The 203rd Ethereum All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) meeting focused on the launch of Pectra Devnet 5, specification updates, and testnet upgrade plans, pushing the mainnet upgrade and ecological collaboration into a new phase.

Written by: Christine Kim

Compiled by: Blockchain in Plain Language

On January 16, 2025, Ethereum protocol developers held the 203rd All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) meeting via Zoom. This week's meeting was hosted by Tim Beiko, head of protocol support at the Ethereum Foundation (EF). The ACDE meetings are a bi-weekly series where developers discuss and coordinate changes related to the Ethereum execution layer (EL).

During the 203rd ACDE meeting, developers discussed the launch of Pectra Devnet 5 and the unfinished updates to the Pectra specifications. They also discussed the next steps for testing the increased Gas limit on the Holesky testnet, the progress of RPC standardization, and the specifications for minimum hardware and bandwidth requirements for nodes.

1. Launch of Pectra Devnet 5

Developers launched Pectra Devnet 5 half an hour before the meeting began. Parithosh Jayanthi, a developer operations engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, noted that he discovered a Gas estimation issue in the development network and plans to collect relevant logs to share the problem in the Ethereum R&D Discord channel.

2. Pectra Specification Updates

Developers discussed five unfinished updates to the Pectra code specifications:

1) EIP 7623: Increase Calldata Cost The first update is a modification to EIP 7623 to clarify the handling of Gas refunds. This update has been merged on GitHub and included in the testing of Pectra Devnet 5.

2) EIP 7840: Add Blob Scheduling to Execution Client Configuration The second update involves the base fee score issue in EIP 7840. There were no objections during the meeting, and developers agreed to merge the relevant changes into GitHub before the Pectra testing meeting on January 20 (next Monday).

3) Update on Blob Base Fees The third update also relates to Blob base fees and involves how to calculate excess Gas during the Pectra activation period. Alex Stokes, head of research at the Ethereum Foundation, explained that the calculation relies on information from the previous block header. If changes to Blob capacity are activated at the fork boundary (Pectra activation block), the excess Gas calculation will be based on information from the previous block built using the old fork rules. Stokes believes it is necessary to clarify whether the increase in Blob capacity is activated at the fork boundary or at the next block after the fork boundary. He stated, "It doesn't matter which way we choose, but we need to unify our approach." Developers unanimously agreed to clarify EIP 7691, setting the effective time for the increase in Blob capacity to one block after the fork boundary, thus using only the new fork rules for calculations. Ethereum test developer Mario Vega mentioned that the client is testing this logic. Geth developer "Lightclient" committed to updating EIP 7691 before the testing meeting next Monday.

4) EIP 2537: Precompiled Cost Calculation for BLS12-381 Curve Operations The fourth update relates to the multiplication cost calculation in EIP 2537. Developers agreed to specify the calculation as integer division in the EIP. The client teams testing through Pectra Devnet 5 should have already implemented this logic in their code, so only modifications to the specifications are needed. Ethereum Virtual Machine developer Paweł Bylica stated that he would make changes to the EIP on GitHub and complete them before the testing meeting next Monday.

Through these updates, developers continue to advance the refinement and coordination of Pectra-related work, paving the way for future Ethereum mainnet upgrades.

5) Finally, the fifth update relates to EIP 7702, which aims to introduce a new transaction type that allows external accounts (EOA) to permanently set code. Julian Rachman, COO of Otim Labs, proposed a behavioral modification to this EIP, enabling code introspection functionality. According to the documentation written by the Otim Labs team, code introspection refers to the ability of legacy contracts to inspect their own bytecode or the bytecode of external contracts and adjust their behavior based on that information.

Although the Ethereum Virtual Machine Object Format (EOF) development team plans to disable code introspection in future Ethereum upgrades, the documentation and the meeting mentioned that enabling code introspection to check the "delegate_address" of an EOA would not hinder the development process of EOF. The benefit of allowing code introspection to check the delegate address of EIP 7702 type transactions is that it supports the safe use of relayers and other external accounts when enabling EIP 7702 features (such as Gas sponsorship).

