Skip to content

Electra -- Honest Validator

Table of contents

Introduction

This document represents the changes to be made in the code of an "honest validator" to implement Electra.

Prerequisites

This document is an extension of the Deneb -- Honest Validator guide. All behaviors and definitions defined in this document, and documents it extends, carry over unless explicitly noted or overridden.

All terminology, constants, functions, and protocol mechanics defined in the updated Beacon Chain doc of Electra are requisite for this document and used throughout. Please see related Beacon Chain doc before continuing and use them as a reference throughout.

Helpers

Modified GetPayloadResponse

1
2
3
4
5
6
@dataclass
class GetPayloadResponse(object):
    execution_payload: ExecutionPayload
    block_value: uint256
    blobs_bundle: BlobsBundle
    execution_requests: Sequence[bytes]  # [New in Electra]

Containers

Modified Containers

AggregateAndProof

1
2
3
4
class AggregateAndProof(Container):
    aggregator_index: ValidatorIndex
    aggregate: Attestation  # [Modified in Electra:EIP7549]
    selection_proof: BLSSignature

SignedAggregateAndProof

1
2
3
class SignedAggregateAndProof(Container):
    message: AggregateAndProof   # [Modified in Electra:EIP7549]
    signature: BLSSignature

Protocol

ExecutionEngine

Modified get_payload

Given the payload_id, get_payload returns the most recent version of the execution payload that has been built since the corresponding call to notify_forkchoice_updated method.

1
2
3
4
5
6
def get_payload(self: ExecutionEngine, payload_id: PayloadId) -> GetPayloadResponse:
    """
    Return ExecutionPayload, uint256, BlobsBundle and execution requests (as Sequence[bytes]) objects.
    """
    # pylint: disable=unused-argument
    ...

Block proposal

Constructing the BeaconBlockBody

Attester slashings

Changed the max attester slashings size to MAX_ATTESTER_SLASHINGS_ELECTRA.

Attestations

Changed the max attestations size to MAX_ATTESTATIONS_ELECTRA.

The network attestation aggregates contain only the assigned committee attestations. Attestation aggregates received by the block proposer from the committee aggregators with disjoint committee_bits sets and equal AttestationData SHOULD be consolidated into a single Attestation object. The proposer should run the following function to construct an on chain final aggregate form a list of network aggregates with equal AttestationData:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
def compute_on_chain_aggregate(network_aggregates: Sequence[Attestation]) -> Attestation:
    aggregates = sorted(network_aggregates, key=lambda a: get_committee_indices(a.committee_bits)[0])

    data = aggregates[0].data
    aggregation_bits = Bitlist[MAX_VALIDATORS_PER_COMMITTEE * MAX_COMMITTEES_PER_SLOT]()
    for a in aggregates:
        for b in a.aggregation_bits:
            aggregation_bits.append(b)

    signature = bls.Aggregate([a.signature for a in aggregates])

    committee_indices = [get_committee_indices(a.committee_bits)[0] for a in aggregates]
    committee_flags = [(index in committee_indices) for index in range(0, MAX_COMMITTEES_PER_SLOT)]
    committee_bits = Bitvector[MAX_COMMITTEES_PER_SLOT](committee_flags)

    return Attestation(
        aggregation_bits=aggregation_bits,
        data=data,
        committee_bits=committee_bits,
        signature=signature,
    )

Deposits

[New in Electra:EIP6110] The expected number of deposits MUST be changed from min(MAX_DEPOSITS, eth1_data.deposit_count - state.eth1_deposit_index) to the result of the following function:

1
2
3
4
5
6
def get_eth1_pending_deposit_count(state: BeaconState) -> uint64:
    eth1_deposit_index_limit = min(state.eth1_data.deposit_count, state.deposit_requests_start_index)
    if state.eth1_deposit_index < eth1_deposit_index_limit:
        return min(MAX_DEPOSITS, eth1_deposit_index_limit - state.eth1_deposit_index)
    else:
        return uint64(0)

Execution payload

prepare_execution_payload is updated from the Deneb specs.

