ACDT #91 · Devnet 8 postponed until gas costs are final
AllCoreDevs - Testing #091 · 2026-08-10
The public testnet will launch only after the repricing numbers are finalized.
Following a report that the Glamsterdam gas repricing numbers cannot yet be finalized, the group decided to postpone the launch of Devnet 8, which serves as the public testnet, until the numbers are settled at this week's ACDE. EIP-8070 became a Devnet 8 requirement with no objections.
Why it matters
Devnet 8 is effectively the public testnet, so gas costs need to be settled here for app developers to verify their contracts in advance against real costs. The 200M gas limit increase discussed alongside it bears directly on network throughput after the fork and on whether existing transactions survive.
Decisions
- Flooding retest: The group decided to retest the payload flooding attack on Devnet 8 rather than Devnet 7, and the affected clients will implement the IGNORE rule that ignores duplicate envelopes. This fills in a defensive rule that is already in the spec but that some clients missed.
- Devnet 8 postponed: The group decided not to launch Devnet 8 until the repricing numbers are finally confirmed, and to wait for ACDE. The intent is to avoid changing gas costs twice on a public network.
- EIP-8070 mandatory: EIP-8070 was confirmed as a Devnet 8 requirement with no objections. This means every client must implement the feature to take part in Devnet 8.
Discussion
Payload flooding attack and rebroadcast bug
A researcher used builder privileges to spray thousands of 9.5MB signed payloads onto Devnet 7, causing missed slots. The cause turned out to be a duplicate propagation bug in some clients, which was discussed on this call.
Outcome: Confirmed decision 00:21:22
Repricing number uncertainty and Devnet 8 postponement
Devnet 8 is effectively a public testnet, and the possibility was raised that benchmarks ran in a state not representative of mainnet, making it an issue whether the gas cost numbers can be finalized.
Outcome: Schedule decision 00:31:18
Raising the gas limit to 200M at the fork boundary
A proposal was made to raise the default gas limit to 200M at the fork, because if repricing makes state-related operations more expensive, transactions that work under the current 60M limit could fail right after the fork.
Devnet 8 genesis state size
The group discussed whether to keep a large genesis state of about 70MB on the public devnet to re-verify the SSZ encoding issue that occurred during the Devnet 7 fork transition.
Glossary
- ACDE: The execution-layer-focused All Core Devs call. It is held on Thursdays, and the repricing will be finalized here.
- Devnet: A temporary network where developers test upgrades ahead of time. Devnet 8's alias is Platåberget.
- Repricing: The work of readjusting per-opcode gas costs in Glamsterdam based on measurements
- PFI: Proposed for Inclusion. The state of being proposed for fork inclusion and accepted as a candidate
- Envelope: A bundle of execution payloads that a builder signs and propagates to the network
- SSZ: The serialization format used by the consensus layer (Simple Serialize). Genesis state files use this format too.
- Gas limit: The upper bound on the amount of computation one block can process. The current default is 60M.
- CL/EL: Consensus layer and execution layer clients