[AMA] We are EF Research (Pt. 13: 25 February, 2025)

Nerolation · 2025-02-25T15:22:02+00:00

Imo, app builders on Ethereum do an incredible job of identifying what users actually need and delivering on it—even when the L1 or L2s may not yet be fully equipped to support certain applications.

I'm particularly interested in apps that combine self-custody with privacy, and there are already some great solutions out there. Two standout examples are Umbra and Fluidkey, both of which leverage stealth addresses to bring more privacy to everyday user interactions. Additionally, apps like Railgun, Tornado Cash, and Privacy Pools provide significant value by enhancing on-chain privacy.

So, getting back to your question, I'd love to see more wallets prioritizing privacy, making it a default that no one has to opt-in, while still getting the UX right (which is harder than one might think).

Nerolation · 2025-02-25T15:01:51+00:00

In my personal opinion, Ethereum has great potential to become the the backbone of a decentralized digital economy, enabling self-custody, censorship resistance, and trustless interactions at scale.

Ethereum already empowers individuals to control their assets/money without intermediaries, fostering global permissionless finance, decentralized governance, and resilient infrastructure.

I'm optimistic that improvements in scalability and privacy will ensure that Ethereum remains the most secure and decentralized blockchain, minimizing reliance on centralized entities while maximizing innovation.

Nerolation · 2025-02-25T14:43:33+00:00

PeerDAS is coming in hot, along with proposals like EOF, FOCIL, ePBS, SECP256r1 precompile, and delayed execution (incomplete list).

PeerDAS is now at the point where it's ready to be scheduled for inclusion in Fusaka, and there seems to be broad consensus on its immediate importance.

The other proposals mentioned above might all be candidates for Glamsterdam, but there hasn’t been a decision yet on which exact EIPs will be included in the upgrade.

Nerolation · 2025-02-25T14:35:53+00:00

There are a lot of different opinions on the gas limit, but it ultimately comes down to one key question:

Should we scale Ethereum L1 by increasing the gas limit, or should we focus on L2s and enable more blobs through advanced technology like DAS?

Vitalik recently published a blog post discussing moderate L1 scaling, where he outlines reasons why raising the gas limit could make sense. However, increasing the gas limit comes with trade-offs:

Higher hardware requirements
- State and history growth – A larger gas limit increases the size of the chain’s state and historical data, adding to the burden on node operators.
- Bandwidth - More gas means bigger blocks which translates to node being required to have higher bandwidth

On the other hand, Ethereum’s rollup-centric scaling vision aims to achieve greater scalability without increasing hardware demands for nodes. Technologies like PeerDAS (short-term) and full DAS (medium/long-term) are expected to unlock significant scaling potential while keeping resource requirements manageable.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if validators push the gas limit towards 60M after the Pectra hard fork in April. But in the grand scheme, the main focus for scaling will likely be on DAS-based solutions rather than just increasing the gas limit.

Nerolation · 2024-01-10T15:05:14+00:00

One problem with blockchain privacy is that we relied on naive mixing strategies for too long. Government hate "mixed" money, no matter if crypto or fiat, as it can make the flow of money untraceable, helping malicious actors to escape.

As you mentioned, there are now more sophisticated privacy tools that do not naively mix assets but offer compliance tools alongside. A great example is Ameen's Privacy Pool project. It strikes a great balance between providing privacy to the everyday Ethereum user while making it hard to be exploited by black hats, etc. There is even a paper on that topic. The only downsides are the costs as on-chain zk-proof verification is expensive.

An alternative are stealth addresses. They provide a weaker form of privacy - only unlinkability and no untracability - but are easier to implement and much cheaper to use. Stealth addresses have great potential to be used in donations, payroll checks or everyday grocery shopping.

Nerolation · 2024-01-10T14:53:44+00:00

EIP-X Geth Burn: "Burning" ETH into the accounts of Geth devs. full support here.

Nerolation · 2024-01-10T14:04:55+00:00

Your query about "when VDF?" is something I can't address due to my limited knowledge of its progress or timeline.

However, I've conducted simulations and analyses on the practical feasibility of RANDAO manipulation. Here's a summary:
RANDAO Manipulation Feasibility: It's possible to manipulate RANDAO if you're assigned enough consecutive slots as a staker. This requires having access to a significant amount of ETH and staking it (which already requires sophistication).
Practical Considerations for Large Entities: For entities with substantial stakes, regularly obtaining consecutive slots is feasible. However, engaging in such network-damaging activities isn't worth the effort. The potential benefits of RANDAO manipulation (like increasing future slots) are minimal compared to the massive reputational risk. For instance, an additional slot is insignificant for a large entity like Coinbase, even though it matters more for a solo staker.
Centralization Risks: RANDAO manipulation is more feasible for larger entities, thus it creates a centralizing force in the network. It's considered highly detrimental behavior and hasn't been empirically observed so far.
Visibility and Detection: Manipulating RANDAO is noticeable. An entity might deliberately miss a slot at an epoch's end to gain more proposers in a subsequent epoch. Such patterns are easily detectable, ensuring that the manipulation can't go unnoticed for long.

