In an thrilling growth for the Ethereum and blockchain developer group, Web3j has change into the primary web3 library to implement help for sending EIP-4844 blob transactions to Ethereum purchasers. This replace brings us one step nearer to the way forward for Ethereum scalability and effectivity, providing a glimpse into what full information sharding may finally appear like for the community.
Understanding EIP-4844 and its impression
EIP-4844, identified for introducing “blob-carrying transactions” to Ethereum, is designed to accommodate giant quantities of information that can’t be accessed by EVM execution, however whose dedication might be accessed. This revolutionary strategy permits for important information to be briefly saved on the beacon node, enhancing the community’s capability to deal with giant info.
Full information sharding will nonetheless take a substantial period of time to complete implementing and deploying. This EIP gives a stop-gap answer till that time by implementing the transaction format that will be utilized in sharding, however not truly sharding these transactions. As a substitute, the information from this transaction format is solely a part of the beacon chain and is totally downloaded by all consensus nodes (however might be deleted after solely a comparatively brief delay). In comparison with full information sharding, this EIP has a lowered cap on the variety of these transactions that may be included, akin to a goal of ~0.375 MB per block and a restrict of ~0.75 MB.
At present L2 networks or Rollups spend lots to make it possible for their transaction information is offered to all of their nodes and validators. Most rollups do that by writing their information to Ethereum as calldata. That prices about $1000 per megabyte at present costs. Good rollups reduce that to $300 per megabyte by utilizing superior information compression. Nonetheless, information posting price makes up the biggest portion of L2 transaction charges. With EIP4844 blob information, Ethereum meets the information availability wants of rollups, so they supply a brand new, and hopefully cheaper, approach for rollups to report their information, which might assist in considerably reducing the transaction charges on Layer 2 networks like Optimism, Polygon zkEVM, Arbitrum, Starknet, and so on.
New Transaction Kind Spec in EIP-4844
EIP-4844 transactions observe the brand new kind of EIP-2718 transaction, “blob transaction”, the place the TransactionType is BLOB_TX_TYPE = Bytes1(0x03). The fields chain_id, nonce, max_priority_fee_per_gas, max_fee_per_gas, gas_limit, worth, information, and access_list observe the identical semantics as EIP-1559.
There are two extra added fields max_fee_per_blob_gas is a uint256 and the sector blob_versioned_hashes represents a listing of hash outputs from kzg_to_versioned_hash.
Networking
We will ship a signed EIP-4844 transaction utilizing web3j to eth_sendRawTransaction API and the uncooked kind have to be the community kind. This implies it consists of the tx_payload_body, blobs, KZG commitments, and KZG proofs.
Every of those components are outlined as follows:
tx_payload_body – is the TransactionPayloadBody of normal EIP-2718 blob transaction
blobs – record of Blob objects
commitments – record of KZGCommitment of the corresponding blobs
proofs – record of KZGProof of the corresponding blobs and commitments
Code Instance: Sending a Blob Transaction with Web3j
Earlier than continuing with the next code instance, please make sure that the community you might be working with has EIP-4844 help enabled.
To make the most of the EIP-4844 blob transaction characteristic in Web3j, builders can observe this instance:
public class Web3jEIP4844Example {
public static void predominant(String[] args) throws Exception {
// Initialize Web3j and Credentials
Web3j web3j = Web3j.construct(new HttpService(“<nodeUrl>”));
Credentials credentials = Credentials.create(“<privateKey>”);
// Get the present nonce for the account
BigInteger nonce = web3j.ethGetTransactionCount(
credentials.getAddress(), DefaultBlockParameterName.LATEST)
.ship()
.getTransactionCount();
// Get the Present Base Payment Per Blob Fuel worth
BigInteger blobBaseFee = web3j.ethGetBaseFeePerBlobGas();
System.out.println(“blobBaseFee = “ + blobBaseFee);
// Multiply baseFeePerBlobGasValue with applicable quantity to set it as our maxFeePerBlobGas worth
BigInteger maxFeePerBlobGas = BigInteger.valueOf((lengthy) (web3j.ethGetBaseFeePerBlobGas().longValue() * 1.1));
// Create a blob transaction
RawTransaction rawTransaction = createEip4844Transaction(
nonce, maxFeePerBlobGas);
// Signal the transaction
byte[] signedMessage = TransactionEncoder.signMessage(rawTransaction, credentials);
String hexValue = Numeric.toHexString(signedMessage);
// Ship the transaction
EthSendTransaction ethSendTransaction = web3j.ethSendRawTransaction(hexValue).ship();
System.out.println(“Transaction hash: “ + ethSendTransaction.getTransactionHash());
System.out.println(“Tx Receipt = “ + web3j.ethGetTransactionReceipt(ethSendTransaction.getTransactionHash()).ship().getTransactionReceipt());
}
personal static RawTransaction createEip4844RawTransaction(BigInteger nonce, BigInteger maxFeePerBlobGas) {
Checklist<Blob> blobs = new ArrayList<>();
blobs.add(new Blob(“<blobData_in_Bytes>”));
return RawTransaction.createTransaction(
blobs,
11155111L,
nonce,
BigInteger.valueOf(10_000_000_000L),
BigInteger.valueOf(50_000_000_000L),
BigInteger.valueOf(3_00_000L),
“<toAddress>”,
BigInteger.valueOf(0),
“”,
maxFeePerBlobGas);
}
}
If we simply need to calculate KZG dedication and KZG proofs from a blob, we are able to try this utilizing BlobUtils Class capabilities.
Blob blob = new Blob(
Numeric.hexStringToByteArray(
loadResourceAsString(“blob_data.txt”)));
Bytes dedication = BlobUtils.getCommitment(blob);
Bytes proofs = BlobUtils.getProof(blob, dedication);
Bytes versionedHashes = BlobUtils.kzgToVersionedHash(dedication);
BlobUtils.checkProofValidity(blob, dedication, proofs)
For Builders who’re serious about testing the PRs associated to EIP-4844 in web3j –
Implementing Blob Trasnactions – https://github.com/web3j/web3j/pull/2000
Implementing New Block Header format, getting Base Blob Payment, and new Transaction Receipt format – https://github.com/web3j/web3j/pull/2006
These PRs are included in web3j launch model >=4.11.0
Conclusion
The latest integration of EIP-4844 blob transactions by Web3j as the primary web3 library to embrace this innovation showcases its dedication to blockchain growth and newest developments.
This weblog put up has delved into the technical intricacies of EIP-4844, from its potential impression on Ethereum’s scalability to the specificities of the brand new transaction kind it introduces.
Moreover, sensible insights into utilising Web3j for sending EIP-4844 transactions present builders with the instruments essential to discover this new frontier.
