Ethereum Improvement Proposals to Watch in 2024

Author: Macauley Peterson, Blockworks; Compiler: Songxue, Golden Finance

The latest Ethereum full-core developer meeting finally determined some tentative plans for the next mainnet hard fork Dencun upgrade plan date.

It is important to note that Ethereum developers are eyeing the following dates to fork Ethereum’s public testnet only “if no major issues arise”:

• Goerli: 1.17

• Sepolia: 1.30

• Holesky: 2.7

This will be the last time Goerli is included in the testing scheme, and 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 (which could take a year) or build the upgrade around multiple smaller improvements (which could happen by the end of 2024).

For now, here are some improvements to watch out for after Dencun in 2024:

EIP- 4844 (Proto-Danksharding)

This is a highlight in Decun EIP and will be the focus of many news reports in 2023.

StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson pointed out that this upgrade "will reduce data availability costs for all Layer 2." "So this is something that Starknet is very much looking forward to so that users can reduce costs." Lucas Henning, chief technology officer of Web3 wallet developer Suku, said that this is "Ethereum A year of breakthrough improvements for the company.”

Henning said that "[EIP-4844 is] a transformative enhancement" that will "cut the rollup gas fee by up to 100 times."

Account abstraction comes into play

Henning’s first priority is to improve upon account abstraction: ERC-4337 and its extension ERC-6900.

ERC is a subset of EIP that focuses specifically on token standards within the Ethereum ecosystem. They define the rules for token implementation to ensure interoperability. Unlike some EIPs that modify the core protocol, ERC generally does not require a hard fork.

ERC-4337 went live in March, and the concept of account abstraction "will play a key role as the most significant change for end users," Henning said.

He said: “Account abstraction will completely change the way we perceive and interact with wallets, making gasless transactions the standard, making secure social login the new norm, and fundamentally reshaping the Ethereum user experience. ."

Traditionally, Ethereum has two types of accounts: external accounts (EOA) controlled by private keys and contract accounts controlled by code. Account abstraction blurs this distinction, allowing users to create accounts that behave more like smart contracts.

It enhances user experience and security and allows for more complex account logic, such as multi-signature wallets or social recovery of lost keys.

ERC-6900 introduces the concept of "entrusted transaction". The standard also does not require changes to Ethereum’s mainnet consensus, allowing users to delegate the ability to send transactions on their behalf, for example, to approve a batch of operations all at once, saving time and hassle.

EIP-1153 (Ephemeral Storage Opcode)

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. This can be inefficient for temporary data that does not need to persist beyond a transaction.

EIP-1153 is an opcode that allows smart contracts to use temporary storage - storage that will be cleared at the end of transaction execution.

The Uniswap team lobbied for 1153 to be included and wanted it to be in Shapella already, but they couldn't get enough support to build consensus among core developers. The upgrade is expected to play an important role in enhancing the functionality and efficiency of Uniswap’s upcoming v4 protocol.

By enabling temporary storage, EIP-1153 can reduce the gas costs associated with storing data during contract execution and provide developers with greater flexibility in designing smart contracts.

By offloading permanent storage and minimizing state bloat, EIP-1153 can contribute to the overall scalability of the Ethereum network.

EIP-4788 (Beacon Block Root Commit)

Think of Ethereum as a giant book The library has two main parts: the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) part, which is like the reading room where people come to read books (executing smart contracts), and the beacon chain part, which is like the catalog system of the library, tracking all books and their Position (consensus and coordination of the Ethereum network).

Prior to EIP-4788, these two parts operated somewhat independently. The EVM part cannot directly access the latest directory; it must rely on indirect methods to understand what is happening in the beacon chain part.

EIP-4788 recommends putting a "beacon block root" (the parent block's digest or hash tree root) into each EVM block.

This is like moving from the library’s outdated card filing system (which is inefficient and sometimes inaccurate) to a system that is live, accurate, and directly linked to the main library database.

In this modern library, readers (EVMs) will immediately get accurate information every time a new book is added, moved or deleted (beacon chain update). Readers can trust that they are getting the latest information, and library operations (such as executing smart contracts) are more consistent with the entire 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, thereby 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-staking solutions, as it allows these protocols to access key data such as validator balances and status directly from the consensus layer, thereby enhancing its safety and operational efficiency.

EIP-4788 essentially introduces a protocol-level oracle to deliver the consensus state of Ethereum throughout the mainnet.

Misha Komarov, founder of the Nil Foundation, which is deploying zkOracle for Lido, calls it "definitely helpful."

"They need a consensus layer state root in the application logic (which Casper FFG proofs are currently proving via zkLLVM to the execution layer in the zkOracle design," he noted.

EIP-5656 (MCOPY opcode)

EVM operates using a set of opcodes that indicate various operations.

EIP-5656 introduces a new opcode called MCOPY, designed to optimize the process of copying data in memory during smart contract execution.

In the current EVM architecture, using the existing Opcodes that copy large data segments can be inefficient and costly. MCOPY provides a more efficient method that promises to reduce the gas charges associated with these operations while improving performance.

Faster memory operations mean As contracts execute faster, 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 (Limited self-destruction)

In Ethereum, the SELFDESTRUCT opcode allows a smart contract to delete itself from the blockchain.

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When executed, it removes the contract's code and storage from the state and sends the contract's remaining Ethereum to the specified address.

However, this feature caused several problems, Including the complexities of state management and potential security vulnerabilities.

By limiting self-destruction, 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.