Meeting Summary:
The meeting focused on updates and discussions regarding EIPs 1837, 2780, and 8038 related to state creation, intrinsic transaction gas reduction, and gas parameter refactoring. Maria provided updates on the latest spec release for EIP 1837, which removed refunds for self-destruct and updated parameters to align with state access cost increases. The team discussed the proposed gas cost increases for new accounts, slots, and contract deployments, with concerns raised about potential block space issues for large contract deployments. The group also addressed the implementation of debug information for EIP 1837, debating whether to add new fields to receipts or integrate them into the tracer. Updates on client implementations for Bell DevNet 7 were shared, with most participants reporting progress on merging necessary changes. The meeting also covered EIP 2780, which aims to reduce intrinsic transaction gas costs, though current benchmarks showed potential increases rather than decreases. The team discussed the complexity of separating account access and rights costs and considered using best-case numbers for initial testing. Finally, EIP 8038 was reviewed, focusing on aligning gas parameters across EIPs and simplifying the separation of access and storage costs. The group debated whether to include these EIPs in the next DevNet release, with a decision to continue the discussion asynchronously.
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Maria led a discussion on EIP 1837, focusing on updates from the Steel team’s latest spec release. She noted that refunds for self-destruct have been removed and highlighted two PRs: one addressing open issues from ETH DevNet 6 and another updating parameters to align with state access cost increases and EIP 2780. Maria presented new cost calculations, including a worst-case state growth of 120 GB per year, and discussed the resulting gas increases for new accounts, slots, and contract deployments. She sought feedback on whether the proposed increase levels seemed appropriate, particularly given the cost per state byte of around $1,500.
The team discussed updating the contract deployment limits, specifically increasing the maximum contract code size from 24KB to 64KB and initcode size from 48KB to 64KB. Maria confirmed that the 64KB deployment size should be acceptable given the increased block size limits, though she noted this could potentially fill an entire block. The group also briefly discussed a proposal for deduplication of existing code hashes, but decided to revisit this for the next fork due to implementation complexity. Maria agreed to merge the updated parameters and finalize the EIP changes.
The team discussed a proposal for adding a new debug endpoint to provide state gas information, with Stefan presenting a straightforward implementation. There was debate about whether to add this as a new RPC endpoint or integrate it into the tracer, with Dragan expressing concerns about potential confusion from additional fields in receipts. Ben highlighted the practical challenge of re-executing transactions for gas cost checking, while Luis suggested that an extra field in receipts might be acceptable if clients are consistent. The group agreed to continue iterating on the proposal asynchronously and potentially discuss it further during ACDT next week.
The team discussed updates on DevNet 7 implementation and testing. Stefan reported setting up Hive tests and preparing for kurtosis testing, while Ben confirmed merging DevNet 7 and master branch changes. Dragan identified issues with self-destruct functionality and authorization list in version 710, suggesting changes to the code and requiring confirmation from the Steel team regarding code hash checks. Daniel mentioned working on the 7.1.0 test release with three remaining failing tests, expected to be completed by the next day.
Maria provided an update on EIP 2780, which focuses on intrinsic transaction gas reduction. She explained that she had updated the EIP to align parameters with EIPs 8037 and 8038, and simplified the way intrinsic costs are computed. Maria noted that the current formulas may attribute too low a cost to account rights, and suggested that benchmarking could provide more accurate pricing. She mentioned that Luis and Johan are working on tests to benchmark ETH transfer costs and improve the accuracy of gas pricing.
The team discussed gas cost implementations and benchmarks for EIPs 2780 and 8038. Maria reported that current benchmarks show potential costs around 21K gas, which could justify targeting the lower anchor rather than 100 million gas per second. The group debated whether to include these EIPs in the next DevNet, with Dragan suggesting using best-case numbers for testing and validation. The team also discussed concerns about changing block receipts, with Stefan noting that agreement is still pending on this PR. The conversation ended with plans to continue benchmarking and optimization work before final implementation decisions.
Next Steps:
- Maria: Update EIP-7837 to remove refunds for self-destruct (align with latest Steel team spec release)
- Maria: Merge the two open PRs on EIP-7837 (parameter fixes from Ball DevNet 6 and updated cost parameters) to create a consistent EIP
- Maria: Add fix for authorization list check (check code hash is zero rather than checking if code exists) to EIP-7837
- Maria: Add refund for bytecode when authorization address is 0 (delegation removal case) to EIP-7837
- Maria: Bring the debug receipt/tracer API discussion (Stefan’s PR ~800) to ACDT next week for further resolution
- Stefan: Continue iterating on the debug state gas endpoint proposal async, share information about .io files in the thread for Mercy
- Stefan: Set up and run Hive tests (quick and long) with new test release; results expected on hive.ethpandaops.io soon
- Stefan: Begin kurtosis testing for Ball DevNet 7
- Daniel: Complete debugging of remaining 3 failing tests for the 7.1.0 test release, targeting completion by tomorrow
- Daniel: Implement spec changes mentioned by Dragan (authorization list check fix) in the test suite
- Spencer/Felipe: Discuss Dragan’s authorization list issue async in the Steel server thread and issue a re-tag with the fix
- Dragan: Check with his team about the best approach for adding state gas output to traces (summary output at end of trace vs. new debug RPC method)
- jochem-brouwer/Luis: Prepare and run ETH transfer benchmarks on top of state (on jochemnet with ~135,000 deployed contracts, all distinct senders and receivers, cold-loaded from disk) to inform 2780 gas pricing
- Maria: Keep the 2780 EIP PR open and continue iterating; hold off on updating motivation/rationale sections until benchmark results confirm direction of cost changes
- Mercy: Add Stefan’s debug GET block receipts PR to the JSON RPC call agenda once agreement is reached; follow up in the thread
Recording Access: