Yesterday, Ethereum developers participated in the 183rd ACDE meeting to review the Dencun upgrade and discuss potential improvements for the upcoming Pectra upgrade. Regarding the Dencun upgrade, the host Tim Beiko expressed that it went smoothly and there were no significant impacts despite a slight increase in reorganizations. The situation will continue to be monitored.
During the meeting, the developers reviewed the Dencun upgrade that went live on the mainnet on the 13th and discussed potential improvements for the next major Ethereum upgrade, Pectra. Tim Beiko mentioned that the participation rate briefly dropped from around 99% to 95% during the fork period but quickly recovered after the fork. This might have been due to operators forgetting to upgrade. Terence Tsao, a developer from Prysm, shared that the network’s speed in processing new transactions and blobs was faster than expected and did not slow down the Ethereum network as previously anticipated. However, he noted a slight increase in the number of reorganizations per day for his node, from an average of 13-14 before the upgrade to 17-18. Reorganizations occur when a blockchain discards one or more blocks and replaces them with newly discovered blocks, which is a normal part of the blockchain network’s operation. Tim Beiko mentioned that Goerli testnet will be officially closed next month following the completion of Dencun.
The meeting also discussed the next major Ethereum upgrade, Pectra, which encompasses the Prague and Electra upgrades. The developers are considering new proposals, known as Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), for this upgrade. These proposals include:
– EIP 2537: This proposal aims to provide Ethereum with a super toolbox that allows developers to create more secure and faster decentralized applications (dapps). Specifically, it introduces nine new precompiled instructions that are directly built into the Ethereum execution environment, rather than implemented through smart contracts. The proposal has been included in the scope of the Pectra upgrade, and Alex Stokes, the author of the proposal, raised the question of whether decompression should be added as a precompile, taking compressed points as input. This could be useful for L2 and other data-constrained users.
– EIP 3074: This proposal focuses on enhancing the flexibility and programmability of user accounts, similar to enabling the interaction experience of smart contract wallets. In simple terms, it allows ordinary user accounts (externally owned accounts, EOAs) to authorize transactions through smart contracts. It’s like adding a smart assistant to your wallet, which can help manage transactions and even transfer control to a more secure place, reducing the risk of theft.
– EIP 7547: This proposal introduces the concept of “inclusion lists” to control and manage the development of MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) infrastructure in the coming years. It’s like adding a filter to Ethereum to ensure a fairer and more efficient network when processing transactions.
– EIP 7623: This proposal aims to reduce the maximum block size of the Ethereum mainnet by increasing the cost of calldata, in order to encourage the use of the new storage method called blobs introduced by the Dencun upgrade, as it is more cost-effective than the existing method. It’s like telling everyone, “If you don’t need that much space to store data, don’t use that much. Use a more economical way!”
– EIP 7645: Finally, this proposal suggests renaming the ORIGIN opcode to SENDER to address developer misuse of this opcode.
The ACDE #183 meeting not only provided a successful review of the Dencun upgrade but also discussed potential improvements for the upcoming Pectra upgrade, demonstrating the Ethereum community’s commitment to continuous innovation and network optimization.