Protocol Prototyping - Ethereum Foundation

The Protocol Prototyping team at the Ethereum Foundation builds end-to-end implementations of new ideas for Ethereum's core protocol. By turning concepts into working prototypes, we explore how potential upgrades behave in practice, helping the community move beyond theory and speculation.

Projects

Sort by

No projects found matching your search.

FOCIL: Past, Present and Future

An overview of how FOCIL came about, how it's designed to work, and how it can integrate with Frame transaction and support blob transaction in the future.

FOCIL and Blob Streaming

An overview of how FOCIL can support blob transactions in the future.

FOCIL and Frame Transaction

An overview of how FOCIL can integrate with Frame transaction in the future.

Payload Chunking

CLELDL

Deep dive analysis of Payload Chunking designs

EIP-8101 - Payload Chunking prototype

CLELDL

The proof of concept implementation of EIP-8101

Early Rejection of Adversarial BALs

Analysis of validation asymmetries in BALs and a gas-budget based mitigation for early invalidation

Worst-Case Block Size and Calldata Repricing for Glamsterdam

Analysis of Ethereum’s worst-case block size and implications for repricings in Glamsterdam

FOCIL Readiness for Hegotá

An overview of FOCIL Readiness for Hegotá

From Draft to Inclusion: A proposal's Journey — Devconnect 2025

An overview of EIP's journey from Draft to Inclusion

Modeling the Worst-Case Parallel Execution under EIP-7928

Modelling OLS vs Greedy Scheduling over increasing gas limits

Fusaka Update – Transaction Gas Limit Cap arrives with EIP-7825

Announcement of EIP-7825 from the EF blog

Pitsop

Cross client config manager.

🧪 Testing Block Level Access Lists

Complex test cases for BAL and existing EIP interactions.

Toward Semantic Block Chunking

Follow-up on payload chunking

Payload Chunking

Proposal for splitting blocks into independent chunks

EIP-7782 Prototyping

Building a devnet prototype for 6-second slot research

EIP-7782 Prysm Prototype

Prysm prototype for EIP-7782

ePBS and FOCIL — EthStaker Community Call

A discussion on what ePBS and FOCIL are and how they impact stakers

How to Implement EIP-7805 in the CL

A comprehensive guide for implementing EIP-7805 in the CL

Overclocking Blocks with Gas Refunds

Analysis of gas refunds, EIP-7778 and worst-case state changes

How to Implement EIP-7805 in the EL

A comprehensive guide for implementing EIP-7805 in the EL

EIP-7805 Execution Specification

The Execution specification for EIP-7805

EIP-7805 Consensus Specification

The Consensus specification for EIP-7805

Capping Transaction Gas: Data, Impact, and Rationale

Analysis of capping the transaction gas limit at 2**24 gas

Diet BAL

A little Block Access Lists (BAL) experiment.

PokéBAL

A collection of helpful resources for Block Access Lists (BAL) implementors.

Slot Restructuring: Design Considerations and Trade-Offs

Analysis of slot restructuring design considerations and trade-offs for Ethereum

Portal Network & History Expiry

Proposal for a spec for new History subnetwork over Portal protocol for the purpose of History Expiry

Block-level Access Lists (BALs)

Proposal for block-level access lists to improve Ethereum execution efficiency

Delayed Execution and Free DA

Research on delayed execution mechanisms and free data availability

Execution Dependencies

Analysis of execution dependencies in Ethereum block processing

EIP-7805 Kurtosis Configurations

Kurtosis configurations for EIP-7805 local devnets

Expanding Mempool Perspectives

Research on expanding perspectives and analysis of Ethereum mempool dynamics

EIP-7805 Geth Prototype

Geth prototype for EIP-7805

Max-Blobs Flag: Economic Perspective

Economic analysis of the max-blobs flag and its implications

Delayed Execution And Skipped Transactions

Research on delayed execution and handling of skipped transactions

Block-Level Warming

Proposal for block-level warming to improve execution efficiency

EIP-7805 Execution APIs Specification

The Execution APIs specification for EIP-7805

On Increasing the Block Gas Limit: Technical Considerations & Path Forward

Technical considerations and path forward for increasing Ethereum block gas limit

