Vitalik said recent research on transaction formats has given Ethereum a clearer understanding of the “actions” and “dependencies” in transactions, which can be optimized separately. According to Odaily, he said signatures, Merkle proofs for UTXOs, and ZK-SNARKs or STARKs fall under dependencies, while the call that sends ETH is an action.
He said dependencies can be processed in parallel, state-related dependencies can be handled by the mempool, and pure dependencies can be processed once at the mempool layer and may be replaced by STARK proofs to reduce execution and data processing. Vitalik also said Ethereum’s current scaling strategy needs to distinguish between dynamic, flexible parts and parts that can be statically analyzed, with the latter eligible for lower gas costs. He added that more than 90% of Ethereum activity by transaction volume does not require dynamic flexibility.
Vitalik said the EIP-8141 transaction type is moving toward a general, minimal call-list direction, and that new state types, recursive STARK mempools, and keyed nonces also fit that direction.