Ethereum Devnet 10 Testing Paves Way Towards Mainnet

On October 26, 2023, Ethereum protocol developers convened to discuss the recent results of devnet 10 testing. Initially, an update was presented by @parithosh_j and @BarnabasBusa regarding the successful launch of the network earlier in the week, according to Tim Beiko. The new validator churn limit was tested by activating Dencun, transitioning from 5 to 4 validators per epoch at the fork. A few bugs were identified related to sync with Prysm and deposit handling on Teku, which are currently being addressed. Additionally, some issues concerning builder-produced blocks were highlighted.

The testing of devnet 10 was executed in two phases. The first phase, which involved normal network conditions, exhibited a stable network able to handle approximately three blobs per block while mimicking real network usage. Every client combination could create blocks with blobs, some of which were run on ARM hardware. The second phase was a stress-test where the network was spammed to the extent that blocks had six blobs as often as possible. Although CPU and RAM usage on some clients increased noticeably alongside bandwidth usage spikes, the network maintained its stability, with only two out of around 100 nodes struggling to stay in sync.

Post-testing, @tbenr from Teku shared some performance numbers related to block processing time delays. The data, similar to what @Gajpower shared the previous week, posed challenges on how to extrapolate the findings to mainnet due to vastly different network conditions. Consequently, discussions around the next steps for testing and the possibility of forking testnets were initiated. The primary concern was the readiness of all clients, with Prysm requiring a few more weeks for deeper codebase changes.

A consensus on forking Goerli, a testnet, in the week of November 6 or 13 was sought but not achieved, mainly due to the varying levels of work needed across clients. The inability to finalize a date implied that the Goerli fork would likely happen in late November, pushing the mainnet transition to after the holiday season. The detailed plan for moving forward is expected to be drawn in the next ACDC meeting scheduled for November 9, 14:00 UTC.

Besides the primary agenda, @CarlBeek introduced RollCall, a new series of L2 coordination calls aimed at standardizing parts of the L2 ecosystem. Additionally, an update on the KZG ceremony was shared, allowing users to verify the outputs of the ceremony. Lastly, a discussion around EIP-7523 concerning the deprecation of empty accounts was initiated, with more deliberations to follow on EthMagicians forum.

Image source: Shutterstock