* misc memory and perf fixes
* use EpochRef for attestation aggregation
* compress effective balances in memory (medalla unfinalized: 4gb ->
1gb)
* avoid hitting db when rewinding to head or clearance state
* avoid hitting db when blocks can be applied to in-memory state -
speeds up startup considerably
* avoid storing epochref in fork choice
* simplify and speed up beacon block creation flow - avoids state reload
thanks to head rewind optimization
* iterator-based committee and attestation participation help avoid lots
of small memory allocations throughout epoch transition (40% speedup on
epoch processing, for example during startup)
* add constant for threshold
This implements disparity, resolving a part of
https://github.com/status-im/nim-beacon-chain/issues/1367
* make BeaconTime a duration for fractional seconds
* factor out attestation/aggregate validation
* simplify recording of queued attestations
* simplify attestation signature check
* fix blocks_received metric
* add some trivial validation tests
* remove unresolved attestation table - attestations for unknown blocks
are dropped instead (cannot verify their signature)
Replace shuffling function with zrnt version - `get_shuffled_seq` in
particular puts more strain on the GC by allocating superfluous seq's
which turns out to have a significant impact on block processing (when
replaying blocks for example) - 4x improvement on non-epoch, 1.5x on
epoch blocks (replay is done without signature checking)
Medalla, first 10k slots - pre:
```
Loaded 68973 blocks, head slot 117077
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
76855.848, 0.000, 76855.848, 76855.848, 1,
Initialize DB
1.073, 0.914, 0.071, 12.454, 7831,
Load block from database
31.382, 0.000, 31.382, 31.382, 1,
Load state from database
85.644, 30.350, 3.056, 466.136, 7519,
Apply block
506.569, 91.129, 130.654, 874.786, 312,
Apply epoch block
```
post:
```
Loaded 68973 blocks, head slot 117077
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
72457.303, 0.000, 72457.303, 72457.303, 1,
Initialize DB
1.015, 0.858, 0.070, 11.231, 7831,
Load block from database
28.983, 0.000, 28.983, 28.983, 1,
Load state from database
21.725, 17.461, 2.659, 393.217, 7519,
Apply block
324.012, 33.954, 45.452, 440.532, 312,
Apply epoch block
```
When blocks and attestations arrive, they are SSZ-decoded twice: once
for validation and once for processing. This branch enqueues the decoded
block directly for processing, avoiding the second, slow
deserialization.
* move processing of blocks and attestations to queue
* ...and out from beacon_node
* split attestation processing into attestations and aggregates
* also updates metrics
* clean up logging to better follow the lifetime of gossip: arrival,
validation and processing
* drop attestations and aggregates if there are too many
* try to prioritise blocks and aggregates before single-validator
attestations
* don't sort shuffled_validator_indices, just get them directly with
iteration
* grab full epoch of proposer indices while we have the data available -
they'll get cached and reused
* avoid computing active validator set when not used for logging
* remove one cache, add another
This cache removes the need for rewinding in most attestation validation
flow since the attestations come from one of two epochs and must be
targetting a viable block.
Additionally, it also removes all state caches which are less likely to
be used over-all - more metrics are needed to track the rewinding.
On risk is that when chains don't finalize, we'll have lots of epochrefs
in memory meaning lots of validator key databases, most being exactly
the same. This can be addressed in any number of ways. Some of the
memory usage is mitigated by the fact that we previously had lots of big
state caches and now we're keeping only keys instead.
* cleanups
* doc
* limit attestations kept in attestation pool
With fork choice updated, the attestation pool only needs to keep track
of attestations that will eventually end up in blocks - we can thus
limit the horizon of attestations that we keep more aggressively.
To get here, we expose getEpochRef which gets metadata about a
particular epochref, and make sure to populate it when a block is added
- this ensures that state rewinds during block addition are minimized.
In addition, we'll use the target root/epoch when validating
attestations - this helps minimize the number of different states that
we need to rewind to, in general.
* remove CandidateChains.justifiedState
unused
* remove BlockPools.Head object
* avoid quadratic quarantine loop
* fix
* add helper for beacon committee length (used for quickly validating
attestations)
* refactor some attestation checks to do cheap checks early
* validate attestation epoch before computing active validator set
* clean up documentation / comments
* fill state cache on demand
* avoid converting from uint64 to int, and where most feasible, int type conversion at all
* .len.uint64 -> .len64
* fix 32-bit compilation
* try keeping state_sim loop variable/bounds as int for 32-bit Azure
* len64 -> lenu64
* cache beacon committee size calculation
this fixes a bug in get_validator_churn_limit as well
* fix
* make committee counts consistently uint64
mixing feels like the worst of the two worlds
* restore EpochRef and flush statecaches on epoch transitions
* more targeted cache invalidation
* remove get_empty_per_epoch_cache(); implement simpler but still faster get_beacon_proposer_index()/compute_proposer_index() approach; add some abstraction layer for accessing the shuffled validator indices cache
* reduce integer type conversions
* remove most of rest of integer type conversion in compute_proposer_index()
This also assigns precise types to the constants in the minimal
and mainnet presets in order to reduce the chance of compilation
errors when custom presets are used (previously, only the custom
presets have precisely assigned types for the constants).
* switch state transition caching usage to shuffled active validator indices to match EpochRef
* refactor the EpochRef -> StateCache transformation; elide pointless mapIt
* limit state passed between get_beacon_committee(...) and compute_committee(...)
* tweaks
* plumbing between block pool and state transition functions around active validator indices and committees
* have shared epochrefs followed by blockref tree while allowing for skipped slots
* factor out the epoch info extraction; document how the EpochRef follows forks
- we have a new binary which connects via RPC to the respective BN and has an internal clock - waking it up on every slot
- the BN has a new option called --external-validators and currently in order to have the VC binaries to run we need to pass EXTERNAL_VALIDATORS=yes to make
- factored some code out of beacon_node.nim for easier reuse in validator_api.nim and validator_client.nim
- the VC loads its associated private keys from the datadir for its BN
- most of the validator API calls have been implemented as a stub.
- the VC polls its BN at the start of each epoch - getting a list of all active validators for the current epoch - and then continues to request blocks and sign them with its appropriate validators when necessary
* add another check for inconsistent aggregation and committee length, since ncli_transition bypasses process_attestation(...)/check_attestation(...) and calls almost directly into process_epoch(...)
* bump validator functions to v0.11.1 spec references
* bump some spec references to v0.11.1
* poke
* remove all but one UnusedImport warning
* bump a few more spec version references from v0.10.1 to v0.11.1
* more v0.10.1 spec reference updates/removals
* yet more v0.10.1 spec reference updates
* update to 0.10.1
* SSZ Generic and nbench uses the v0.10.1 fixtures
* Tests + spec links: v0.10.0 -> v0.10.1
* Add v0.10.1 TODO in get_latest_attesting_balance (forkchoice)
* SSZ Bytes are now ByteList
* Remove nim-result submodules that was leftover/added by mistake in the branch
* update get_seed(...) and get_beacon_proposer_index(...) to 0.9.0, implement compute_proposer_index(...), and render 3 more test fixtures working
* rm stray Crosslink reference which prevented static SSZ tests from building
* remove references to removed tests in attestations test fixture; add minimal-preset block sanity test, plus all but one of mainnet tests for block sanity to transition fixtures
* rename compute_epoch_of_slot(...) to compute_epoch_at_slot(...)
* remove some unnecessary imports; remove some crosslink-related code and tests; complete renaming of compute_epoch_of_slot(...) to compute_epoch_at_slot(...)
* rm more transfer-related code and tests; rm more unnecessary strutils imports
* rm remaining unused imports
* remove useless get_empty_per_epoch_cache(...)/compute_start_slot_of_epoch(...) calls
* rename compute_start_slot_of_epoch(...) to compute_start_slot_at_epoch(...)
* rename ACTIVATION_EXIT_DELAY to MAX_SEED_LOOKAHEAD
* update domain types to 0.9.0
* mark AttesterSlashing, IndexedAttestation, AttestationDataAndCustodyBit, DepositData, BeaconBlockHeader, Fork, integer_squareroot(...), and process_voluntary_exit(...) as 0.9.0
* mark increase_balance(...), decrease_balance(...), get_block_root(...), CheckPoint, Deposit, PendingAttestation, HistoricalBatch, is_active_validator(...), and is_slashable_attestation_data(...) as 0.9.0
* mark compute_activation_exit_epoch(...), bls_verify(...), Validator, get_active_validator_indices(...), get_current_epoch(...), get_total_active_balance(...), and get_previous_epoch(...) as 0.9.0
* mark get_block_root_at_slot(...), ProposerSlashing, get_domain(...), VoluntaryExit, mainnet preset Gwei values, minimal preset max operations, process_block_header(...), and is_slashable_validator(...) as 0.9.0
* mark makeWithdrawalCredentials(...), get_validator_churn_limit(...), get_total_balance(...), is_valid_indexed_attestation(...), bls_aggregate_pubkeys(...), initial genesis value/constants, Attestation, get_randao_mix(...), mainnet preset max operations per block constants, minimal preset Gwei values and time parameters, process_eth1_data(...), get_shuffled_seq(...), compute_committee(...), and process_slots(...) as 0.9.0; partially update get_indexed_attestation(...) to 0.9.0 by removing crosslink refs and associated tests
* mark initiate_validator_exit(...), process_registry_updates(...), BeaconBlock, Eth1Data, compute_domain(...), process_randao(...), process_attester_slashing(...), get_base_reward(...), and process_slot(...) as 0.9.0
* rename get_genesis_beacon_state(...) to initialize_beacon_state_from_eth1(...); remove unused vestiges get_temporary_block_header(...) and get_empty_block(...); partly align initialize_beacon_state_from_eth1(...) with 0.8.0 version; implement CompactCommittee object type; update process_final_updates(...) to 0.8.0
* mark get_shard_delta(...) as 0.8.0
* mark get_total_active_balance(...) and epoch transition helper functions as 0.8.0
* move FORK_CHOICE_BALANCE_INCREMENT, not in spec anymore, to sole user in fork_choice
* replace BeaconState.finalized_{epoch,root} with BeaconState.finalized_checkpoint; rename get_delayed_activation_exit_epoch(...) to compute_activation_exit_epoch(...) and mark as 0.8.0; update get_churn_limit(...)/get_validator_churn_limit(...) to 0.8.0; update process_registry_updates(...) to 0.8.0
* update process_crosslinks(...) to 0.8.0; mark compute_start_slot_of_epoch(...) and get_committee_count(...) as 0.8.0
* mark Fork, is_slashable_validator(...), and get_beacon_proposer_index(...) as 0.8.0
* rename LATEST_SLASHED_EXIT_LENGTH to EPOCHS_PER_SLASHINGS_VECTOR; update process_slashings(...) to 0.8.0; remove pointless type conversion warning in get_previous_epoch(...)
* convert remaining references to finalized_epoch to finalized_checkpoint.epoch
* update slash_validator(...) to 0.8.0; mark inital value, Gwei, and time constants as 0.8.0; mark hash(...) and processBlockHeader(...) as 0.8.0
* rename WHISTLEBLOWING_REWARD_QUOTIENT to WHISTLEBLOWER_REWARD_QUOTIENT; rename LATEST_ACTIVE_INDEX_ROOTS_LENGTH to EPOCHS_PER_HISTORICAL_VECTOR (randao will also get merged into this); remove get_active_index_root(...); mark time parameter, signature domain types, and max operations per block constants as 0.8.0; update rewards and penalties constants to 0.8.0
* update is_valid_indexed_attestation(...) to 0.8.0; mark process_slot(...) as 0.8.0
* replace BeaconState.{current,previous}_justified_{epoch,root} with BeaconState.{current,previous}_justified_checkpoint
* migrate attestation pool tests from get_crosslink_committees_at_slot(...) to get_crosslink_committee(...)
* rm obsolete, unused get_crosslink_committees_at_slot_cached(...) and migrate tests/test_state_transition from get_crosslink_committees_at_slot(...) to get_crosslink_committee(...)
* migrate tests/testutil from get_crosslink_committees_at_slot(...) to get_crosslink_committee(...)
* use more pervasive caching infrastructure, initially of compute_committee; remove buggy (and per-index) shuffling to fix research/state_sim, which was noticing validators on multiple shard committees; rm now-unused specific get_attesting_balance_cached
* add some get_active_validator_index caching
* rm obsolete/unused get_attesting_indices_cached
* rm get_crosslink_committees_at_slot(...)
* some more 0.7 changes -- some of which can't be completed pending some data structure updates -- and shard handling changes to offset with epoch start shards
* 0.7.0 updates which don't change semantics; mostly comment changes
* mark get_attesting_indices, bls_verify, ProposerSlashing, BeaconBlockBody, deposit contract constants, state list length constants, compute_committee, get_crosslink_committee, is_slashable_attestation_data, processAttesterSlashings as 0.7.0; rename BASE_REWARD_QUOTIENT to BASE_REWARD_FACTOR
* complete marking unchanged-in-0.7.0 datatypes as such; a few more have trivial field renamings, etc
* update IndexedAttestation, verify_slashable_attestation/verify_indexed_attestation, and attester slashing processing to 0.6.3
* rm debug scaffolding
* rename Attestation.aggregate_signature -> Attestation.signature; convert various references to AttestationData.slot to get_attestation_slot; implement convert_to_indexed; update checkAttestation and processAttestations to 0.6.3; remove spurious assertion in beacon node related to invalid attestations
* replace 0.5 get_winning_root_and_participants with 0.6 get_winning_crosslink_and_attesting_indices; update process_crosslinks to 0.6.3
* mark both remaining 0.6.0 spec implementations as 0.6.3
* clear out all remaining spec version 0.6.1 refs
* GENESIS_SLOT and GENESIS_EPOCH are 0
* rm 0.5 get_attestation_participants in favor of 0.6 get_attesting_indices
* address mratsim's comment
* time can be equal to genesis
* fix invalid block assertions; those were essentially spurious
* allow toBeaconTime to handle time before genesis (in accordance with now(...) which states time can exist before GENESIS)
* update process_justification_and_finalization to 0.6.2; mark AttesterSlashing as 0.6.2
* replace get_effective_balance(...) with state.validator_registry[idx].effective_balance; rm get_effective_balance, process_ejections, should_update_validator_registry, update_validator_registry, and update_registry_and_shuffling_data; update get_total_balance to 0.6.2; implement process_registry_updates
* rm exit_validator; implement is_slashable_attestation_data; partly update processAttesterSlashings
* mark HistoricalBatch and Eth1Data as 0.6.2; implement get_shard_delta(...); replace 0.5 finish_epoch_update with 0.6 process_final_updates
* mark increase_balance, decrease_balance, get_delayed_activation_exit_epoch, bls_aggregate_pubkeys, bls_verify_multiple, Attestation, Transfer, slot_to_epoch, Crosslink, get_current_epoch, int_to_bytes*, various constants, processEth1Data, processTransfers, and verifyStateRoot as 0.6.2; rm is_double_vote and is_surround_vote
* mark get_bitfield_bit, verify_bitfield, ProposerSlashing, DepositData, VoluntaryExit, PendingAttestation, Fork, integer_squareroot, get_epoch_start_slot, is_active_validator, generate_seed, some constants to 0.6.2; rename MIN_PENALTY_QUOTIENT to MIN_SLASHING_PENALTY_QUOTIENT
* rm get_previous_total_balance, get_current_epoch_boundary_attestations, get_previous_epoch_boundary_attestations, and get_previous_epoch_matching_head_attestations
* update BeaconState to 0.6.2; simplify legacy get_crosslink_committees_at_slot infrastructure a bit by noting that registry_change is always false; reimplment 0.5 get_crosslink_committees_at_slot in terms of 0.6 get_crosslink_committee
* mark process_deposit(...), get_block_root_at_slot(...), get_block_root(...), Deposit, BeaconBlockHeader, BeaconBlockBody, hash(...), get_active_index_root(...), various constants, get_shard_delta(...), get_epoch_start_shard(...), get_crosslink_committee(...), processRandao(...), processVoluntaryExits(...), cacheState(...) as 0.6.2
* rm removed-since-0.5 split(...), is_power_of_2(...), get_shuffling(...); rm 0.5 versions of get_active_validator_indices and get_epoch_committee_count; add a few tests for integer_squareroot
* mark bytes_to_int(...) and advanceState(...) as 0.6.2
* rm 0.5 get_attesting_indices; update get_attesting_balance to 0.6.2
* another tiny commit to poke AppVeyor to maybe not timeout at connecting to GitHub partway through CI: mark get_churn_limit(...), initiate_validator_exit(...), and Validator as 0.6.2
* mark get_attestation_slot(...), AttestationDataAndCustodyBit, and BeaconBlock as 0.6.2
* implement get_churn_limit from 0.6.1; update initiate_validator_exit and get_previous_epoch to 0.6.1; remove obsoleted/non-spec reduce_balance, replaced by decrease_balance; mark BeaconBlock as 0.6.1
