Francesco has an open PR for implementing a variable PTC deadline. The idea is to create a heuristic to adjust the payload deadline based on the size of the block. This can allow a higher safe gas limit than a fixed deadline, because it avoids budgeting every block as if it had both worst-case propagation and worst-case execution timing (explained below). From toni's discussion on this topic there are two extremes: Pure compute block: minimal calldata and near-maximal execution gas. It is relatively cheap to propagate, but maximally expensive to execute. Max calldata block: calldata-heavy enough to hit the EIP-7623 floor. Needs the most propagation time, but only an $\alpha = 0.9375$ fraction of the gas budget remains available for execution. A clean way to compare fixed vs variable payload deadlines is to write the execution constraints directly. Let:
3/19/2026It feels like we've been endlessly discussing various slot restructuring designs. Unfortunately, I have one more design to offer. Apologies in advance. Where we Stand After months of exploring different designs, the best available option appears to be EIP-7732 with a small modification for dual-deadline PTC. The only unknown at this point, is whether builder withhold timing games are a serious threat to protocol stability. This class of attacks, which we may call reveal timing games rather than the commit timing games we are used to, is possible in any design where there is a time delta between the moment transactions are committed to, and the moment all components of the block are revealed. Right now this topic is under-researched, and we are currently exploring it. If payload reveal timing games are found to pose unacceptable stability risks — and if mitigating them introduces prohibitive trade-offs — I propose this alternative which mitigates these attacks while preserving most of the positive properties of EIP-7732. Specification - A Small Shift in the Design
7/21/2025Property 7732 Block Auction Single Deadline PTC 7732 Block Auction Dual Deadline PTC Payload Block Separation noPTC EIP-7886 EIP-7886 + PTC 7732 Slot Auction Single Deadline PTC 7732 Slot Auction Dual Deadline PTC Max Scaling / Lowest Latencies
7/20/2025There is a common mental model for EIP-7732 which splits the proposal into three main components: Payload-Block Separation PTC Committee Trustless Builder Payments At this stage in the discussion, many core-developers are on board with the first two components. See my earlier writing if you would like to understand why. Some core-developers are more concerned about trustless builder payments and would advocate for this to be removed from Glamsterdam. As far as I can tell, there are a few main criticisms of the on-chain trustless builder payment mechanism:
7/19/2025