The future of Ethereum’s EIP-7742 execution layer

Client Diversity and Privacy Research

Nethermind Research and Nethermind core developers received an Ethereum Foundation Data Collection Grant to design a mechanism for validators to provide client information privately so they can research data extraction methods without compromising user anonymity or network performance. The project team includes @0xjorgeth, @M25Marek, @rmzcrypt, and @Smartprogrammer and targets the lack of standard ways to show which execution and consensus layer clients validators use. Current measurement methods like the P2P crawling used by Miga Labs and Ethernodes only identify node distribution. Because some validators use load balancers or Distributed Validator Technology, crawlers might count the same validators multiple times. Blockprint uses heuristics to guess consensus clients but cannot identify the execution client of a validator because MEV-Boost and PBS architectures hide that fingerprint. I find the GossipSub topic approach to be the most effective solution. The team analyzes the definition of new GossipSub topics, such as clientdata{subset}, where validators broadcast data for aggregation. This method minimizes data payload if clients agree on an encoding for EL/CL combinations. Another option involves a private voting scheme using the Belenios protocol. This scheme requires distributed key generation, homomorphic encryption like El-Gamal, and zk-proofs for vote validity. The team aims to analyze technical possibilities, identify anonymization techniques, compare solutions based on accuracy, and evaluate performance. Surveys by execution-diversity.info and clientdiversity.org attempt to obtain samples from large node operators, but it is hard to gauge the accuracy of the reported data.

Execution Throughput and Gas Limits

The execution layer gains speed through specialized optimizations. LambdaClass developers achieved a 20x improvement in block execution throughput with Ethrex, moving it from 20 MGas/s to 400 MGas/s. They redesigned the memory model, used opcode lookup tables, and inlined common opcodes. They also used assembly-optimized SHA3/Keccak, fxhash, deferred hash computation, and 16-way parallel merkleization. This speed makes the EIP-TBA proposal for larger gas limits viable. EIP-TBA allows transactions to specify gas limits larger than the uint24 maximum of 16,777,216. It targets EIP-2718 transaction formats with Type 0x02 and 0x04.

The EIP uses a fee model where the entire specified gas limit is consumed to mitigate DoS attacks. The effective EXECUTION_GAS_LIMIT is determined by integer division. For a 24,000,000 gas limit and a compression ratio of 2, the gas used in the transaction is 22,000,000. For a 60,000,000 gas limit and a compression ratio of 2, the gas used in the transaction is 50,000,000. This design allows large transactions to enter blocks while pricing them based on the risk they introduce.

Scaling Roadmaps and L2 Evolution

Ethereum’s roadmap moves toward a leaner protocol architecture and strong user privacy. Vitalik Buterin prioritizes quantum security and native rollups in the new "Strawmap" plan. Glamsterdam arrives in Q4 2026, while Hegota follows in Q2 2027 with FOCIL and Frame Transactions. Hegota client implementation begins in late Q4 2026. I-star follows in Q4 2027 or Q1 2028 and involves recursive STARK mempools and dependency frames. These upgrades address the scaling limitations that current L2s face. L2s function as a spectrum of Ethereum-backed chains rather than just branded shards. Vitalik Buterin noted that L2 progress to stage 2 has been slower than expected. He also suggested the protocol might offer an instruction set architecture other than the EVM, such as leanISA or RISC-V. Vitalik Buterin also suggested that AI-powered formal verification could assist in securing the protocol. The roadmap includes the use of recursive STARK structures across multiple layers of the protocol. Will the implementation of FOCIL in Hegota satisfy the privacy demands of the community? You should watch the upcoming Glamsterdam testing in Sepolia to see how these changes behave.

The Post-EIP-4844 Economy

The post-EIP-4844 environment creates a complex game between builders and rollups. After the Dencun upgrade, the average block size increased 2.5x from 150 KB to 400 KB. Rollups migrate from expensive calldata to cheap blobs, causing the share of conventional transactions to shrink from 150 KB to 80 KB. However, 29.48% of blob-containing blocks yield sub-optimal revenue compared to alternative options. This was especially clear in March 2025, when potential profits from the mempool were 5x greater than the revenue builders gained from blobs. Rollups like Scroll and Starknet contribute to this inefficiency because they split blobs into separate type-3 transactions, which accounts for 69.85% of sub-optimal type-3 transactions. Builders like Flashbots, rsync, Beaverbuild, and Titan builder must balance the priority fees of type-3 transactions against the opportunity cost of excluding other transactions. The dataset analyzed by researchers includes 1,967,415 blocks and 319,531,950 transactions. This data includes 1,31,3 million blob-carrying transactions and 106,051 type-3 transactions used for blobscriptions.