Zero Knowledge lean Ethereum Part 5: Devnets & Upgrade Coordination with Will and Raúl
Mar 18, 2026
Raúl Kripalani, Ethereum Foundation networking lead focused on transport and broadcast layers. Will Corcoran, research coordinator orchestrating DevNets and spec integration. They discuss DevNet progression and cross-team coordination. They dig into post-quantum signature impacts, bandwidth limits and EIP-7870. They explore next-gen ETH P2P design, erasure-coded broadcasts, subnetting, and prioritizing EL vs CL traffic.
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From Buildings To Bytes In Ethereum
- Raúl describes his networking background from building ETH1 clients and leading libp2p work at Protocol Labs before joining the EF to evolve Ethereum's networking.
- He framed his role as literally moving bytes on the wire while Will handles social coordination across teams.
DevNets Drive Real Integration
- Lean Ethereum uses iterative DevNets to integrate post-quantum signatures, moving from spec to real clients across many independent teams.
- DevNet progression: DevNet0 for executable spec, DevNet1 for signing, DevNet2 for naive aggregation, later DevNets for subnets and recursive aggregation.
Large PQ Signatures Require New Topologies
- Post-quantum signatures are much larger and force redesigns of network topology and pipelining to avoid critical-path latency.
- Raúl proposes hierarchical aggregation and continuous pipelining where leaf signatures are aggregated at multiple network levels to keep throughput high.