AFAICT there are currently two system transaction EIPs
- EIP-4788: Beacon block root in the EVM (Cancun)
- EIP-2935: Serve historical block hashes from state (Prague, as of https://notes.ethereum.org/@ethpandaops/pectra-devnet-6)
Both feature a note about how execution clients may bypass EVM execution. From the Block processing section of EIP 2935:
Note: Alternatively clients can choose to directly write to the storage of the contract but EVM calling the contract remains preferred. Refer to the rationale for more info.
and from the Block processing section of EIP 4788:
Clients may decide to omit an explicit EVM call and directly set the storage values. Note: While this is a valid optimization for Ethereum mainnet, it could be problematic on non-mainnet situations in case a different contract is used.
It is of note that the set of authors of these two EIPs are disjoint.
I have some related questions:
- Is there an explicitly spelled out expectation that with future system level transactions EIPs clients should also be able to bypass EVM execution, as they are currently ?
- Is there an explicitly spelled out expectation that future system future level transactions should also be executed before (standard) transaction processing ?
I would also be curious to find out if there are more system level transaction EIPs in the works besides the two I cite. Thank you.