Ethereum developer Toni Wahlstetter has revealed that the Ethereum network is preparing fundamental changes to its transaction execution architecture with the upcoming “Gramsteldam” hard fork.
According to Wahrstätter, the update’s central proposal, EIP-7928, adds parallel transaction execution capabilities to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), significantly increasing the network’s scalability.
EIP-7928 adds a new structure to the Ethereum block called the “Block Access List” (BAL). This structure records the account and storage space accessed by the block and the state changes that occur after each transaction. Therefore, you can directly see the impact of transactions on the network without having to track each transaction individually as before.
Wahrstätter said the system will bring significant benefits to client software. Thanks to BAL, Ethereum clients such as Geth, Nethermind, Besu, Erigon, and Reth will be able to validate transactions in parallel without waiting for each other. This allows for more efficient use of the multi-core architecture of modern processors.
The new architecture also enables a method called “batch prefetching,” which allows blocks to be preloaded with required data from disk in bulk while they are being executed. This prevents nodes from waiting for data during execution and speeds up the transaction validation process.
Another important contribution of EIP-7928 is the ability to parallelize “post-state route” computations. Network nodes can simultaneously process updated state trees while continuing to execute blocks. This alleviates one of the bottlenecks in the block validation process.
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This update also improves the Ethereum sync system. Wahrstätter said the new approach, called “snap sync v2,” will allow nodes to catch up to the chain faster and completely bypass the “healing” phase required by current systems. This is expected to improve network resiliency, especially during periods of high transaction volume.
Ethereum developers say that in testing, block validation speeds have increased by up to 5x on six-core machines. This performance increase makes it realistic to increase the block gas limit to 300 million, although the Gramsterdam hard fork will initially be implemented with a gas limit of around 200 million.
Wahrstätter also said that EIP-7928 works in conjunction with EIP-7732 (ePBS) to improve the proposer-constructor separation structure and save validators two to four times the time it takes to execute transactions.
Wahrstätter asserted that the Ethereum community has been working intensively on scalability for many years, and the Gramsterdam update is an important milestone that shows what the decentralized developer community can achieve when working together towards a common goal.
*This is not investment advice.