On Blob Markets, Base Fee Adjustments and Optimizations

Analysis of blob markets, base fee adjustments and optimization strategies

EIP-7805: Fork-choice enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL)

A robust mechanism to preserve Ethereum's censorship resistance properties by guaranteeing timely transaction inclusion

On solo staking, local block building and blobs

Research on solo staking implications with local block building and blob handling

Steelmanning a blob throughput increase for Pectra

Arguments for increasing blob throughput in the Pectra upgrade

On Proposer Timing Games and Economies of Scale

Analysis of proposer timing games and their economies of scale implications

On Attestations, Block Propagation, and Timing Games

Research on attestations, block propagation dynamics and timing game strategies

Diseconomies of Scale: Anti-Correlation Penalties (EIP-7716)

EIP-7716 proposal for anti-correlation penalties to address economies of scale

Deep Diving Attestations - A Quantitative Analysis

Quantitative analysis of Ethereum attestation patterns and behaviors

Blobs, Reorgs, and the Role of MEV-Boost

Analysis of blob interactions with reorgs and MEV-Boost's role

Is it worth using MEV-Boost?

Quantitative analysis on the benefits and drawbacks of using MEV-Boost

Big blocks, blobs, and reorgs

Research on the relationship between block size, blobs and reorganization risks

Slashing Proofoor - On-chain slashed validator proofs

Implementation of on-chain proofs for slashed validators

Portal Network & Verkle

Research on how Verkle state trie can be distributed over Portal Network

Analysis on Correlated Attestation Penalties

Analysis of correlated attestation penalties and their impact on validators

EIP-7623 - Post-4844 Analysis

Post-4844 analysis of EIP-7623 calldata cost increase proposal

Analyzing EIP-7623: Increase Calldata Cost

Detailed analysis of EIP-7623 proposal to increase calldata costs

On Increasing the Block Gas Limit

Research on implications and considerations for increasing block gas limit

On Block Sizes, Gas Limits and Scalability

Analysis of block sizes, gas limits and their impact on scalability

Distributing Ethereum State over Portal Network

Research on how to distribute state trie over Portal Network for quicker retrieval of leaf nodes

In a post MEV-Burn world - Some simulations and stats

Simulations and statistics for a post MEV-Burn implementation world

Cumulative, Non-Expiring Inclusion Lists

Proposal for cumulative, non-expiring inclusion lists mechanism

The Second-Slot Itch - Statistical Analysis of Reorgs

Statistical analysis of reorganizations focusing on second-slot patterns

Selfish Mixing and RANDAO Manipulation

Analysis of selfish mixing strategies and RANDAO manipulation techniques

Gas Ticketing - A Backstage Pass to Ethereum Blocks

Proposal for gas ticketing mechanism to improve block space allocation

Builders on MEV - Analysing the impact of the OFAC sanctions

Analysis of OFAC sanctions impact on block builders and MEV

Practical Guide into Analyzing MEV in the Proof-of-Stake Era

Comprehensive guide for analyzing MEV in Ethereum's proof-of-stake system

ERC-5564: Improving Privacy on Ethereum through Stealth Address Wallets

ERC-5564 proposal for implementing stealth address wallets on Ethereum

Ethereum Datafarm: Parsing Historic Event Data

Guide for parsing historic event data from Ethereum blockchain using Etherscan API

ERC721 Extension for zk-SNARKs

Proposal for extending ERC721 with zero-knowledge proof capabilities

Privacy-Preserving Proof of Ownership for Attendance Tokens

Implementation of privacy-preserving proof of ownership using zk-SNARKs

PyXatu

Open source Python library for Ethereum beacon chain data analysis

EL Benchmarks

Writing EVM tests for worst-case bottleneck situations, which currently limit the maximum enforcable block gas limit

Team

Toni Wahrstätter

Carl Beekhuizen

Jochem Brouwer

Milos Stankovic

raxhvl

Jihoon Song

Bharath Vedartham

Join the Protocol Prototyping Team

Are you interested in joining Protocol Prototyping? We're always looking for talented engineers and researchers passionate about building the future of Ethereum. Even when we're not actively hiring, we'd love to hear from exceptional candidates.

Get in touch: prototyping@ethereum.org