Note: In this section, state is the state of the slot for the block proposal without the block yet applied. That is, state is the previous_state processed through any empty slots up to the assigned slot using process_slots(previous_state, slot).

Note: The only change to prepare_execution_payload is the new definition of get_expected_withdrawals.

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
def prepare_execution_payload(state: BeaconState,
                              safe_block_hash: Hash32,
                              finalized_block_hash: Hash32,
                              suggested_fee_recipient: ExecutionAddress,
                              execution_engine: ExecutionEngine) -> Optional[PayloadId]:
    # Verify consistency of the parent hash with respect to the previous execution payload header
    parent_hash = state.latest_execution_payload_header.block_hash

    # Set the forkchoice head and initiate the payload build process
    withdrawals, _ = get_expected_withdrawals(state)  # [Modified in EIP-7251]

    payload_attributes = PayloadAttributes(
        timestamp=compute_timestamp_at_slot(state, state.slot),
        prev_randao=get_randao_mix(state, get_current_epoch(state)),
        suggested_fee_recipient=suggested_fee_recipient,
        withdrawals=withdrawals,
        parent_beacon_block_root=hash_tree_root(state.latest_block_header),
    )
    return execution_engine.notify_forkchoice_updated(
        head_block_hash=parent_hash,
        safe_block_hash=safe_block_hash,
        finalized_block_hash=finalized_block_hash,
        payload_attributes=payload_attributes,
    )

Execution Requests

[New in Electra]

  1. The execution payload is obtained from the execution engine as defined above using payload_id. The response also includes a execution_requests entry containing a list of bytes. Each element on the list corresponds to one SSZ list of requests as defined in EIP-7685. The first byte of each request is used to determine the request type. Requests must be ordered by request type in ascending order. As a result, there can only be at most one instance of each request type.
  2. Set block.body.execution_requests = get_execution_requests(execution_requests), where:
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
def get_execution_requests(execution_requests_list: Sequence[bytes]) -> ExecutionRequests:
    deposits = []
    withdrawals = []
    consolidations = []

    request_types = [
        DEPOSIT_REQUEST_TYPE,
        WITHDRAWAL_REQUEST_TYPE,
        CONSOLIDATION_REQUEST_TYPE,
    ]

    prev_request_type = None
    for request in execution_requests_list:
        request_type, request_data = request[0:1], request[1:]

        # Check that the request type is valid
        assert request_type in request_types
        # Check that the request data is not empty
        assert len(request_data) != 0
        # Check that requests are in strictly ascending order
        # Each successive type must be greater than the last with no duplicates
        assert prev_request_type is None or prev_request_type < request_type
        prev_request_type = request_type

        if request_type == DEPOSIT_REQUEST_TYPE:
            deposits = ssz_deserialize(
                List[DepositRequest, MAX_DEPOSIT_REQUESTS_PER_PAYLOAD],
                request_data
            )
        elif request_type == WITHDRAWAL_REQUEST_TYPE:
            withdrawals = ssz_deserialize(
                List[WithdrawalRequest, MAX_WITHDRAWAL_REQUESTS_PER_PAYLOAD],
                request_data
            )
        elif request_type == CONSOLIDATION_REQUEST_TYPE:
            consolidations = ssz_deserialize(
                List[ConsolidationRequest, MAX_CONSOLIDATION_REQUESTS_PER_PAYLOAD],
                request_data
            )

    return ExecutionRequests(
        deposits=deposits,
        withdrawals=withdrawals,
        consolidations=consolidations,
    )

Attesting

Construct attestation

The validator creates attestation as a SingleAttestation container with updated field assignments:

  • Set attestation_data.index = 0.
  • Set attestation.committee_index to the index associated with the validator's committee.
  • Set attestation.attester_index to the index of the validator.

Attestation aggregation

Construct aggregate

  • Set attestation_data.index = 0.
  • Let aggregation_bits be a Bitlist[MAX_VALIDATORS_PER_COMMITTEE * MAX_COMMITTEES_PER_SLOT] of length len(committee), where each bit set from each individual attestation is set to 0b1.
  • Set attestation.committee_bits = committee_bits, where committee_bits has the bit set corresponding to committee_index in each individual attestation.