2026-11-04 –, Workshop 2
This talk shares what we learned bringing EIP-8025 optional execution proofs into the Grandine consensus client: how proofs are represented, bound to accepted payloads, and verified. Attendees will leave with concrete design patterns and open problems for proof-based execution validation.
As Ethereum’s gas limit rises, execution validation becomes increasingly expensive: every validator still depends on an execution client that re-executes each payload. EIP-8025 explores a different path—optional execution proofs that let consensus clients verify execution cryptographically.
Using our Grandine implementation as a case study, we’ll show what it takes to integrate execution proofs into a real consensus client: SSZ representation and payload binding, safe gossip of multi-megabyte proofs, and recursive verification from a weak-subjectivity checkpoint to the head. We’ll also cover the compatibility issues that arise as EIP-8025 evolves across clients and proving systems.
We’ll close with a demo of Grandine receiving and verifying an externally produced execution proof, showing the path from payload binding through proof verification.
Charles Reese is a software engineer and EPF Cohort 7 contributor focused on EIP-8025 and optional execution proofs in Grandine. He brings more than a decade of backend and infrastructure engineering experience, including building DEX aggregation and trading infrastructure at 0x and large-scale stream-processing systems with Apache Kafka.
Keshav is an independent research engineer with a keen interest in Ethereum core protocol research and development. He is a participant in the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF7), where he contributed to prototyping Optional Execution Proofs (EIP-8025) in the Grandine consensus client.