Ethereum
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade could be split into two forks
Developers have already crafted nine EIPs to include in the upcoming Ethereum hard fork.
With Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade shaping up to be the most extensive in the network’s history, developers are considering splitting its rollout over two separate hard forks.
Following the last run of All Core Devs call on June 6, Christine Kim, researcher at Galaxy Digital, tweeted that the developers plan to run the upgrade across two forks.
Kim noted that the inclusion of nine Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) has already been confirmed, and five additional upgrades are under consideration. She added that upgrades are done in batches in devnet implementations, allowing Pectra’s scope to expand before deployment.
“That’s A LOT for a single upgrade, so there’s still a good chance Pectra will be split,” Kim said. “Putting multiple EIPs in place for implementation on devnets is a new development for Ethereum’s governance process that leaves the door open for an upgrade with an ever-changing scope.”
Pectra’s upcoming Devnet 1 will include the same eight EIPs tested on Devnet 0.
Disruptive changes
According to Ethereum Chief Scientist Vitalik Buterin, Pectra is among the latest expected upgrades. disruptive changes to Ethereum.
“Once scaling is complete, we are in a stage where the hardest and fastest parts of the Ethereum protocol transition are essentially complete,” Buterin said during a Foundation livestream Ethereum in April 2023. “Various things will need to be done, but these… things can be done safely at a slower pace.
Five execution layer upgrades and four consensus layer upgrades have been “finalized» to be included as part of Pectra thus far, covering an eclectic assortment of EIPs dating back to 2020.
Verkle Trees and Statelessness
EIP-2935 is an essential component of Pectra necessary to facilitate the introduction of Verkle Trees and statelessness. Verkle Trees will remove the need for nodes to store network state locally, significantly reducing the computational requirements of validators.
According to Kim, the developers are also working on three “parallel upgrades” that will likely be integrated into Pectra.
These include validator development thin clients, which do not download the entire Ethereum blockchain. Light clients are intended to improve Ethereum’s decentralization by allowing users to validate the network using “resource-constrained devices such as tablets and mobile phones.”
As nodes are no longer needed to store the entire history of Ethereum blocks, EIP-4444 would also formalize the removal of historical data from full nodes after a set amount of time, further reducing the computational demands of validators with the aim of improving node decentralization.
“With EIP-4444: History Expiration, you would not need to store most of the history locally,” Buterin said. “The amount of data you would need to be a node would go from several terabytes to… being able to run a node in RAM.”
DApps and other nodes that need to access deleted block history could query third-party data services after EIP-4444 is deployed.
Developers are also exploring PeerDASwhich would provide greater availability of Layer 2 data after the introduction of proto-danksharding in March.
Consensus layer upgrades
Many of the upgrades planned for inclusion in Pectra aim to improve the functionality and efficiency of Ethereum staking.
EIP-6110 aims to reduce the delay between the posting of collateral by actors on the execution layer of the Ethereum mainnet and the processing of corresponding transactions on the Beacon chain. This would also reduce the complexity of the validator client software.
EIP-7251 aims to slow the growth and reduce the size of Ethereum’s validator in order to strengthen the security of the network. EIP-7002 would increase the number of designs available to developers creating staking pools.
EIP-7549 aims to improve the efficiency of attestations, which would reduce network load and node bandwidth demands.
Runtime Layer Upgrades
On the execution layer, EIP-2537 And EIP-7865 would strengthen interoperability between the Ethereum mainnet and its Beacon Chain consensus layer. This would extend the functionality of decentralized staking pools, DAOs, and dApps that communicate with the Beacon Chain for staking functions.
A set of ten EIPs relating to EVM Object Format (EOF) aims to modernize the Ethereum Virtual Machine, Ethereum’s main smart contract engine. EOF would improve the scalability of EVM contracts as well as the efficiency of smart contract code execution.
EIP-7702 is a controversial upgrade that would “enablesmart account” Features for regular External Account (EOA) wallets. The upgrade would enable batch trade execution, transaction fee sponsorship, and delegated wallet security, but critics warned the upgrade could make users vulnerable to new attack vectors.
“It’s important to note that developers are staging Pectra EIPs, which means that if EOF, EIP-7702, or PeerDAS does not become a devnet in the next few months, developers could remove it from deployment entirely. level or split Pectra in two. two hard forks,” Kim said.
Unconfirmed upgrades
Kim noted two additional upgrades to the consensus layer that the developers have not yet confirmed for inclusion in Pectra.
EIP-7688 would make it easier for staking pools to check if a participating validator has been minted.
Developers may also consider reduce the rate of new Ether issuance. Mike Neuder, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, recently made the case for such a move, arguing that the Ethereum network and ecosystem have undergone a “seismic” change since Ether’s staking reward mechanism was finalized. as part of preparations for the deployment of the Beacon Chain in 2020.
However, the proposal quickly proved divisive, with many community members opposing Nueder’s suggestion. Some observers feared that this could open the door to Ethereum Foundation researchers frequently meddling in the network’s tokenomics without input from the broader community.