Encrypt The Mempool #11, October 14th, 2026

Protocol Calls & happenings
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Agenda

Option Deterrence via Top of Block ordering

Meeting Time: Wednesday, October 14, 2026 at 15:00 UTC (60 minutes)

GitHub Issue

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YouTube recording available: https://youtu.be/daie2AmdpOs

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Meeting Summary:

The meeting focused on brainstorming and reviewing a new PR by Jannik that proposes changes to the EIP and Lucid to prioritize transactions from more trustworthy key revealers in the block ordering process. Jannik explained the main changes, including a queuing and fee mechanism to prevent spam, the requirement for key messages to be signed to prevent impersonation, and the removal of the max preceding commitments mechanism due to conflicts with the new priority list. The group discussed the voting body for the priority list, considering efficiency and security, and debated whether to keep the top of block fee, ultimately deciding it was still necessary for congestion control. They also touched on the challenge of integrating execution-layer signing into consensus-layer messages and the potential for external tools to monitor key publishers. Justin expressed appreciation for Jannik’s work and planned to review the PR and gather feedback from other Lucid authors.

Click to expand detailed summary

Justin and EF had a brief conversation where Justin confirmed his presence and EF made a comment about not being a bot. Jannik (referred to as “Yannick” by Justin) joined the meeting later. The discussion appeared to be informal and focused on greetings and technical connections.

The team discussed progress on implementing a new mechanism to prioritize trustworthy key revealers using the ordering of top-of-block. Jannik created a PR to the EIP to add whitelisting functionality, which Justin shared in the chat for review. The group focused on brainstorming how to enforce or prioritize trustworthy key revealers based on their track record of key revelation, with Jannik having already opened a PR to Lucid detailing this approach.

Jannik presented updates to a voting contract and Lucid changes, focusing on a new queuing mechanism and fee system to prevent spamming of the consensus layer. He removed the max preceding commitments feature due to difficulties in combining it with the priority list mechanism. Jannik emphasized the need for feedback from Lucid authors, particularly regarding engine API changes. Justin committed to reviewing the proposal, adding Jannik to the authors list if implemented, and escalating it to Thomas to address concerns about optionality.

Jannik and Justin discussed the voting mechanism for prioritizing key publishers, where currently all active validators weighted by effective balance would vote. They considered whether a smaller subset of validators, particularly those with duties in the EPIC, might be sufficient for efficiency reasons. Jannik noted he had done preliminary benchmarks that looked good, though acknowledged it was worth considering restricting the voting body. The discussion concluded with an open question about testing keys and how to verify if the correct keys were revealed.

Jannik and Justin discussed the handling of invalid keys in the system, focusing on how key publishers are managed and whether there should be an automatic mechanism to punish them for revealing invalid keys. They explored the idea of using an external monitoring tool to check key publishers’ performance and potentially automate the process for new key publishers to join the priority section. Jannik also suggested considering the removal of the max preceding commitments mechanism to simplify the system further.

Justin and Jannik discussed the implementation of a top-of-block fee system for regulating access to a particular fraction of the overall block size. They agreed to keep the fee structure while ensuring that transactions from trusted key publishers are prioritized, though not ordered by specific key publishers once they meet the trust threshold. The current system allows interleaving transactions from different key publishers who have met the 50% support threshold, with the fee being used to order within this priority section rather than between different key publishers.

Jannik discussed challenges with key message signing, noting syntactic issues with combining RIP transaction signing and SSV container signing mechanisms. Justin suggested frame transactions as a potential abstraction to address these challenges, though clarified that key messages aren’t traditional transactions. The team agreed to review the PR, with participants tasked to provide comments, reach out with questions, and consult their local CLDev teams.

Next Steps:

  • Justin: Review the entire PR submitted by Jannik, with particular attention to the engine API changes.
  • Justin: Get feedback from Anders and Julian on the PR.
  • Justin: Add Jannik to the authors list of the PR if it is pulled in.
  • Justin: Escalate the PR to Thomas to address his concerns about optionality.
  • Justin: Talk to some CL folks about potentially restricting the voting body for the priority list to a subset of validators.
  • All attendees: Read the PR, provide comments, reach out to others with concerns/questions, and run it by local CLDev for feedback.

Recording Access: