It’s always fun to hear about new grants as they’re awarded, but what happens after the announcement? In this series, we’ll review a couple of projects that are underway, or already on the finish line. Read on for some recent recipient milestones and accomplishments!
image for EVM Gas Cost Estimator
Gas costs on Ethereum are a constant topic of debate and improvement. The average user only sees what he pays to send a transaction, whether the gas limit is too high, too low, or just volatile. But where do those suggested gas limits come from?
No two smart contracts are the same; each contains a different set of instructions, or OPCODEs, to execute on the EVM. The gas is used to compensate the miners or validators for the computational cost of running these OPCODEs, i.e. the work that their machine must do. Computation costs are highly variable, even between different validators running the same smart contract. The OPCODE instructions, the program context, and the hardware and software configuration of the node all influence the actual cost.
The imapp team set its sights on more accurately estimating real-life compute costs, providing important data that will inform discussions among core developers about OPCODE pricing adjustment. Taking all of these factors into account to improve the accuracy of your gas cost estimates means being able to do more within your gas cap, as well as:
- Ensure that developers who want to optimize gas costs also optimize the actual computational costs imposed on the nodes.
- Keep the network diverse by ensuring that miners and validators are sufficiently incentivized to keep the network secure, even if they are running on consumer (rather than highly optimized) hardware.
- Prevention of DoS attacks or other code that exploits discrepancies between estimated and actual cost
- Mitigating factors that could lead to a more unpredictable fee market for users, such as miners preferring certain contracts over others for inclusion in a block
Imapp was first awarded a grant in late 2020 for Phase I of the project, which consisted of 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 focus in Phase II is structured in three main domains:
- Program generation: generation of EVM bytecode programs from which measurements will be collected
- Instrumentation and measurement: run the generated programs in a controlled environment and measure the time to calculate each instruction
- Analysis: statistical analysis and validation of measurement data
He Gas Cost Estimator Stage I Report contains a full breakdown of the background to the project, findings from Phase I, and plans for Phase II. You can follow the progress in Githubor keep up with the imapp team at Twitter.
rock logic for stereo
As Ethereum transitions to Proof of Stake, the security of the network depends on a large and decentralized set of validators. Eth2 client teams have focused on lowering barriers to entry, such as hardware limitations or technical expertise, while numerous community efforts they are underway to make staking as accessible as possible for anyone with the required 32 ETH. One of these efforts is stereowhose goal is to reduce technical friction for solo participants by simplifying the process of setting up a validation node.
The idea behind Stereum was first realized as prysm-docker-compose. Use of Stereom dockers images (software packages that combine code and configurations for easy configuration) solo participants 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 extend that functionality to more clients and create additional tools and resources for stakeholders.
The Stereum team posts regular updates to their website Y Twitter. You can also follow and participate in Githubor contribute to your Gitcoin Grant!
Are you working on something that you think could change Ethereum for the better? go to our grants page to learn more about what we look for in the projects we finance.
