1.x files: Stateless Summit Summary

Stateless Ethereum Summit

It would be foolish to attempt to provide a representative or objective summary. immediately Following this week in Paris – myself and everyone in attendance will be spending the next few weeks refining our food and preparing for the year ahead.

However, for those of you readers who have been feeling Paris FOMO and have been eagerly awaiting updates, I will provide you with a personal and incomplete collection of high-level insights, decisions and results from the first Stateless Ethereum Summit.

how was it?

The summit lasted two days and was minimally structured, with a first meeting as one large group to discuss big or important topics, followed by two or three simultaneous discussions. With a total of about 30 attendees, the group size was perfect to allow for both in-depth analysis and easy Q/A. Of course, it was also an opportunity to put a face to the username and connect with the entire group on a more human level.

I think the main outcome of the summit for most people who attended (myself included) was a ‘levelling out’ of understanding of the problems to be solved and the solutions proposed. The few people who have been leading this initiative (Piper, Alexey, and their team) took the opportunity to give the rest of us some good old-fashioned whiteboard time to take stock of the situation and ask all the little questions we knew existed. I’m afraid to ask questions on forum posts.

I emphasize this because one of the main goals of this meeting was to present more clearly the opportunities and challenges for the work that needs to be done. The more clearly the task is explained to everyone interested, the easier it will be for them to participate and contribute to the effort. In that respect, I would like to say that this summit has already been a huge success, and that we have ‘snatched’ some people who had been sitting on the sidelines until now.

What was discussed?

Well, really. I heard most topics with only one ear. technology tree As discussed in context and mentioned in the previous section, this summit was really about coming together to agree on a simple shared vision for a stateless Ethereum. What are the core problems we are solving? What is the first reasonable milestone to strive for? Is it worth investigating zero-knowledge schemes for historical witnesses?

The main topics I think are:

• Basic element synchronization
• Conversion to binary try
• EVM
• Data transfer in stateless paradigm
• Draft Witness Specification

Alexey wisely noted that the purpose of this summit was to do all of the following: couldn’t achieve it Save things on the Internet, ~can do Get it done online for when we’re far apart again. One thing that works much better in person than online is disagreement and relatively quick decision-making on complex issues. So, in addition to providing a general summary of the key topics of discussion and sharing knowledge, we focused on taking the time to debate the pros and cons of what to do first, what tasks to do first, and what decisions to make. What new tools are needed before starting work. Most importantly, this summit was an opportunity to narrow and better define the scope of this work, and to collectively understand what success looks like from a variety of perspectives.

What decision was made? What’s new?

Again, I cannot emphasize this point enough. These are just my personal thoughts on how the summit went. I haven’t even reviewed the notes and recordings yet. But this is what I’ve put together in no particular order. Those are all new insights from the weekend’s discussions that will have implications for the future.

• Synchronization, more specifically primitives getNodeData These are the key things that need to change to move forward in this quest for statelessness. This is something that needs to be fixed before switching to binary trie and will require coordination across all client teams. Felix from the geth team led a very productive discussion on synchronization, and it became encouragingly clear that most alternative proposals for synchronization seem to be coming at the same result from different angles. Fixing and improving synchronization will allow for a smoother transition to binary trees.

• Previously, it was thought that a sound transition strategy to a binary tree would require a temporary disruption of the chain and recalculation of a new binary state, but the new idea is that with sufficient client coordination, the transition can be accomplished without network disruption. .

• Plans and ideas surrounding the creation of a fully fledged Ethereum-only data delivery network have been somewhat derailed by a combination of new insights. The first is that people with more expertise are involved to explain how difficult it is to create such a thing. The second is that these networks can be built incrementally with synchronization improvements, and much simpler versions (for example, providing only headers, transactions, and receipts) can provide value immediately and be upgraded later.

• EVM changes are the most complex, and there is no clear decision or solution as to which EVM changes are needed for stateless compatibility. The important point here is that most of the proposals under consideration actually more This is more than is strictly necessary for Stateless and it’s a matter of assessing the value/complexity/effort of further improvements. Some gas jobs are expected to cost more no matter what, but I think it’s worth noting that nothing has really been decided when it comes to EVMs and we won’t know what the best course is until we get more data. .

• Additional pylons must be built — This is a weird way of saying that some of the work ahead is focused on making the work itself more productive and beneficial. This meta-task comes in two forms: Resources to help others contribute more effectively, such as tools to make data collection and analysis easier and stateless documentation for new researchers joining the party. That said, I still think there is significant disagreement on this issue. how much The work should be dedicated to tooling in the short term and identifying which tools are most needed. Over the coming weeks, we will be modifying the technology tree and embellishing it into something that better represents stateless Ethereum’s initiatives. This will help the community keep track of everything and help interested newcomers contribute more effectively.

As always, if you have any questions, requests for new topics, or would like to get involved in stateless Ethereum research, please introduce yourself at ethresear.ch or contact @gichiba or @JHancock on Twitter.