* rename get_block_root to get_block_root_at_slot and introduce epoch-oriented get_block_root; implement get_attestation_slot, get_matching_source_attestations, get_matching_target_attestations, get_matching_head_attestations, 0.6.1 get_attesting_indices, get_unslashed_attesting_indices, get_attestation_deltas, process_rewards_and_penalties; rm get_inactivity_penalty
* update Validator and processVoluntaryExits to 0.6.1; rm obsolete inclusion_slots/inclusion_distances
* rm removed activate_validator; mark DepositData, misc values, Gwei values, Randao processing, state caching as 0.6.1; update GENESIS_SLOT to 64, since it doesn't quite yet work at 0
* mark BeaconBlockHeader as 0.6.1; update BeaconBlockBody to 0.6.1; rename WHISTLEBLOWER_REWARD_QUOTIENT to WHISTLEBLOWING_REWARD_QUOTIENT; update slash_validator to 0.6.1
* implement 0.6.2 is_slashable_validator; update processProposerSlashings to 0.6.2; mark state caching as 0.6.2
* mark get_total_active_balance and process_slashings as 0.6.2; update get_base_reward to 0.6.2
* rm prepare_validator_for_withdrawal, process_exit_queue; mark mainnet misc constants as 0.6.2; update process block header to 0.6.2
* address mratsim's code review comment
* initial new get_beacon_proposer_index and dependencies (get_shuffled_index, get_shard_delta, get_epoch_start_shard, get_crosslink_committee)
* more 0.6.1 updates
* clean up debugEchos and fix validator keygen to create correct indices
* Change digests to SHA2-256 (from Keccak256)
* Fix sha256 digest initialization - pass shuffling test
* Add comments + remove old shuffling tests
* Remove stale tree hashing tests
* Small toOpenArray optim + notes on in-place hashing
* Revert "Revert "Update test repo""
This reverts commit f385467cd3.
* Revert "Revert "Fix SIGFPE on shuffling for 0""
This reverts commit 226d380f87.
* Revert "Revert "Implement shuffling test (pending typedesc and shuffling algo fix)""
This reverts commit 813cb6fbb8.
* withEth2hash templates now needs ctx.init()
* Use init-update-finish to avoid burnMem
* signed_root -> signing_root
* implement new process_deposit; update timing parameters to 0.6.1; update Deposit to 0.6.1 and remove DepositInput
* update get_active_validator_indices and get_epoch_committee_count to 0.6.1; rm get_current_epoch_committee_count, get_previous_epoch_committee_count, and get_next_epoch_committee_count; bump state_sim default validator count a bit more
* re-introduce 0.5.1-ish get_active_validator_indices, get_epoch_committee_count as scaffolding for still-0.5.1ish shuffling
* begin 0.6.0: new get_domain/increase_balance/reduce_balance, BeaconState.validator_balances -> BeaconState.balances, some renamed constants, transaction processing changes, SlashableAttestation field name changes, 0.6.0 get_beacon_proposer_index always uses given state's slot, update tests subrepo
* mark get_bitfield_bit/bls_verify_multiple/stat-list-lengths/is_active_validator/is_surround_vote/slot_to_epoch/int_to_bytes/etc as unchanged in 0.6.0; rm Eth1DataVote/maybe_reset_eth1_period and thus adjust expected tree hash test results
* mark verify_bitfield/bls_verify/deposit-contract/VoluntaryExit/PendingAttestation/Historicalbatch/Fork as 0.6.0; update DOMAIN_BEACON_BLOCK to DOMAIN_BEACON_PROPOSER
* update Crosslink to 0.6.0 (also requires tree hashing test result change, so isolate in individual commit)
* mark verify_merkle_branch/get_delayed_activation_exit_epoch/ProposerSlashing/Attestation/AttestationDataAndCustodyBit/hash/integer_squareroot/get_epoch_start_slot/is_double_vote/get_randao_mix/generate_seed as 0.6.0; update reward and penalty quotients; SlashableAttestation -> IndexedAttestation; rm get_fork_version; ATTESTATION_INCLUSION_REWARD_QUOTIENT -> PROPOSER_REWARD_QUOTIENT
* rm now-superceded shuffling cache (shuffling is only called from get_crosslinks), which was badly architected due to trying to exist in state; rm one more vestige of previous light-client regime (one more to go, from datatypes)
* fix wrong shuffling list size (active validator size, not validator size) to make consistent with 0.5.1 (will be inconsistent with testnet0); fix typo and change defaults in state_sim
* doAssert a couple of constant relationships necessary to avoid underflow; rm non-spec, unused helper function get_new_recent_block_roots
* refactor separate crosslink_committee_cache and winning_root_participants_cache(s) into StateData object; remove last vestige of previous shuffling cache
* separate out caching parts of StateData to new StateCache object
* ssz: avoid memory allocations
* a bit fishy with the 32-item stack.. this should be a smallvector
* digest: avoid another burnmem
* avoid a few allocations by using iterator
this is the beginning of tracking block-slots more precisely, so we can
the justification epoch slot bug.
