Ethereum Payload Propagation Optimized to Under One Second

Ethereum researchers have made significant strides in optimizing payload propagation through the network, thanks to EIP-8411. This proposal, which is still a draft, splits execution payloads into smaller chunks that nodes can verify and forward independently before receiving the full payload.

According to recent test results, sending a 1 MiB payload as one complete message took approximately five seconds to reach half the receiving nodes, while using segmented broadcasting design reduced this time to under one second. The median propagation for a 1 MiB payload fell from five seconds to under one second with basic Tier 1 design, which combines segmentation with batch publishing.

Researchers also tested more advanced tiers that tackle duplicate data and network traffic. These designs showed promise in reducing received traffic and latency, but also introduced new tradeoffs. The approach creates another tradeoff: a malicious or overloaded peer could announce a segment and then refuse to provide it.