Block access list changes - BAL construction, execution and validation #32263

jwasinger · 2025-07-23T10:22:21Z

WIP. currently passes blockchain spec tests (tests that make use of balances >16 bytes are excluded).

Change summary:

when --experimentalbal is enabled:
- insertion of post-Cancun blocks which don't contain access lists will cause them to be created during block execution and embedded into the block body.
- Insertion of post-cancun blocks that contain access lists will perform transaction execution and post-state root calculation in parallel using the state diffs provided in the access list. The state diffs produced by execution are validated against the entries in the BAL.
Introduced new modified blockchain suite test runner which first imports the test chain (generating BALs), and then re-inserts the access-list-containing blocks.

Deviations from EIP-7928:

Use RLP for the encoding format instead of SSZ.
Modify BAL format to accomodate pre/post-tx execution state changes:
- entries with txindex=0 correspond to state reads/changes which occur from system contract execution before transactions.
- entries with txindx=1..len(block.transactions) correspond to state reads/changes occurring for each transaction.
- entries with txindex=len(block.transactions)+1 correspond to the post-block system contracts and EIP-4895 withdrawals.

TODO:

validation of BAL account/storage reads (it's somewhat likely that these will be removed from the spec, so I'm holding off for now).

jwasinger · 2025-07-23T10:28:16Z

A lot of the comments in the code are straight-up wrong/misleading. There's a lot of notes/reminders I made as I was implementing this, and not all of them have been removed/corrected at this point.

jwasinger · 2025-07-29T13:43:23Z

I've pushed parallel execution changes here.

Still failing 2 tests (other than modexp repricing ones which will be fixed with a rebase on master):

--- FAIL: TestExecutionSpecBlocktestsBAL/prague/eip7251_consolidations/consolidations_during_fork/consolidation_requests_during_fork.json (0.03s)
        block_test.go:233: test with config {snapshotter:false, scheme:path} failed: mismatch between BAl value and computed value
    --- FAIL: TestExecutionSpecBlocktestsBAL/prague/eip7002_el_triggerable_withdrawals/withdrawal_requests_during_fork/withdrawal_requests_during_fork.json (0.02s)
        block_test.go:233: test with config {snapshotter:false, scheme:path} failed: mismatch between BAl value and computed value

I've been trying to debug these but it's proving to be exceedingly difficult with the parallel execution enabled. The tests seem to relate to behavior of some system contracts on the fork boundaries, so I will just proceed with gathering numbers on mainnet performance for the meantime.

core/types/bal/bal.go

jwasinger · 2025-08-04T13:25:30Z

INFO [08-04|13:21:15.227] Imported new chain segment number=23,051,616 hash=228379..13abd2 blocks=0 txs=10783 mgas=1137.280 elapsed=8.072s mgasps=140.878 age=2d6h46m triediffs=271.84MiB triedirty=112.48MiB

Broke the block count on the insertion log statement here. Will try to fix tomorrow.

jwasinger · 2025-08-13T12:02:49Z

Getting some empty accounts in the BAL. example:

 {
      address: "0xff00000000000000000000000000000000008453"
  }

lightclient

Looking good so far, just a few comments.

lightclient · 2025-08-21T20:07:02Z

core/blockchain.go

+		var resCh chan *ProcessResultWithMetrics
+		resCh, err = bc.processor.ProcessWithAccessList(block, statedb, bc.cfg.VmConfig)
+		if err != nil {
+			// TODO: okay to pass nil here as execution result?


Should be fine, we just use it to get out the receipts (if it is non nil).

core/blockchain.go

core/state/state_object.go

core/state_processor.go

params/config.go

jwasinger · 2025-08-27T14:55:45Z

We decided on the EIP breakout call to keep account/storage reads in for now. Basically, without having this information it is possible that a transaction can be crafted which does a ton of storage reads and slow down the processing of the block significantly.

So until we can evaluate worst-cases here, account/storage reads are staying in the spec.

jwasinger · 2025-08-28T08:45:38Z

core/blockchain.go

-			bc.prefetcher.Prefetch(block, throwaway, vmCfg, &interrupt)
+			if block.Body().AccessList == nil {
+				// only use the state prefetcher for non-BAL blocks.
+				bc.prefetcher.Prefetch(block, throwaway, vmCfg, &interrupt)


I previously implemented a state prefetcher for BALs. I deleted it so that the import benchmarks I am running will capture the BAL block processing speed equivalent to a synced node executing blocks at chain head.