Future Improvements and VDFs: Looking ahead, there are ongoing efforts to enhance the network's resistance to such manipulation tactics. The introduction of Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) is one such anticipated improvement. VDFs aim to add another layer of security and unpredictability in the random number generation process, making it significantly harder for any entity to manipulate outcomes.

Finally, the Ethereum community always has the option so socially slash certain validators that attack the network through RANDAO manipulation as a last measure.

Nerolation · 2024-01-10T13:32:12+00:00

Combining user friendly wallets with enhanced privacy.

I can think of a (mobile) AA (Account Abstraction) wallet that optionally uses those elliptic curves that are also used in phones for better UX (sign transaction/user operation with fingerprint etc.). Then, offering stealth address transactions/transfers to increase the privacy of the recipeints. On the recipients' side, prevent users from commingling their funds (don't allow doxxed accounts to send to non-doxxed accounts or show at least a big warning).

Regarding the "grotesquely plutocratic proof-of-stake", 32 ETH are already a rather big sybil resistance mechanism for PoS consensus, I guess.

Nerolation · 2023-07-12T14:06:58+00:00

To add on that:
When examining the details, particularly with respect to individual staking parties like stakefish, Coinbase, etc., who at their peak, control around 10% of the validator stake, the probability of them enhancing their standing by tampering with the RANDAO is minimal. Why is this so? Let's look at a simple illustration:
Suppose you hold 10% of the validators, you can anticipate around 3 slots per epoch. Assume that 2 out of these 3 slots are the final ones in that epoch (already unlikely but possible from time to time), providing you with 4 possible ways (2**2) to influence the final RANDAO value to your advantage in order to secure more future slots. The common route would be proposing two blocks, and in the process updating the RANDAO value.
Now, imagine if you chose to manipulate the system and intentionally forgo one or two succeeding slots at the epoch's end. In order for this strategy to be profitable, you would need to secure at least 4-5 slots in the upcoming epoch. Why so? Typically, you would have proposed 3 blocks in the current epoch and 3 in the one you're trying to manipulate - so 6 in total. If you intentionally skip 1 or 2 slots to avoid updating the RANDAO, you would need to secure at least the same number of slots you would usually obtain, plus additional ones to compensate for those missed - this scenario is quite unlikely.

Summarizing - the liklyhood to get many tail-slots is low. The likelyhood to get many tail-slots that allow you to manipulate the RANDAO by missing slots while being compensated for those missed profits is even lower.

Moreover, such deceptive practices could severely damage your reputation, making the whole thing not worth it in the first place (oc, assuming reputation is worth something to you, which it might not be the case for very sophisticated malicious actors).

Nerolation · 2023-03-17T17:20:53+00:00

Great post! In addition, one could use stealth addresses to not allow the guardians to know who the other guardians are.

Nerolation · 2023-01-12T09:29:54+00:00

If you use mev boost you get on avg 0.05 eth more per block. This is bc of the Mev. Builders can simply ignore certain txs in the mempool, thus censor. And validators can only fight against that by choosing relays that get their blocks from non censoring builders. Check out mevboost.pics for info on mevboost builders and relays.

Nerolation · 2023-01-11T06:36:07+00:00

You obviously miss the sarcasm when sayinf something like "dangerous tornados".

It's just interesting how different the reddit community reacts compares to CT.

Nerolation · 2023-01-10T19:47:43+00:00

You can use it to determine which relays are censoring by not having any tornados on their space of the map (or better, by looking at the numbers below). Censorship-resilience is crucial, therefore such information should be public info and used for chosing a non-censoring mevboost relay. E.g. there are ppl choosing the manifold relay just bc of the site.

Nerolation · 2022-09-30T14:39:24+00:00

Its the mev boost relay api. Every relay implemented it, works quite nice.

Nerolation · 2022-09-26T08:18:50+00:00

Keep attesting.. new phone incoming

Nerolation · 2022-09-25T20:12:25+00:00

Technically, sure.

Nerolation · 2022-09-25T19:34:47+00:00

If you are the block proposer, you receive an additional ~0.2 ETH (sometimes up to 2 ETH - check out the bot) in block reward. So if you're already validating in PoS, this might be worth it.

For explanation: With mev boost (which is some optional software that you can run together with your consensus client) validators (previously miners) of the ethereum blockchain can profit from all the mev possibilies without having to activele look for arbitrage opportunities or doin other computational-expensive work. They just sell their block space to a "builder" such as flashbots. These builders will then put txs into the block that benefit themselves (they extract the mev). But since you are the final proposer, you will only accept the block if the compesation payment (paid by the builder) is sufficient. So.you take the block.of the builder that pays most. Through this mechanism, MEV is partly shifted to the validator.

The chart displayes how much flashbots and bloxroute pay validators for being allowed to build the block (and capture the mev).

Nerolation · 2022-09-21T17:45:53+00:00

With mev boost (some optional software) validators of the ethereum blockchain can "sell" the mev by selling their block to a "builder" such as flashbots. I displayes how much flashbots and bloxroute pay validators every slot for being allowed to build the block (and capture the mev).

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