Elaborate on why sync optimistically

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Mikhail Kalinin 2022-07-28 16:21:33 +06:00 committed by GitHub
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@ -270,6 +270,23 @@ optimistic blocks (and vice-versa).
## Design Decision Rationale
### Why sync optimistically?
Most of execution engines use state sync as a default sync mechanism on Ethereum Mainnet
because executing blocks from genesis takes several weeks on commodity hardware.
State sync requires the knowledge of the current head of the chain to eventually converge.
If not constantly fed with the most recent head, state sync won't be able to complete
because the recent state soon becomes unavailable due to state trie pruning.
Optimistic block import (i.e. import without waiting for a payload to be executed by the engine)
breaks a deadlock between the state sync and processing a beacon block by skipping payload
execution as long as execution engine is syncing.
Optimistic sync works nicely with execution engines using block execution as a default
sync mechanism (e.g. Erigon). It makes optimistic sync a *generalized* solution for
interaction between consensus and execution engine during the sync process.
### Why `SAFE_SLOTS_TO_IMPORT_OPTIMISTICALLY`?
Nodes can only import an optimistic block if their justified checkpoint is