Paying down tech debt, redesigning the consensus layer simply
Strawmap L* (2029~30) · tech debt reset
The complex rules and old structures that have piled up in the beacon chain over several years are cleared out, and the consensus layer is reorganized into a simple design. This is meant to be carried out together with large changes such as one-round finality.
Why it is needed
Ethereum's consensus layer (the beacon chain) launched in late 2020 and has since layered change upon change, such as the Merge, withdrawals and validator structure improvements. Because it was safer to add new rules on top of existing ones than to delete them, structures that are no longer used or that were built for earlier circumstances remain throughout the spec and client code. In software, this accumulated burden is called tech debt. A complex spec increases the places where bugs can hide and makes it harder for new client teams to take part. It is also an obstacle when trying to verify the consensus process with zero-knowledge proofs. This item proposes cleaning up that debt all at once instead of fixing it bit by bit. The idea of clearing the accumulated debt while redesigning the consensus layer came from the Beam chain (now called lean consensus) concept that Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake presented at Devcon 2024. On the Strawmap it sits in the same cell as one-round finality, attester-proposer separation and real-time CL proving. These changes will greatly alter the core of the consensus layer anyway, so the judgment is that removing the old structures at the same time yields a simpler design that is easier to prove. However, the L* fork is only an estimate on the Strawmap, and what to clean up and how far has not yet been decided.