# Merge data challenge wishlist ## Chain Analysis * Beacon chain health and metrics pre- vs post-merge * Pre/post-merge execution layer health and metrics: * Changes in gas limit * Empty vs full blocks -- small % of miners mine empty blocks, how does this change in PoS * Utilization of `PREVRANDAO` * Pre/post-merge missed slots/blocks * if changed, ideally try and zoom into the root cause/correlations * Orphans vs missed slots * Impact of shorter and consistent block times * Going from ~13s to 12s should theoretically provide an ~8% increase in blocks per day * Affect on fee-markets, on chain activity, etc * Engine API patterns across client pairs * Timing, delays, and frequency of calls * Particular client pair patterns highlighting either efficiencies or degenerate cases * Anything that changes that you would expect to remain stable ## P2P analysis * Pre- and post-merge block gossip analysis and comparison * Pre- and post-merge transaction gossip analysis * After some upgrades, we've seen some infrastructure providers have gossip issues, resulting in poor UX for pending transactions * Pre- and post-merge sync analysis * Execution Layer client diversity * P2P distribution * Any discernable on-chain fingerprinting? * Any discernable data on *client pair* breakdown and diversity? * Insight into CL and EL DHT entries * Estimates on mining nodes vs staking nodes * Node distrubition, total number changes, etc ## Hardware Requirements Analysis * Pre/most merge comparison of disk size, bandwidth, sync times, etc. for client combos * Bonus: are there non-linearities, e.g. EL A + CL B take X & Y GB of RAM respectively pre-merge, but running the combo takes Z < X+Y * API throughput * Does the number of queries a node can handle pre/post merge on the Beacon APIs or JSON RPC APIs change? ## Models, patterns, and predictions * Impact on gas market of fixed block times (from ~13s average Poisson process to fixed 12s block times) * Analysis of changes in minimum priority fee paid in blocks (excl. 0 PF MEV txns) pre and post merge * Other discernable activity changes in this new context? * Validator activity alter when moving from solo Beacon Chain to Merged chain? Why? * Defi markets trends alter during or after the Merge? * Validator registrations leading up to and after the Merge ## Visualization and Metrics * Visualizer for blocks, attestations, etc * Helpful to explain network mechanics * Helpful to debug and further analyze * Data on reorgs (type, quantity, etc) pre- and post-merge * Data and visuals on MEV: * types of MEV * avg MEV * % of MEV that goes to proposer vs builder * metrics on builder-blocks vs "regular" blocks -> delays in slot propagation, etc * metrics about re-orgs and any relation to MEV? -- i.e. malicious re-orgs * Changes when moving from MEV "bundles" to "full blocks" market * Any PoW-based visualizations ported to this PoS context ## New tools * EL+CL indexing and advanced querying * EL+CL debugging tools * CL->EL multiplexer * P2P sentry/data-collection node orchestration * P2P visualizer * Re-org monitoring tools * Novel block explorers and visualizers in the merged context