As the Cancun upgrade approaches, which Ethereum EIPs are worth watching?
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As the Cancun upgrade approaches, which Ethereum EIPs are worth watching?
This article will thoroughly examine the details and potential impacts of these proposals.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Blockworks
Translation: TechFlow
As the Ethereum network moves toward the Dencun hard fork in the first quarter of 2024, the community eagerly anticipates a series of important improvement proposals (EIPs). These proposals not only shape Ethereum's future trajectory but could also have profound implications for the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. In this article, we will explore the details and potential impacts of these proposals to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding.
The latest Ethereum All Core Developers meeting has finalized tentative timelines for the next mainnet hard fork—Dencun upgrade. Notably, unless major issues arise, Ethereum developers plan to fork the public testnets on the following dates:
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Goerli: January 17
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Sepolia: January 30
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Holesky: February 7
This will be Goerli’s final participation in the testnet program, as the network is expected to be deprecated.
They also discussed what comes next—the yet-to-be-named Prague/Electra upgrade. The Ethereum community is considering whether to focus on one major core feature improvement (which might take a year of work) or pursue multiple smaller upgrades (potentially achievable by late 2024).
A decision on this matter will be made after the new year, but for now, here are some key improvements to watch following the 2024 Dencun upgrade:
EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding)
EIP-4844 is a flagship component of the Dencun EIPs and was the focus of much news coverage in 2023.
Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkWare, noted that this upgrade will reduce data availability costs for all L2s. This is something Starknet is highly anticipating, as it will allow users to lower their costs.
Lucas Henning, CTO at Suku, a Web3 wallet developer, called it “a breakthrough year for Ethereum.” EIP-4844 is a transformative technology that could reduce Rollup gas fees by up to 100x.
Rise of Account Abstraction
Another key area Henning is watching is the advancement of account abstraction through ERC-4337 and its extension, ERC-6900.
ERCs are a subset of EIPs focused specifically on token standards within the Ethereum ecosystem. They define rules for token implementation to ensure interoperability. Unlike certain EIPs that modify the core protocol, ERCs typically do not require a hard fork.
ERC-4337 launched in March, and Henning believes the concept of account abstraction will play a pivotal role in the most significant user-facing changes.
He said account abstraction will fundamentally transform how we perceive and interact with wallets, making gasless transactions standard and secure social logins the new norm, reshaping the Ethereum user experience at its core.
Traditionally, Ethereum has two types of accounts: externally owned accounts (EOAs), controlled by private keys, and contract accounts, governed by code. Account abstraction blurs this distinction, allowing users to create accounts that behave more like smart contracts.
It enhances user experience and security, enabling more complex account logic such as multi-signature wallets or social recovery of lost keys.
ERC-6900 introduces the concept of "delegated transactions." This standard does not require changes to Ethereum's mainnet consensus, allowing users to delegate transaction-signing authority to others—such as approving a batch of operations in one go to save time and effort.
EIP-1153 (Transient Storage Opcodes)
This proposal is part of Dencun and aims to introduce a new mechanism for handling temporary or transient storage during smart contract execution.
Traditional storage operations on Ethereum are permanent and consume gas. For temporary data that doesn’t need to persist beyond a single transaction, this can be inefficient.
EIP-1153 introduces an opcode (operation code) that allows smart contracts to use transient storage—storage that is cleared at the end of transaction execution.
The Uniswap team lobbied for EIP-1153 to be included in Shapella, but couldn't gain enough support to reach consensus among core developers. This upgrade is expected to play a significant role in enhancing the capabilities and efficiency of Uniswap’s upcoming v4 protocol.
Click here to read: What’s Uniswap Labs preparing for v4?
By enabling temporary storage, EIP-1153 can reduce gas costs associated with storing data during contract execution and offer developers greater flexibility when designing smart contracts.
By reducing reliance on permanent storage and minimizing state bloat, EIP-1153 can contribute to the overall scalability of the Ethereum network.
EIP-4788 (Beacon Chain Block Root Inclusion)
Imagine Ethereum as a vast library with two main sections: the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) section, like a reading room where people come to read books (execute smart contracts), and the Beacon Chain section, like the library’s catalog system, tracking all books and their locations (consensus and coordination across the Ethereum network).
Before EIP-4788, these two parts were functionally somewhat independent. The EVM side had no direct access to the latest catalog; it had to rely on indirect methods to learn what was happening on the Beacon Chain side.
EIP-4788 proposes placing a "Beacon block root" (a digest or Merkle root of the parent block) into every EVM block. This is akin to upgrading from an outdated card catalog system (inefficient and sometimes inaccurate) to a modern system with real-time, accurate, and direct links to the main library database.
In this modern library, whenever a new book is added, moved, or removed (a Beacon Chain update), readers (the EVM) immediately receive accurate information. Readers can trust they are accessing the latest data, and library operations (like executing smart contracts) align more closely with the overall catalog system (the state of the consensus layer).
All of this happens in a trust-minimized way, eliminating the need for external oracles to provide this data, thereby reducing potential points of failure or manipulation.
This change is particularly beneficial for liquid staking protocols like Lido, smart contract-based bridges, and restaking solutions, as it allows them to directly access critical data from the consensus layer—such as validator balances and status—enhancing their security and operational efficiency.
EIP-4788 essentially introduces a protocol-level oracle that broadcasts Ethereum’s consensus state across the entire mainnet.
Misha Komarov, founder of Nil Foundation, who is deploying zkOracle for Lido, called it “absolutely helpful.” He said, “We need to use the consensus layer state root in our application logic (currently proven via zkLLVM to Casper FFG proofs within the execution layer), which is already implemented in the design of zkOracle.”
Click here to read: New Ethereum rollup takes zero-knowledge approach to sharding
EIP-5656 (MCOPY Opcode)
The EVM operates using a set of opcodes that instruct various operations.
EIP-5656 introduces a new opcode named MCOPY, designed to optimize the process of copying data segments in memory during smart contract execution.
In the current EVM architecture, copying large chunks of data using existing opcodes can be inefficient and costly. MCOPY provides a more efficient alternative, expected to reduce gas fees associated with these operations while improving performance.
Faster memory operations mean faster contract execution, giving developers more tools to optimize their smart contracts—especially when dealing with large data structures or complex operations involving memory manipulation.
EIP-6780 (Limiting SELFDESTRUCT)
On Ethereum, the SELFDESTRUCT opcode allows a smart contract to remove itself from the blockchain. When executed, it deletes the contract’s code and storage from the state and sends any remaining ether to a specified address.
However, this functionality has led to several issues, including complications in state management and potential security vulnerabilities. By restricting SELFDESTRUCT, Ethereum can better manage its state size, leading to a more stable and predictable blockchain. This is crucial for long-term scalability and maintenance, as it simplifies future Ethereum upgrades.
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