EIP-4399: Supplant DIFFICULTY opcode with RANDOM with Mikhail Kalinin

Follow the recording of EIP-4399 for an overview of one of the two TheMerge proposals with exemplary process flow & possible usage.

Recording - https://youtu.be/wwfOqmCbPNU

Quick summary

• Specification, backward compatibility, side effects
• Randomness beacon
• RANDAO mechanics & properties
• Q&A

Resources

- Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YU-MBZiM8oHH1yzAr734atfUFqMJi1V9MmwFM9oVP6k/edit#slide=id.g8cb00373fc\_0\_96

- EIP: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4399

- Discussion: https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/eip-4399-supplant-difficulty-opcode-with-random/7368

- How The Merge Impacts Ethereum’s Application Layer - https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/11/29/how-the-merge-impacts-app-layer/

- Practical SNARK-based VDF - https://zkproof.org/2021/11/24/practical-snark-based-vdf/

- EIP-3675 - https://youtu.be/zNIrIninMgg

- The Merge playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4cwHXAawZxqoLxXqZqT4hcYhoHoP6w12