Ethereum ACDC#144: Developers plan to include EIP 7742 in Pectra to dynamically set blob gas targets and maximum limits

Christine Kim, vice president of research at Galaxy, published a post summarizing the main content of the 144th Ethereum Core Developer Consensus Meeting (ACDC #144): Developers agreed to include a new code change, EIP 7742, in Pectra, which enables the beacon chain to dynamically set the target and maximum blob gas limit of the network. The inclusion of EIP 7742 suggests that developers may also increase the target and maximum blob gas limit in Pectra. However, some developers raised concerns on the call that the inclusion of additional EIPs (especially EIP 7742) would delay the activation of other Pectra code changes on the mainnet. Developers also discussed the progress of testing for Pectra and PeerDAS development. Specifically, EF Development Operations Engineer Barnabas Busa said he plans to shut down Pectra Devnet 3 immediately and asked if any client teams still need the Devnet for testing. Busa pointed out that there is an issue with a block proposal in the Grandine client that has not been resolved in Devnet 3. Busa said he will work with Grandine developer Saulius Grigaitis to resolve this issue before shutting down development. Regarding the release of Pectra Devnet 4, Busa said he hopes to see more Execution Layer (EL) clients launch new testnets through local Kurtosis testing. So far, Busa said Geth and Ethereum JS clients are ready, as are Lighthouse, Teku, and Nimbus clients on the CL side. Stokes suggested that client teams release Devnet 4 before October 18. The developers then continued to discuss several open issues related to the Pectra code specification, including PR#3900, PR#3767, PR#3979, PR #104, and BLS precompile repricing. In addition, the CL client team is implementing a new engine API specification designed to help users who propose blocks locally (i.e., without using third-party builders and MEV relays) include blob transactions in their blocks. Developers discussed re-basing the PeerDAS spec on top of the Pectra spec. Representatives from the Lighthouse, Nimbus, and Teku client teams said they support the change. Francis Li, developer of L2 rollup Base, presented the urgency and rationale for Pectra to increase blob capacity. Li suggested increasing the blob gas target to 5 and the maximum to 8, and additional work on the network layer, such as implementing engine_getBlobsV1. Busa noted that the increase in blob capacity should be combined with the deployment of EIP 7742, which introduces a mechanism to dynamically set the blob gas target and maximum limit through CL. Busa said that the current mechanism for setting these parameters is difficult to change, and introducing EIP 7742 will ensure that developers can easily adjust these settings in the future, for example, with upgrades like PeerDAS. However, Busa also noted that EIP 7742 requires additional work from the EL and CL client teams to deploy and could delay the Pectra timeline by 1 to 2 months. He urged developers to consider starting work on deploying EIP 7742 as early as possible to avoid unnecessary delays to the Pectra upgrade. Finally, developers agreed to cancel the ACDC call scheduled for Thursday, November 14, as most developers will be attending Devcon, the annual Ethereum conference in Bangkok, Thailand.