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Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 7781 aims to reduce Ethereum network lock times, expand blob capacity, improve decentralized exchange (DEX) performance, and reduce gas costs.
What is the Ethereum Improvement Proposal – 7781?
EIP-7781 has caught the attention of the Ethereum (ETH) community due to its potential impact on the smart contract platform.
Suggested by Ben Adams, co-founder of Illyriad Games, the new EIP promises several benefits, including reducing network lock times from 12 seconds to eight seconds, resulting in a 33% increase in transaction throughput without a corresponding increase in the number of data blobs.
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For the uninitiated, the number of data blobs in Ethereum refers to the number of data chunks included in a block for future use by rollups or layer 2 scaling solutions. These blobs help offload data storage and processing from the base Ethereum network, reducing congestion and improving scalability.
EIP-7781 also aims to distribute network bandwidth more evenly, effectively reducing peak bandwidth requirements without sacrificing network efficiency.
In his proposal, Adams explains:
This would be equivalent to increasing the number of blobs from 6 to 8 or the gas limit from 30M to 40M; however, this approach does not increase the peak bandwidth.
Commenting on the proposal, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake said he supports reducing lock times to eight seconds. Drake added that the proposal would help DEXs Uniswap v3 becomes 1.22 times more efficient, saving approximately $100 million in CEX-DEX arbitrage annually, resulting in better execution of user transactions.
This also applies to the pseudonymous developer Cygaar shared their thoughts on EIP-7781 and say that, if approved, the proposal could increase Ethereum’s throughput by as much as 50%. The developer also confirmed that the proposal would help reduce Ethereum gas fees.
However, Cygaar cautioned that reducing slot times should not come at the cost of significantly increasing hardware requirements for solo validators.
To clarify this concern, shorter block times can cause the Ethereum blockchain’s data to grow faster, requiring stronger hardware and faster internet to keep up with the faster updates. This could pose challenges for solo stakers and node operators.
EIP-7781 is raising concerns among solo strikers
While EIP-7781 promises to address some of the current challenges on the Ethereum network, there are concerns about its impact on solo stakers.
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Cinnehaim Ventures partner Adam Cochran, for example noted that the proposal “seems reasonable in terms of bandwidth for solo strikers” as long as the gas limit per block remains unchanged. Cochran added:
Would like to see some testing on I/O hardware and staper return ping times to make sure some home staplers aren’t getting cut off, but it seems like this should be within reach for most.
It should be remembered that recently Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin advocated lowering the ETH requirement for solo stakers from 32 ETH to 16 or 24 ETH.
Buterin emphasized the importance of solo stakers in securing the Ethereum network, suggesting that a greater share of solo stakers could provide an additional layer of protection against network attacks. At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $2,469, upwards 1.7% in the last 24 hours.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com
