Emerging Ethereum EIPs to Watch Out for in 2024

EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) is an approach to updates (and decisions) on the Ethereum blockchain regarding protocol specifications, client APIs, and smart contract standards. If tech giants manage software updates without public knowledge, Ethereum does the exact opposite. To be more precise, anyone willing to participate in the network’s development is more than welcome to bring their contribution. The guidelines for writing and submitting EIPs are included in EIP-1, a highly regarded resource for prospective authors and contributors. By and large, an EIP must deliver a concise technical specification with a handful of motivation.  

The Dencun upgrade, or Cancun-Deneb, is due in the first quarter of 2024. It will increase the scalability, efficiency, and security of the blockchain. As Ethereum advances towards the next upgrade scheduled for the mainnet fork, core developers have taken advantage of the opportunity to discuss what comes next. The Ethereum community is still undecided about whether to concentrate on a prominent feature involving a large quantity of work, or organize the upgrade around several more minor improvements, which is more practical. The matter is set to be decided this year. Binance data shows Ethereum is making big moves, and its constant upgrades have led many to claim 2024 will be great for the asset.  

Let’s review some EIPs that will significantly impact the Ethereum network.  

ERC-4337 (Account Abstraction)

ERC (Ethereum Request for Comment) is an individual category of EIP describing changes that affect most or all implementations and fall into several subcategories. It pays special attention to the standardized documentation for Ethereum’s application layer. ERC-4337, and its extension, ERC-6900, propose the implementation of account abstraction through an alternative mempool designed to accept and interpret messages. As opposed to an EIP, which requires altering the core protocol, it doesn’t involve a hard fork. Account abstraction makes it possible for users to deploy smart contract wallets featuring arbitrary verification logic instead of EOAs (Externally Owned Accounts) secured by private keys.

Custodial wallets are complicated to manage, so users frequently experience difficulties. Account abstraction is poised to transform the way users view and interact with wallets. It will no longer be necessary to pay for gas fees, not to mention that Ethereum users will enjoy a robust and compliant authentication and authorization method. ERC-4337 will run on top of the Ethereum blockchain, so it can be used right away. ERC-6900 introduces the idea of delegated transactions, which can be initiated by an external authority based on third-party verification. This approach reduces redundancy, improves security, and supports the reuse of code.

EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding)

EIP-4844 puts forward proto-danksharding, which involves managing and protecting large datasets by splitting them into smaller pieces. Proto-danksharding will considerably reduce the cost of posting data batches of Layer 2 rollup chains to the Ethereum mainnet via blobs. Ethereum core developers are in the course of settling how much additional space is necessary for blob transactions; the data posted to this space will be stored for a period of three weeks and it doesn’t need to be downloaded entirely for verification. With EIP-4844, Ethereum aims to increase the number of transactions completed on the network, which translates into lower fees and a much more accessible platform.

Indeed, proto-danksharding reduces the cost of posting data in the Ethereum blockchain and provides more storage for rollups, but it doesn’t substantially increase or improve the transaction capacity of Ethereum itself. EIP-4844 is a temporary measure that can provide benefits until full data sharding becomes a reality, offering immediate scaling relief. The goal is to introduce up to 64 blobs to Ethereum without increasing the computational load on nodes for block verification. Validators and users will confirm the full data availability without delay. To achieve full data sharding, Ethereum must implement data availability sampling and erasure encoding.

EIP-1153 (Transient Storage Opcodes)

EIP-1153 introduces transient storage opcodes TLOAD and TSTORE, gas-efficient solutions to interframe communication during a transaction. Transient storage already operates within Ethereum’s Virtual Machine, so this improvement is more about gas optimization, a vital aspect of smart contract development. Transient storage will function just like existing storage opcodes, the only difference being that they’ll be abandoned at the end of each transaction. Simply put, temporary data won’t persist for longer than one transaction. The Uniswap team pressed for the inclusion of EIP-1153 in the Shapella upgrade, but core developers failed to reach a consensus.

Transient storage is more affordable because it doesn’t require disk access; it’s accessible to smart contracts via new opcodes. Storage refunds accrued due to inter-frame communication are limited to 20% of the gas spent by a transaction because of EIP-3529, advanced by the London Hard Fork in 2021. It considerably decreases the reimbursements for transiently set storage slots in low-cost transactions. In the ever-evolving blockchain landscape, Ethereum remains a prominent platform, empowering the creation and execution of smart contracts and dApps. The need for advancements within the heart and soul of the network is increasingly important.

EIP-4788 (Beacon Block Root Commits)

Finally, yet importantly, there’s EIP-4788, which uses a smart contract to provisionally store Beacon Chain roots on the execution layer of Ethereum. The Ethereum Virtual Machine doesn’t have access to the Beacon Chain section, which can be considered the library’s catalog system, so it must rely on other methods to understand what’s happening. EIP-4788 recommends a Beacon Block Root, i.e., a summary or hash tree root of the parent block, which will have a major impact on the staking space. It’s currently in testing, with a release planned for this year. Compared to other EIPs, EIP-4788 is more impactful.

Each time a new book is added, moved, or removed, readers enjoy swift and accurate information; all this occurs in a trust-minimized manner, so there’s no need for external oracles to ensure this data. In its current implementation, EIP-4788 is a precompile, meaning its function is built directly into the Ethereum Virtual Machine. A precompile is basically a contract with a fixed gas cost enabling the use of complex cryptographic computations that would otherwise be highly expensive for a smart contract developer to call through Solidity code. Relaying Ethereum’s consensus state via the mainnet is beneficial for liquid staking protocols.