Geth developer "Lightclient" supported adding this update to the Pectra specifications. He stated, "This update is very easy to implement. We have already determined whether an account is an EIP 7702 delegate account, and adding a specified return address is very simple." Meeting host Beiko suggested that attendees take a few more days to review the changes before deciding whether to include them in the final specifications. He recommended revisiting this topic at the testing meeting next Monday.

Beiko also requested that Rachman's team formally submit a pull request on GitHub containing all proposed modifications to EIP 7702 for developers to discuss on Monday. Regarding whether this update requires developers to launch a new Pectra development network for testing, Jayanthi stated that the change could be included in the shadow fork of the public testnet without launching a new development network. Beiko added that all other specification updates discussed in this meeting also do not require a new Pectra development network, so developers can continue to advance the updates for the public testnet after further testing of Pectra Devnet 5 is completed.

3. Pectra System Contract Audit Update

Fredrik Svantes, a protocol security researcher at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), stated that all third-party audit work for the Pectra system contracts has been completed. The audit found no significant issues, and the relevant report will be uploaded to GitHub for client teams to review. Svantes suggested scheduling dedicated time in the next ACDE meeting for auditors to present their audit results and answer questions from client teams.

4. Pectra Testnet Upgrade Plan

Tim Beiko proposed a preliminary timeline for the testnet upgrade. He suggested determining the block heights for upgrading the Sepolia and Holesky testnets in the next two ACD meetings and preparing client release versions by February 3, 2025. The plan is to conduct the Sepolia fork during the week of February 12, followed by the Holesky fork during the week of February 19. If there are no major vulnerabilities or issues, the Pectra upgrade may go live on the Ethereum mainnet in early to mid-March, approximately three to five weeks after the Holesky fork. No one opposed this proposal during the meeting, and Stokes also suggested advancing the client release in conjunction with the Sepolia and Holesky testnet upgrades.

5. Holesky Gas Limit

EF general engineer Sophia Gold proposed setting the default Gas limit for clients in the Holesky upgrade release to 36 million (36m) and continuing to raise Holesky's default Gas limit to always be higher than the Ethereum mainnet's Gas limit. This will ensure that any increase in the mainnet Gas limit can be tested on Holesky, and no one opposed this proposal during the meeting. Representatives from the Teku, Besu, Prysm, and Nethermind teams stated that their Holesky client release versions have already set the default Gas limit to 36 million.

6. RPC Standardization Efforts

Geth developer Felix Lange expressed disappointment that the client teams did not provide sufficient feedback on the efforts to standardize the Ethereum JSON-RPC specifications. One issue he mentioned during the meeting was the lack of a clear definition of the scope of RPC standardization and which ecosystem stakeholders should be included. Lange detailed his standardization efforts and next steps in a blog post. Beiko suggested further discussion of this issue on Discord and arranging a dedicated discussion session for it. Besu developer Justin Florentine stated that he would be responsible for coordinating the scheduling of the discussion session.

7. Node Hardware and Bandwidth Requirements Specification

EF application researcher Kevaundray Wedderburn requested feedback on his document regarding the minimum hardware and bandwidth requirements for Ethereum nodes. Beiko inquired whether these requirements should be drafted in the form of an informational EIP for reference by developers and the broader Ethereum community. Prysm developer "Potuz" pointed out that the hardware requirements for validator nodes and full nodes differ, so the document should clearly distinguish between the two. Beiko agreed with Potuz's viewpoint and suggested further discussion on Discord regarding node hardware and bandwidth requirements and the next steps for formalizing Wedderburn's document.

8. EIP Editing Workshop

Finally, the meeting mentioned a workshop on the EIP editing process, but specific details and timing have yet to be determined and may be discussed further in subsequent meetings.

The Ethereum Cat Herders team will hold an EIP editing workshop on January 17, 2025, at 16:00 (UTC). This meeting will outline the EIP editing process and welcomes all Ethereum community members interested in the EIP workflow and editing process to participate. The meeting recording will be uploaded to YouTube for everyone to watch afterward.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。