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EIP-4788 exposed the beacon root to smart contracts, but smart contracts need to be redeployed / upgraded whenever generalized indices change during a fork, even if that fork does not touch any used functionality. That is analogous to an OS without ABI stability, requiring programs to be maintained and re-compiled due to random breakages in OS updates.

This issue expands further to bridges on other blockchains, and also into wallets / dApps that verify data from the beacon chain instead. Such projects do not typically share Ethereum's release cadence.

EIP-7688 introduces forward compatibility for beacon chain structures. Generalized indices remain same when list capacities evolve over forks, containers no longer get re-indexed when reaching a new power-of-2 number of fields, and fields can be deprecated, leaving a gap in the Merkle tree instead of triggering re-indexing.

EIP-7688 was requested for inclusion by popular projects:

EIP-4788 exposed the beacon root to smart contracts, but smart contracts
need to be redeployed / upgraded whenever generalized indices change
during a fork, even if that fork does not touch any used functionality.
That is analogous to an OS without ABI stability, requiring programs
to be maintained and re-compiled due to random breakages in OS updates.

This issue expands further to bridges on other blockchains, and also
into wallets / dApps that verify data from the beacon chain instead.
Such projects do not typically share Ethereum's release cadence.

- https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4788

EIP-7688 introduces forward compatibility for beacon chain structures.
Generalized indices remain same when list capacities evolve over forks,
containers no longer get re-indexed when reaching a new power-of-2
number of fields, and fields can be deprecated, leaving a gap in the
Merkle tree instead of triggering re-indexing.

- https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-7688

EIP-7688 was requested for inclusion by popular projects:

- For Electra by Rocketpool: https://xcancel.com/KaneWallmann/status/1816729724145795258
- For Fulu by Lido: ethereum/pm#1356 (comment)
@etan-status etan-status marked this pull request as ready for review October 6, 2025 20:11
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2 participants