Drop unchained merkle shreds
- Idea
- Draft
- Review
- Accept
- Implement
- Active
Decision brief
Why this proposal matters
As the new shred format is being sent by all clients, this feature deprecates the old shred format.
Proposal at a glance
What changes
- As the new shred format is being sent by all clients, this feature deprecates the old shred format.
Stakeholder map
Who is affected
Builders & client teams Medium impact
Any clients still producing blocks using the old shred format will have their shreds ignored on ingest.
Action requirement unknownValidators & operators Impact unknown
No proposal-specific evidence was found for this group.
Action requirement unknownUsers & stakers Impact unknown
No proposal-specific evidence was found for this group.
Action requirement unknownGovernance & ecosystem Impact unknown
No proposal-specific evidence was found for this group.
Action requirement unknownExact source revision
Full proposal document
0616093b2952Summary
As the new shred format is being sent by all clients, this feature deprecates the old shred format.
Motivation
It is inconvinient to support both formats, and upcoming consensus changes (alpenglow) expect all shreds to be of the chained variety.
New Terminology
N/A
Detailed Design
The chained merkle shred variant, adds an additional field to Data and Coding shreds. It adds the Merkle root of the previous erasure batch after the data buffer or erasure coded shard respectively, before the merkle proof:
// Layout: {common, data} headers | data buffer
// | [Merkle root of the previous erasure batch if chained]
// | Merkle proof
// | [Retransmitter's signature if resigned]
// The slice past signature till the end of the data buffer is erasure coded.
// The slice past signature and before the merkle proof is hashed to generate
// the Merkle tree. The root of the Merkle tree is signed.
// Layout: {common, data} headers | data buffer
// | [Merkle root of the previous erasure batch if chained]
// | Merkle proof
// | [Retransmitter's signature if resigned]
// The slice past signature till the end of the data buffer is erasure coded.
// The slice past signature and before the merkle proof is hashed to generate
// the Merkle tree. The root of the Merkle tree is signed.
Additionally in the common shred header, the first 4 bits of the shred variant field are reserved to specify the shred variant. The second bit indicates if this shred is of the chained merkle shred variant.
If drop_unchained_merkle_shreds: 5KLGJSASDVxKPjLCDWNtnABLpZjsQSrYZ8HKwcEdAMC8
is active, then any shred with the second bit of the shred variant as zero will
be dropped on ingest.
Alternatives Considered
None
Impact
Any clients still producing blocks using the old shred format will have their shreds ignored on ingest.
Security Considerations
None
Backwards Compatibility
This feature is not backwards compatible.
Evidence graph
Related proposals and rollout
One or more sources are unavailable.
Upstream review record
Upstream discussion & review
GitHub review is editorial context, not evidence of on-chain support, voting, or outcome.
PR #313 · merged SIMD-0313: Drop unchained merkle shreds 8 comments and reviews · Jan 19, 2026@bw-solana @alexpyattaev it won't let me add you as a reviewer so tagging here
GitHub ↗Would it make sense to mention that this strictly improves security compared to the status quo?
GitHub ↗In context of this SIMD all shreds are chained, right?
GitHub ↗All shreds sent are now chained, but they used to not be chained. As specified below when the feature flag is active, any shred without the chained flag set will be dropped
GitHub ↗This SIMD by itself will not, but it leads to better security via alpenglow
GitHub ↗I support it. We should be able to delete a lot of code
GitHub ↗this makes sense, thank you!
GitHub ↗@willhickey could we get this merged and resume activation on devnet? Thanks!
GitHub ↗Provenance
Evidence & technical details
Rollout or chain data, source revisions, freshness and integrity. 2
Provenance
Evidence & technical details
Rollout or chain data, source revisions, freshness and integrity.SIMD
Deployment Status
5KLGJSASDVxKPjLCDWNtnABLpZjsQSrYZ8HKwcEdAMC8Exact source revision
Sources & integrity
- Proposal document pinned_commit_blob
0616093b2952ed6de52c4a27d66aadd11d48d4f9 - simd-document document · stale · Sep 10, 2026
0616093b2952ed6de52c4a27d66aadd11d48d4f9
One or more sources are unavailable.
simd.watch community discussion · SIMD-0313
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