Original author: Blockwords
Original translation: TechFlow
As the Ethereum network moves towards the Dencun hard fork in the first quarter of 2024, the community is eagerly awaiting a series of important improvement proposals (EIPs). These proposals are not only about the future direction of Ethereum, but may also have far-reaching impacts on the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. In this article, we will explore the details and potential impacts of these proposals in detail to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding.
The latest Ethereum all-core developer meeting finally confirmed some tentative timelines for the next mainnet hard fork Dencun upgrade. It should be noted that only if there are no major problems, Ethereum developers plan to fork Ethereum's public testnet on the following dates:
Goerli: January 17
Sepolia: January 30
Holesky: February 7
This will be Goerli’s last time joining the testing program as the network is expected to be deprecated.
They also discussed what’s coming next — the as-yet-unnamed Prague/Electra upgrade. The ethereum community is considering whether to focus on one large core feature improvement (which could take a year of work) or an upgrade centered around multiple smaller improvements (which could happen by late 2024).
A decision will be made after the New Year, but for now, here are some improvements to look out for after the 2024 Dencun upgrade:
EIP-4844 (original Danksharding)
EIP-4844 is a major project in the Dencun EIP and has been the focus of many news reports in 2023.
StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson pointed out that this upgrade will reduce the data availability costs of all L2. So this is something Starknet is very much looking forward to so that users can reduce costs.
Lucas Henning, CTO of Web3 wallet developer Suku, called it "a year of breakthrough improvements for Ethereum." EIP-4844 is a revolutionary technology that will cut Rollup Gas fees by up to 100 times.
The rise of account abstraction
Another area of focus for Henning is improvements that leverage account abstraction: ERC-4337 and its extension ERC-6900.
ERCs are a subset of EIPs that focus specifically on token standards within the Ethereum ecosystem. They define rules for token implementations to ensure interoperability. Unlike some EIPs that modify the core protocol, ERCs generally do not require a hard fork.
ERC-4337 went live in March, and Henning believes the concept of account abstraction will play a key role in the most important user changes.
He said that account abstraction will completely change the way we perceive and interact with wallets, making Gas transactions a standard and secure social login the new normal, fundamentally reshaping the Ethereum user experience.
Traditionally, Ethereum has two types of accounts: externally owned accounts (EOAs) controlled by private keys and contract accounts controlled by code. Account abstraction blurs this distinction, allowing users to create accounts that act more like smart contracts.
It can improve user experience and security and allow 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, which also does not require changes to the Ethereum mainnet consensus, allows users to delegate the ability to send transactions on their behalf, for example, to approve a batch of operations once in order to save time and trouble.
EIP-1153 (Transient Storage Opcodes)
This proposal is part of Dencun, which aims to introduce new mechanisms for handling temporary or transient storage during smart contract execution.
Traditional storage operations on Ethereum are permanent and consume gas. This can be inefficient for temporary data that does not need to persist across transactions.
EIP-1153 is 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 1153 and hoped it would already be in Shapella, but they were unable to gain enough support to reach consensus among core developers. This upgrade is expected to play a major role in improving the capabilities and efficiency of Uniswap’s upcoming v4 protocol.
Click here to read: What does Uniswap Labs have in store for v4?
By enabling temporary storage, EIP-1153 can reduce the gas cost of storing data during contract execution and provide developers with more flexibility in designing smart contracts.
By reducing the burden on permanent storage and minimizing state bloat, EIP-1153 could help the scalability of the entire Ethereum network.
EIP-4788 (Beacon Block Root Submission)
Imagine Ethereum is a giant library with two main parts: the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) part, which is like a reading room where people come to read books (execute smart contracts), and the Beacon Chain part, which is like the library’s catalog system that keeps track of all the books and their locations (consensus and coordination of the Ethereum network).
Prior to EIP-4788, the two parts were somewhat independent in functionality. The EVM part did not have direct access to the latest directory; it had to rely on indirect methods to understand what was happening on the Beacon chain part.
EIP-4788 proposes to place a "Beacon Block Root" (a digest or hash tree root of the parent block) in each EVM block. This is like moving from a library's outdated card filing system (inefficient and sometimes inaccurate) to a system that is live, accurate, and directly linked to the main library database.
In this modern library, whenever a new book is added, moved, or removed (Beacon chain update), the reader (EVM) can get accurate information immediately. Readers can trust that they are getting the latest information, and the library's operations (such as executing smart contracts) are more consistent with the overall catalog system (the state of the consensus layer).
All of this happens in a trust-minimized manner, eliminating the need for external oracles to provide this data, reducing potential points of failure or manipulation.
This change is particularly beneficial for liquid staking protocols such as Lido, smart contract-based bridges, and re-collateralization solutions, as it allows these protocols to access key data such as validator balances and status directly from the consensus layer, thereby enhancing their security and operational efficiency.
EIP-4788 essentially introduces protocol-level oracles to communicate the consensus state of Ethereum across the mainnet.
Misha Komarov, founder of the Nil Foundation, who is deploying zkOracle for Lido, called it “definitely helpful.” He said “they need to use the consensus layer state root (currently proven via zkLLVM to Casper FFG proofs within the execution layer) in the application logic, which is done in the zkOracle design.”
Click here to read: New Ethereum Rollup Takes a Zero-Knowledge Approach to Sharding
EIP-5656 (MCOPY opcode)
The EVM operates using a set of opcodes that indicate various operations.
EIP-5656 introduces a new opcode called MCOPY, which is designed to optimize the process of in-memory data copying during smart contract execution.
In the current EVM architecture, copying large data segments can be inefficient and costly using existing opcodes. MCOPY provides a more efficient way to do this and is expected to reduce the gas fees associated with these operations while improving performance.
Faster memory operations mean faster execution of contracts, and developers will have more tools to optimize their smart contracts — especially when dealing with large data structures or complex operations involving memory operations.
EIP-6780 (Limit SELFDESTRUCT)
In Ethereum, the SELFDESTRUCT opcode allows a smart contract to remove itself from the blockchain. When executed, it removes the contract's code and storage from the state and sends the contract's remaining ether to a specified address.
However, this feature leads to several issues, including complexity in state management and potential security vulnerabilities. By limiting SELFDESTRUCT, Ethereum can better manage its state size, resulting in a more stable and predictable blockchain. This is critical for the long-term scalability and maintenance of the network, as it will simplify future Ethereum upgrades.
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