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 recipient milestones and accomplishments!
GASOL (gas optimization toolbox)
THE SIDE The group works on formal techniques, modeling and implementations related to program verification and optimization. Members Elvira Albert, Pablo Gordillo And Albert Rubio are applying this expertise to Ethereum smart contracts with GASOL, a framework for optimizing gas consumption. Each Ethereum smart contract executes a sequence of EVM instructions called opcodes; GASOL’s “super-optimization” technique searches for a sequence that will produce the same results as the original while consuming less gas.
The GASOL team received a grant in February 2021 to build on its previous research and experiments with the optimization of Ethereum smart contracts. They already had a prototype to calculate EVM sequences optimized for a subset of opcodes, particularly stack operations. The goal of the grant is to extend the research prototype into a super-optimization toolkit for smart contract developers, and ultimately make the optimizer integrable with the Solidity compiler.
Version 0.1.3 of the GASOL super-optimization tool, as well as instructions for use, are available at GitHub. In its current version, GASOL is capable of both calculating optimized sequences and producing the corresponding executable bytecode. Other features and achievements include:
- Optimizing memory and storage operations as well as stack operations
- Tests to compare the efficiency gains of GASOL compared to Yul Optimizeras well as GASOL in combination with the Yul optimizer.
- Generating a log file to verify that the bytecode uploaded to Etherscan was generated by GASOL
- Extension of the SMT model to define the order of memory accesses and functions to maintain the same memory state as the original
- Some optimizer components have been generalized to allow byte size optimization criteria
For anyone who wants to dig deeper into the technical details, the team has published reports on step 1 And step 2 of the project. Follow GASOL on GitHub to follow the next releases!
L2BEAT
Layer 2 scaling solutions have proliferated over the past year, promising benefits such as faster transactions, significantly reduced costs, and increased privacy. Each L2 approach involves different tradeoffs that affect security, decentralization, performance, and usability. For a user, this means the freedom to decide what is most important to them and choose a solution that meets their needs – but staying informed on an ever-growing list of options can be overwhelming.
L2BEAT helps users make an informed choice by providing side-by-side comparisons of features, usage statistics, and potential risks of active L2 projects. The team behind the website researches each protocol listed, reviewing various data sources and project documentation to bring together key information into a clear and accessible source.
When L2BEAT first received funding in spring 2021, the dashboard listed scaling technology and locked value statistics for each of the 10 protocols. The site, like the L2 ecosystem, has grown considerably since then. Today, a visitor can toggle between granular financial data and concisely explained technical risk factors for 20 protocols, as well as a page dedicated to analyzing each protocol’s features and tradeoffs.
In December, L2BEAT received a second grant to help grow its team, automate processes and expand its efforts. Planned improvements include:
- Build a back-end server and database robust enough to handle the complexity of current and planned features
- Added more live metrics including transaction volume, availability and block production
- Added upgrade logs to help keep users informed of changes to the protocols they use
Check L2BEAT.com for a treasure trove of information on L2 and much more to come, follow @L2beatcom on Twitter, or join the community Discord. The team also welcomes contributions!
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.
