Ethereum Cat Herders Update #31

Eth2.0 Zinken launch, EIP-1559 community outreach, Berlin, YOLO v2/v3, Eth1.0 clients’ update, EIPIP, breakout room, Peep an EIP, community updates, and more.

Welcome to another edition of the Ethereum Cat Herders community update to bring you up to the speed since the last update.

Ethereum 2.0

Zinken testnet launch

• Zinken testnet launch video.
• The clients worked fine.
• Epochs are getting finalized.
• Testnet launch is close to a smooth launch.
• There would be at least one more testnet (dress rehearsal) before the mainnet launch.
• Explorer: eth2stats for Zinken: https://zinken.eth2.wtf/
• Zinken eth2 testnet genesis launchpad for deposits: https://zinken.launchpad.ethereum.org

Eth2

• eth2.0-spec : Spec tests for v1.0.0-rc.0
• eth2 bounty program: http://eth2bounty.ethereum.org
• Eth2 Implementers’ Call #49: Agenda, video, notes, Ben’s notes
• eth2.news celebrated 2nd anniversary.

Clients’ update

• Prysm Eth2 Client Web Interface: Medium post, demo video

• Prysmatic v1.0.0-alpha.29: This is the last Alpha release. The beta release will be a breaking change that will lead to all deprecated flags being removed, deprecated features being sunsetted, and updated cryptography (BLS v4).
• Lighthouse v0.3.0: A major release that contains a resync of the database, since databases from v0.2.x are incompatible v0.3.0and some data directory migration for existing setups.
• Lighthouse Update #30

Research

• Data availability sampling in practice by Vitalik Buterin.
• eth2 was a rollup format by lightclient

Eth1/Eth2 merge

• Eth2 Phase 1 client demo, a demonstration of a simple transfer.
• Prototype: https://github.com/txrx-research/eth1-shard-demo
• Full video: https://youtu.be/Rr69pHZ57j0

Ethereum scaling

A quick recap of the short and medium term of Ethereum scaling.

1. Ultra-high scaling with sharding + rollups will be possible in phase 1
2. Sharding is NOT “canceled”
3. Get on a rollup asap; you get 100x scaling even without eth2

Vitalik explained the proposal here.

EIP-1559 fees market change

• 1559 Implementers’ meeting: Agenda, video, notes, Tim’s tweet

Clients’ update

Hyperledger Besu

• Incorporating the latest changes to the EIP around the base fee computation, the removal of the transition period and support for the legacy transaction with the latest PR.
• Stand up a PoA testnet with these changes early next week.

Geth

• Vulcanize team is trying to debug a consensus issue they were having on the PoA testnet.

Nethermind

• Nethermind EIP-1559 is syncing now with the EIP-1559 test network. Will continue working on the Besu +Geth + Nethermind test network by adding a Nethermind validator soon. We are also setting up private Nethermind EIP-1559 networks for the teams to play with.

OpenEthereum and TurboGeth will both implement the EIP only when it is in a more stable state.

Research

• Barnabe published a notebook, which analyzes the behavior of strategic agents.
• Economic analysis: https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/papers/pricing/ethpricing.pdf
• What is MEV?

Community outreach report

• EIP-1559 Community Outreach report by Ethereum Cat Herders

Next steps

• EIP-1559 Mainnet readiness checklist
• Testnet: Multi-client PoW testnet is considered while PoA testnet still be around.
• Test case: Reference test cases will be written for the more stable parts of it, like the calculation of the base fee.

Ethereum 1.0

• All Core Developers meeting: Agenda, video, notes, Tim’s tweet

YOLO v2 and Berlin upgrade

• YOLO v2 - The pre-Berlin ephemeral testnet lists (as of ACD meeting 97):

— EIP 2315: Simple Subroutines for the EVM

— EIP 2537: BLS12–381 curve operations

— EIP-2929: Gas cost increases for state access opcodes.

• EIP-2938: Account Abstraction — Not enough context to make a decision on to be or not to be included in Berlin, will be looked at over the next 2 weeks.
• EIP-2935: Save historical block hashes in state — Tomasz (Nethermind) will champion the proposal. Currently not considered YOLO v2/v3.
• EIP-2565: ModExp Gas Cost — Recently modified new version has more stable benchmarks (for Geth) and a clearer spec for clients to implement. Considered for YOLO v3, the decision depends on other clients' implementation. The Cat Herders recorded a video with Kelly Olson explaining the EIP in simple terms for a high level of community understanding.
• EIP-2539: BLS12–377 curve operations — Not considered for YOLO v2/v3 or Berlin for now. James Prestwich said Celo will stand up a testnet for it.
• Espresso — Ethereum testnet: an ephemeral Ethereum testnet implementing EIPs 2537, 2539, and 2929. It is pulled by James Prestwich to test client EIP integration in a low-stakes environment.

Ethereum 1.0 clients’ update

• Geth Noverian Rum (v1.9.22)
• OpenEthereum Bug Bounty Program
• Nethermind Community Update: October 2020

Breakout room

• Meeting 4: Transaction types breakout — Agenda, notes

EIPIP working group

Network upgrade process

• Network upgrade process tracker
• PR to EIP-1 for EIP standardization process
• EIP status bot on Twitter — @eipinfo
• EIPIP meeting #18: Agenda, Video, Notes

Community updates

ETHOnline

• Hackathon + Summits: Oct 02 to Oct 30, 2020

EthPlanet Hackathon

ETHPlanet Hackathon Workshop 1: Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)

• AMA on EIP-1559 with Tomasz (Nethermind)

Taipei Ethereum

• Barnabe will be speaking about EIP 1559 on October 15th at the Taipei meetup.

Ethereum Cat Herders

1559 Outreach

The EIP-1559 outreach suggests a mixed response of enthusiasm and fear. Collected responses of the community gathered through the 1:1 meeting and volunteering are added to the report. This also includes Frequently Asked Questions that we collected during the interaction.

• Where projects and dapp developers are excited to see this proposal deployed on the mainnet as early as possible, the miners’ community expressed their dissatisfaction.
• Over 40% of the respondents want to see the proposal deployed in the next 12 months timeline.
• The main benefits that projects see with EIP-1559 are the predictability of gas prices, especially for projects who set them for their users, and the fact that ETH is burnt in each transaction.
• The fear of this proposal being contentious also was highlighted due to the proposed concept of base fee burning and miners’ tip distribution that is going to change the current process.

The report suggests low volume participation of Wallets and Exchanges. In the next phase of outreach, we are focusing on these two types of projects. However, the questionnaire is available for volunteers to share their thoughts, comments, and concern on the EIP-1559.

Peep an EIP

Scheduled

• EIP-2718: Typed Transaction Envelope with Micah Zoltu

Let us know which proposal would you like to see on the Peep and EIP next.

ECH meeting

• Ethereum Cat Herder Meeting #43: Agenda.

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— The Ethereum Cat Herders