Ethereum: a radical update is about to accelerate everything

Ethereum is about to cross a decisive course. With the EIP-7928, a daring proposal has just been presented to introduce the parallel execution of transactions on the layer 1. long considered as an almost insurmountable challenge because of the risks on the consistency of the system, this advance could in depth the architecture of the network. In response to the persistent limits of scalability, this new technical milestone revives debates among the developers and marks a potential turning point for the evolution of Ethereum towards increased effectiveness without compromise on security.

A technical advance to accelerate the validation of the blocks

Ethereum's development team unveiled the EIP-7928, a proposal that introduces a temporary code execution capacity for external accounts. Indeed, the heart of the EIP-7928 proposal is based on the introduction of block-level access lists (balls).

The developer Toni Wahrstätter, one of the authors of the document, affirm May 14 on social network X (ex Twitter):

It is a mechanism which aims to allow the execution of transactions and the parallel validation of the blocks.

Such a technical innovation is based on a key principle: providing validators in advance to all the necessary information concerning the transactions of a block, so that they can analyze it without having to execute it one after the other.

Concretely, the balls identify all the addresses and storage locations corresponding to the transactions of a block, as well as the associated post-execution values. The system would make it possible to short-circuit the current sequential reading, deemed ineffective in the face of the rise in the network.

So, EIP-7928 Introduced three major technical components directly integrated into the body of the blocks, which would allow Ethereum to take a new step in its performance on the Layer 1:

• The Block Access List (BAL): Complete list of storage addresses and keys linked to transactions;
• Transactions indices: they allow you to locate each operation in the block with precision;
• Post-execution values: These are the final results that each transaction leaves on the overall state of the network.

According to Wahrstätter, this structuring would allow validators to carry out parallel readings of the disc and validate the blocks much faster than before. He adds that this advance could also “Allow an increase in the gas limit” in the future.

The interest of this proposal therefore lies in a substantial improvement in the effectiveness of the network, without altering its fundamental principles or depending on second layer solutions.

A milestone in the debate between scalability L1 and dependence on L2

Beyond the purely technical aspects, the EIP-7928 reactivates an old debate within the Ethereum community: should we concentrate scalability efforts on the layer 1 or continue the laye of Layer 2?

This type of proposal strengthens the idea “That it is necessary to also focus on Improvements of the L1”while some members of the community are focusing exclusively on Rollups type solutions to meet congestion and expense challenges.

The implementation of balls does not seek to replace the L2, but rather to reposition the L1 as a more robust, faster and more competitive base.

With this in mind, the Ethereum roadmap seems to be orchestrated with consistency. After the activation of the Pectra update, which notably introduced account abstraction and a new design for Stoking ETH, the network heads to Fusaka, expected at the end of 2025.

This next development provides for the introduction of Peerdas, a sampling technology of out -chain data, intended to reduce the costs of Layer 2. Thus, Ethereum seems to follow a dual strategy: to strengthen its base while supporting its extensions.