It’s always fun to hear about new grants as they are awarded, but what happens after the announcement? In this series, we’ll look at some projects that are well underway – or already at the finish line. Read on to learn about some recent milestones and achievements from grantees!
Impapp For EVM Gas Cost Estimator
Gas costs in Ethereum are a constant topic of debate and improvement. The average user only sees what they pay to send a transaction – whether the gas limit is very high, very low or simply volatile. But where do these suggested gas limits come from?
No two smart contracts are the same; each contains a different set of instructions, or OPCODEs, to execute in the EVM. The gas is used to pay miners or validators for the computational cost of running these OPCODEs, i.e. the work their machine must do. Computational costs are highly variable, even between different validators running the same smart contract. The OPCODE instructions, program context, and node hardware and software configuration are all factored into the actual cost.
The imapp team aims to more accurately estimate true compute costs, providing important data that will inform discussions among key developers about adjusting OPCODE prices. Considering all of these factors to improve the accuracy of gas cost estimates means being able to do more within gas limits, as well as:
- Ensuring that developers who want to optimize gas costs also optimize the actual compute costs imposed on nodes.
- Maintain network diversity by ensuring that miners and validators have sufficient incentive to maintain network security even if they run on mainstream (rather than highly optimized) hardware
- Prevent DoS attacks or any other code exploiting disparities between estimated and actual costs
- Mitigating factors that could lead to a more unpredictable fee market for users, such as miners preferring certain contracts over others to be included in a block.
Imapp first received a grant in late 2020 for Phase I of the project, which included preliminary experiments, research and analysis and was completed earlier this year. A second grant was awarded to fund Phase II, building on the work of Phase I. The Phase II approach is structured into three main areas:
- Program generation: generation of EVM bytecode programs from which measurements will be collected
- Instrumentation and measurement: execute the generated programs in a controlled environment and measure the calculation time of each instruction
- Analysis: statistical analysis and validation of measurement data
THE Gas Cost Estimation Phase I Report contains a detailed analysis of the project context, results of Phase I and plans for Phase II. You can track progress on GitHubor follow the imapp team on Twitter.
Rock logic For Stereoum
As Ethereum moves to Proof of Stake, network security depends on a large and decentralized set of validators. Eth2’s customer teams have focused on reducing barriers to entry such as hardware limitations or technical expertise, while many community efforts are underway to make staking as accessible as possible to anyone holding the required 32 ETH. One of these efforts is Stereoumwhich aims to reduce technical friction for solo stakers by streamlining the process of setting up a validator node.
The idea behind Stereum was first realized as prysm-docker-compose. Using Stereo docker images (software packages combining code and configurations for easy setup), single player players can install and configure the Prism eth2 client, server environment and monitoring services in one go. The team received funding in late 2020, and a second grant in 2021, to expand this functionality to more customers and create additional tools and resources for stakeholders.
The Stereoum team posts regular updates to its website And Twitter. You can also follow and get involved on GitHubor contribute to their Gitcoin Grant!
Are you working on anything that you think could improve Ethereum? Visit our grants page to learn more about what we look for in the projects we fund.
