Ethereum Core Developers Consensus Meeting No. 111: Enhancements and Potential Changes

Galaxy’s Vice President of Research, Christine Kim, summarized the 111th Ethereum Core Developers Consensus Meeting. The discussions revolved around the scope of the Deneb upgrade, potential changes to the validation proof and aggregation deadlines, and the proposition to increase the maximum effective validator balance from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH.

YouTube: Consensus Layer Meeting 111

Inclusion of CL-Centered EIPs in Deneb

The developers initiated the discussion by pondering which CL-centered EIPs to include in the Deneb upgrade. Teku developer, Mikhail Kalinin, presented an update revolving around EIP-6988. This proposal suggests a code alteration that will help in preventing forcefully ejected slashed validators from being chosen as block proposers in the protocol.

Discussions on EIP-7044, EIP-7045, and EIP-4788

The developers also deliberated on three more proposals – EIP-7044, EIP-7045, and EIP-4788. EIP-7044 proposes a code modification for enhancing the staker experience by ensuring that signed validator exits remain valid indefinitely. EIP-7045 suggests a code change to fortify network security by expanding the proof slot’s inclusion range. EIP-4788 offers a code modification proposal to improve the staker experience by publishing the root of beacon chain blocks containing EVM internal chain state information for minimal trust access by DApp developers. Alex Stokes, a researcher from the Ethereum Foundation, disclosed plans to merge these three EIPs into the Deneb specifications in the coming weeks and urged the CL client team to review them as promptly as possible.

Blob Quantity Test and Block Reorganization Issue on Mainnet

Meanwhile, the CL client team agreed to test the increased blob quantity on the next EIP-4844 testnet, Devnet 6, and finalize this matter within two weeks. In connection with the discussion on the maximum blob count, Nimbus developer ‘arnetheduck’ raised the issue of increased block reorganization on the mainnet post the Shanghai upgrade. He proposed reconsidering the 4-second final deadline for the aggregation of validator proofs and their network transmission and decided to further investigate this matter.

Proposal to Abolish 32 ETH Stake Limit

Michael Neuder, another researcher from the Ethereum Foundation, proposed the cancellation of the 32 ETH staking limit to help decelerate the growth of the active validators set. The developers discussed the potential flaws of this change and the possibility of initiating this proposal alongside partial and total withdrawals directly from EL via smart contracts. They agreed to continue discussing the implementation details of changing the effective balance of the Ethereum validator asynchronously on ETHMagicians and Discord. Lastly, the core developers of Ethereum held their inaugural coordination call concerning the launch of the Holesky testnet, expected to replace the existing Goerli testnet before year-end.

Keywords: Christine Kim, Ethereum Core Developers Consensus Meeting, Deneb, EIP-6988, Mikhail Kalinin, EIP-7044, EIP-7045, EIP-4788, Alex Stokes, EIP-4844, Devnet 6, arnetheduck, Michael Neuder, Holesky testnet, Goerli testnet