the EL node, the Beacon Node, and the Validator Client. Some validators had only updated the EL + BN, but not VC. We'll make this clearer in the mainnet announcement 👀

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j Even though the network wasn't finalizing for some time, withdrawals and credential change messages got processed without any issues 🎉!

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j Teams were ready to move to mainnet, and so we've agreed to fork on slot 6209536, scheduled for April 12, 10:27PM UTC. Expect client releases in about a week, and a full announcement ~10 days from now 😄

https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1636370111333556224

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j Next up, we discussed a PR by Prysm folks to allow the EL to suggest local blocks for execution via the Engine API when certain conditions are met: github.com/ethereum/execu…

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j This PR provides an API for the EL to suggest local blocks over external ones. ELs could implement various heuristics for when to use this. Some examples are given in the PR:

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j This could improve censorship resistance as it would be a way for validators to default towards local execution in cases where the censorship information can be seen in the transaction pool or on-chain.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j Teams generally seemed on board with the idea, and agreed to consider it for after Shapella. This wouldn't require a hard fork to activate, but doing it before Shapella would require versioning changes to the Engine API that teams didn't want to do so close to the upgrade.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j Next up, we discussed potential Cancun EIPs. For context, proposals have been made on @EthMagicians over the past few weeks/months here: ethereum-magicians.org/t/cancun-netwo…

This was the list we had as of today's call:

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians Won't go over everything here, recommend the recording for all the details, but here are the highlights ✨

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians On SSZ, there are a few proposals to consider: agreeing to a signature scheme for SSZ transactions, moving the withdrawals roots to SSZ, and moving all of the transaction + receipts to SSZ. Here is Etan's doc linking to all the proposals: hackmd.io/y1MCA5Q-R4eMVy…

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians On the first point, @vdWijden and Etan were discussing it over the past week, and one tradeoff is whether to optimize for the size of transactions (and node storage) or proof verification (and light client support).

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden Additionally, if we do move the transactions/receipts to SSZ encoding, this might affect some on-chain contracts which verify existing transactions using RLP.

Figuring out the extent of those implications is important, but not easy by just looking at deployed contracts.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden After listening to us go over these concerns, @peter_szilagyi mentioned that this alone was probably grounds to not consider a full transition to SSZ in Cancun, as it would probably cause major delays, esp. combined with EIP-4844.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi That said, EIP-4844 does introduce SSZ in a new transaction type. So, ideally, we do need to make a decision about the broader path forward, to ensure 4844 transactions are forward compatible.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi So, expect more discussions on this topic in the coming weeks!

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi Next up, we discussed SELFDESTRUCT removal. We've officially deprecated it as part of Shanghai, and if we want to consider the transition to Verkle Tries in the fork after Cancun, then SELFDESTRUCT needs to be modified in Cancun.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi Clients agreed with this, and the main blocker at this point is a spec that handles the various edge cases we've discussed before. Right after the call, @alexberegszaszi shared a draft one 😄

notes.ethereum.org/@ipsilon/HJFA-…

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi Next up, @j_wasinger gave an update on EVM MAX: there are now both an EOF and no-EOF version of the EIP. There was some discussion of whether this should be done along or instead of a BLS precompile.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi @j_wasinger On the EOF front, no major updates but the spec is still being iterated on, and bi-weekly calls are happening to move it forward. There was a request to put together all proposed Cancun changes into a single EIP for Cancun, to make it easier to analyze.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi @j_wasinger For BLS (and EIP-4788, which exposes the beacon state root opcode to the EVM), it was re-emphasized that having these features would help liquid staking projects significantly, and potentially make the landscape more competitive.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi @j_wasinger Then, we covered EIP-1153. @saraareynolds had left an update on the call agenda, and there was some support on the call for including it into Cancun.

We didn't make any decisions about inclusion today, though (not just for 1153, but Cancun generally).

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi @j_wasinger @saraareynolds We briefly touched on EIP-663, which was requested by Solidity for Shanghai. The latest version would be combined with an EOF deployment. And, finally, EIP-5920, which didn't have much support amongst client developers.

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi @j_wasinger @saraareynolds We got through all of these with some time to spare! @poojaranjan19 then took a few minutes to walk us through the latest @EthCatHerders report which asked node operators about their client, and what they'd consider to switch to minority ones:

medium.com/ethereum-cat-h…

@EthCatHerders @parithosh_j @EthMagicians @vdWijden @peter_szilagyi @alexberegszaszi @j_wasinger @saraareynolds @poojaranjan19 And that was it! Next ACDE is scheduled for March 30, 14:00 UTC - see you then 👋