Now

(3 months)

Related releases 25.1.x - 25.3.x

Prague Fork

• Prague: polishing ✅

  • Besu on Devnet5 ✅

  • Besu on Devnet6 ✅

  • 25.2.0 is testnet-ready for Prague

Ongoing performance work 

• Improve debug_trace* calls performance and reduce output size #8103 ✅

  • debug_traceBlock 3x performance improvement

  • Don’t trace memory/stack/storage by default

  • Exclude zeros and empty values

• Block processing

  • Improve conflict detection in parallelization by considering slots to reduce false positives #7923 ✅

Syncing time/memory improvements

• Disable tx indexing during sync (snap/checkpoint) - improves sync time ~ 20% #8181 ✅

• Sync block body memory improvements - reduces memory during syncing #8242 ✅

Client Evolution

• Bonsai-friendly Archive Mode

• Plug-in technical docs

• Codebase cleanup for better multi-use-case

Move QBFT snap sync out of experimental

• Has been out since 24.7.1 ✅

Bonsai archive with state proofs

• Build on PR 7475 to provide proofs for historic state

Stability under load

• Performance and behaviour when the sequenced transaction pool hits its limits

• Most testing until now has been performance close to the TX pool limits - not beyond them

Run enterprise acceptance test every release

Next

(6 months)

Related releases 25.4.x - 25.12.x

4444s and Statelessness

• EIP-4444 history expiry

• Light client exploration

• Verkle Trie ongoing development

Client Evolution

• Removal of enterprise features per sunset plan

• Plug-in technical docs

• Besu on more Layer 2 networks

• Besu as a customizable L2/L3 sequencer

• Ongoing performance work

  • Tx parallel processing: further optimization

Move empty block periods out of experimental

• Has been in out since 24.7.1 ✅

Ensure Verkle + Archive has a solution

Enterprise options for history expiry

• L1 will start dropping block bodies and receipts from 2Q2025

• Enterprises will need to understand the options Besu provides and the architectures that are available to them

  • Might involve e.g. option to automatically remove blocks and receipts for chainHead-N blocks for non archive, non-full nodes

Later

(12 months)

Related releases 26.m.x

Client Evolution

• Modularity of the protocol schedule

• Modularity everywhere

Ongoing Protocol Research

• Besu as an Ethereum reference client in Java

• Statelessness State Expiry research