* avoid asyncDiscard (swallows assertions)
* fix attestation delay
* fix several state root cache bugs
* introduce workaround for genesis epoch spec issue
* begin refactoring 0.5.0 epoch transition at justification and finalization
* update processTransfers to 0.5.0 spec
* update get_crosslink_committees_at_slot to 0.5.0 except for noted workaround for pre-0.5.0 spec bug related to epoch boundary conditions, to be flipped in more coordinated way with other epoch processing changes
* mark ejection processing as 0.5.0
* 0.5.0 epoch update finalization
* rm BEACON_CHAIN_SHARD_NUMBER to complete updating miscellaneous constants to 0.5.0
* mark verify_slashable_attestation as 0.5.0
* update process_attester_slashing to 0.5.0
* update process_slashings(...) to 0.5.0 and mark process_exit_queue as 0.5.0
* refactor epoch processing by implementing 0.5.0's update_registry_and_shuffling_data(...)
* begin 0.5.0 spec update: parent_root -> previous_block_root, BeaconState.justified_epoch -> BeaconState.current_justified_epoch, DOMAIN_PROPOSAL -> DOMAIN_BEACON_BLOCK, temporarily rename BeaconBlockHeader to BeaconBlockHeaderRLP to allow for gradual re-merging without disrupting RLP; mark a few unchanged functions and data types, implement get_temporary_block_header/get_empty_block/should_update_validator_registry/processBlockHeader/cacheState; update a few others
* a dozen or so more trivial mostly comment changes, finding more unchanged parts of 0.5.0
* several more trivial changes; goal is to reduce noise around the upcoming substantial changes (epoch processing, etc)
* set epoch_boundary_root - chain finalizes!
* fix slotStart to offset GENESIS_SLOT
* work around bug that will be fixed by
https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/732
* compile with debug info (there was a GC-related crash in C land)
* prevent balance underflow, per spec implementation note
* verify that permutation shuffing works: add YAML dependency to be used for ingesting test cases; switch from blake2 to keccak256 to match EF test cases; remove inefficient naive-spec-version of shuffling algorithm now that protolambda's can be tested directly
* implement in-memory block graph
* store tail block in database
* resolve unknown parents by syncing them from peers
* introduce concept of resolved blocks and attestations - those that
follow minimal protocol rules
* update state head lazily
* log more stuff
* shortHash -> shortLog
* start 9/10 beacon nodes by default, last can be started manually
* see also #134
* fix start.sh epoch length
* convert some asserts to doAsserts to keep them in release mode builds; rename get_initial_beacon_state to get_genesis_beacon_state to track spec; switch target spec version to 0.3.0; switch references to penalize_validator to slash_validator/slashValidator to track spec; make some function returns safer by omitting 'return'
* 2x shuffling speedup by hoisting pivot calculations per https://github.com/protolambda/eth2-shuffle
* switch to v0.2.0 shuffling scheme
* fix some >80 char lines; add get_total_balance helper function (used in epoch processing, etc); note intended removal of repeat_hash and users thereof; add some int_to_bytes and bytes_to_int helpers; more underflow comments; add Gwei type; adjust generate_seed to include additional entropy source; note egregious inefficiencies
* minor code cleanup
* move some general helper functions to helpers.nim and clarify little-endian comments