Analyzing Ethereum’s [ETH] latest updates after Shapella and their relevance

• Ethereum developers discussed their next moves on a developer call.
• Interest in Ethereum from stakers and validators stayed high despite market volatility.

Following the deployment of Ethereum’s [ETH] Shapella Upgrade, developers have now redirected their attention to the forthcoming update on the network.

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Developers stay focused

In a recent developer’s call, Ethereum developers were seen preparing for the next upgrade called Cancun. They discussed the final scope of the upgrade, which would focus on implementing blob transactions.

For context, Ethereum uses blob transactions to process information more efficiently. Blob transactions separate data from transaction structure, enabling faster processing by eliminating unnecessary information, typically stored along with instructions. Ethereum will launch the fifth devnet next week to test these transactions.

Developers also talked about how to reinsert blob transactions into blocks in case of a chain reorganization.

They suggested two possible solutions, one of which would add load to the execution layer. Due to the complexity of the issue, it will be further explored in future meetings.

The Ethereum community was also considering several changes for the upgrade, including EIP 4788, which permits smart contracts to access the Consensus Layer (CL) of Beacon Chain state in the Execution Layer (EL).

Additionally, EIP 6914 is also under consideration, which would reuse validator index numbers to reduce the spike in validator list. However, EIP 6914 will be pushed to the next hard fork after Cancun owing to its difficulty.

Another update, PR 3175, on the other hand, would prevent slashed validators from proposing blocks while in the exit queue. This feature protects against high failure modes.

Finally, the developers talked about EIP 6493, which addresses how nodes should handle blob transaction types formatted in SSZ (Simple Serialization) on the CL, but encoded differently on the EL.

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State of Ethereum

Regarding the staking activity on Ethereum, it was observed that the number of depositors outweighed the number of stakers on the network. This showed that people still believed in the future of Ethereum.

The number of validators on the Ethereum network also continued to rise. Staking Rewards reported a 1.15% increase, bringing the total number of validators to 561,655 at press time.

Source: Staking Rewards