We should probably add back the BAL prefetcher and measure the import performance.

jwasinger · 2025-08-28T09:36:13Z

Also TODO: need to implement validation of storage/account reads against the BAL.

jwasinger · 2025-08-28T10:34:34Z

core/state/statedb.go

 	// The tx context and all occurred logs in the scope of transaction.
 	thash   common.Hash
 	txIndex int
+	sender  common.Address


remove trhis.

gballet · 2025-08-28T10:34:37Z

core/state/statedb.go

 	// The tx context and all occurred logs in the scope of transaction.
 	thash   common.Hash
 	txIndex int
+	sender  common.Address


leftover, remove

gballet · 2025-08-28T10:38:28Z

core/types/bal/bal.rlp.hex

this should not be committed

Yeah, it's leftover test data for a unit test that no longer exists (but should be updated and added back in).

…hen enabled, post-Cancun blocks which lack access lists will have them constructed on execution during import. When importing blocks which contain access lists, transaction execution and state root calculation is performed in parallel.

…that's generated locally

…slice before decoding in decoder impl.

- Add BlockAccessList to ExecutableData with custom JSON marshaling - Calculate BlockAccessListHash when constructing blocks - Fix WithWitness to preserve accessList field - Accept Amsterdam in ForkchoiceUpdatedV3

Use PayloadV4 after Amsterdam fork

jwasinger mentioned this pull request Jul 23, 2025

core/state: implement optional BAL construction in statedb #31959

Closed

jwasinger commented Aug 3, 2025

View reviewed changes

core/types/bal/bal.go Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

jwasinger force-pushed the bal-execution branch 2 times, most recently from ab1c562 to 8f200db Compare August 4, 2025 08:51

jwasinger marked this pull request as ready for review August 4, 2025 10:13

jwasinger requested review from fjl, gballet, rjl493456442, zsfelfoldi, s1na, lightclient and MariusVanDerWijden as code owners August 4, 2025 10:13

jwasinger force-pushed the bal-execution branch from 869b300 to e14a463 Compare August 19, 2025 07:40

lightclient reviewed Aug 21, 2025

View reviewed changes

jwasinger commented Aug 28, 2025

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gballet reviewed Aug 28, 2025

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jwasinger force-pushed the bal-execution branch from 7d3b230 to 93b4210 Compare September 11, 2025 11:14

jwasinger mentioned this pull request Sep 11, 2025

all: generate and embed block-access-lists in block bodies when --experimentalbal is enabled #32586

Open

jwasinger added 3 commits September 13, 2025 14:41

remove panic from body fetcher

2be6127

fix handler to embed access list hash in the bodiesresponse metadata …

508c1a6

…that's generated locally

wip: reads validation

244425a

jwasinger and others added 14 commits September 15, 2025 12:58

more state tests passing

1620354

include system contract sender address if there are state changes to it

07b9f47

fix remaining broken tests:

67bfac7

fix build

755801a

fix geth tools builds

84cb188

fix statedb test compilation

8103403

don't fail import command when EOL is returned

6d0cd85

add back bal validation

aa5092d

fix bal validation

5771cd8

validate that there are no duplicate accounts in BALs

e074337

move BAL validation check to block body validation method. clear BAL …

796b143

…slice before decoding in decoder impl.

fix: Add Amsterdam BAL support to engine API

98608aa

- Add BlockAccessList to ExecutableData with custom JSON marshaling - Calculate BlockAccessListHash when constructing blocks - Fix WithWitness to preserve accessList field - Accept Amsterdam in ForkchoiceUpdatedV3

small stylistic nit

29934f6

add and enable engine_getPayloadV6

14d85fc

jihoonsong mentioned this pull request Sep 19, 2025

feat: support amsterdam time ethpandaops/ethereum-package#1187

Closed

jwasinger and others added 3 commits September 19, 2025 15:35

fix BAL decoding

79b06e4

Use PayloadV4 after Amsterdam fork

f39c348

Merge pull request #16 from jihoonsong/bal-execution

fadaff7

Use PayloadV4 after Amsterdam fork

Block access list changes - BAL construction, execution and validation #32263

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