Vitalik: EIP-8141 Transaction Type Prepares Ethereum for Decentralized, Large-Scale Expansion

Huo Xing Finance reports that Vitalik has posted on X that recent research on transaction formats has led to a clearer understanding of “actions” and “dependencies” within transactions on Ethereum, both of which can be optimized separately; signatures, Merkle proofs for UTXOs, and ZK-SNARKs or STARKs are dependencies, while calls to send ETH are actions. Dependencies can be processed in parallel: state-dependent dependencies can be handled by the mempool, while pure dependencies can be processed once at the mempool layer and potentially replaced by STARK proofs, reducing execution and data processing. Vitalik notes that Ethereum’s current scaling strategy requires a clear distinction between dynamically flexible and statically analyzable components—the latter can achieve lower gas costs; by transaction volume, over 90% of Ethereum activity does not require dynamic flexibility. The EIP-8141 transaction type is evolving toward a general, minimalist call list, with new state types, recursive STARK mempools, and keyed nonces also falling under this direction.