This EIP defines a method to make the eth_getLogs JSON-RPC response verifiable.
The eth_getLogs endpoint is used by wallets to obtain the transaction history pertaining to an account or a topic. To verify correctness and completeness of the logs, a wallet would also have to obtain all block headers and check against their logs bloom. However, that mechanism is inefficient due to its high false positive rate and also involves an unpractical amount of network round trips. This EIP defines a replacement mechanism to efficiently and incrementally verify correctness and completeness of eth_getLogs responses.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 and RFC 8174.
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
LOG_CONTRACT_ADDRESS | 0xfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffe |
After executing all transactions of a block, commitments of all emitted logs are accumulated into the storage of LOG_CONTRACT_ADDRESS. The contract has no code, and its storage layout consists of three slots of type mapping. However to prevent EIP-158 cleanup, the contract's nonce is set to 1 at the first write.
| Name | Value | Type |
| LOG_ADDRESS_STORAGE_SLOT | 0 | mapping(address => bytes32) |
| LOG_TOPICS_STORAGE_SLOT | 1 | mapping(bytes32 => bytes32) |
| LOG_ADDRESS_TOPICS_STORAGE_SLOT | 2 | mapping(bytes32 => bytes32) |
Additional metadata about each log's origin is mixed in to each LogEntry. The definition uses the Log SSZ type as defined in EIP-6466.
The hash_tree_root(LogEntry) commitments are subsequently tracked as part of LOG_CONTRACT_ADDRESS.
The eth_getLogs response format is extended to include:
blockTimestamp: QUANTITY - The timestamp field of the block referred to by blockHashFor eth_getLogs(address, topics, fromBlock, toBlock), the response data can be verified for correctness and completion by obtaining:
fromBlock and toBlock block headers (validated against their known hashes)fromBlock's parentBlock header (validated against fromBlock.parentHash)parentBlock based on given filters (validated with eth_getProof)toBlock based on given filters (validated with eth_getProof)Starting from the historical log accumulator from (3), each response entry is applied to it in a way compatible with accumulate_log above. If the log accumulator ends up matching the value from (4), the response data is correct and LogEntry derived from it can be trusted.
Making the eth_getLogs response verifiable adds the necessary security attributes to enable wallets to transition away from relying on trusted data providers, ultimately improving the wallet's privacy guarantees as it is no longer subject to the privacy policy of any given provider.
The gas cost produced by this scheme is significantly higher than what LOG# opcodes produce as of Prague, primarily due to the additional SLOAD / SSTORE and the double cost of SHA256 opcodes compared to KECCAK256 opcodes. The gas cost increases outweigh the savings from dropping logs blooms.
If the mechanism turns out to be prohibitively expensive even when optimized, it may be necessary to move the log accumulators to a separate optimized data structure (not in state_root), or to an out-of-protocol zk system. Even then, the gas cost for logs should still reflect the actual overall cost to update a typical out-of-protocol accumulator to deter against log spamming.
As long as the accumulators are stored in the state trie, they cannot refer to the block hash as the block hash hashes over the state trie, producing a cyclic dependency. If an external system is used, hashes may be included as in that scenario the state root is not affected by the IVC.
It is still possible to process eth_getLogs responses from trusted servers as is, without verifying them. Client applications with strict response validation may need to be updated to allow the additional blockTimestamp field.
This scheme reuses existing eth_getProof and SSZ Merkle proofs; it does not introduce new security risks.
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