Buried Deployments

The five-minute read

One action, walked through

1. Open BIP 90 and read the status line before the examples.
2. Write down the rule in one sentence. A fair version of that sentence is: Prior soft forks (BIP 34, BIP 65, and BIP 66) were activated via miner signaling in block version numbers.
3. Name the object that changes: Buried Deployments.
4. Ask what an old client, an old contract, or an offline counterparty does. If the document is silent, the silence is part of the design.

The argument, unpacked

What has to be true

• You are implementing BIP 90 at the status the text itself states: Deployed.
• The object that has to change is Buried Deployments. A neighbouring document with a similar name is not this one.
• Constants in the text can be superseded by a later fork. Cite the EIP number and the fork you mean.

What happened after the paper

The source marks this deployed. That is a statement about the text, not a promise that every wallet or node has shipped it. Later documents can narrow, replace, or ignore this one. Cite the number you mean.

What to check before you use the idea

• What does Buried Deployments charge, reject, or redefine on the first touch versus a later one?
• Does a reverted subcall roll the change back?
• Can you point at the object in a client: Buried Deployments?

Terms

BIP 90

The public text titled Buried Deployments.

Deployed

The document's own label for how finished the text is. It is not a market fact.

The problem the paper names

An underpriced or ambiguous EVM rule is not a feature. It is a block that takes longer than the gas limit claimed, or a client that disagrees about the result.

What the design proposes

• Prior soft forks (BIP 34, BIP 65, and BIP 66) were activated via miner signaling in block version numbers.
• Now that the chain has long since passed the blocks at which those consensus rules have triggered, we can (as a simplification) replace the trigger mechanism by caching the block heights at which those consensus rules became enforced.
• BIPs 34, 65 and 66 were deployed on mainnet using miner signaling using block version numbers.

How the mechanism is specified

• Taken from the specification, the next constraint is: Now that the chain has long since passed the blocks at which those consensus rules have triggered, we can (as a simplification) replace the trigger mechanism by caching the block heights at which those consensus rules became enforced.
• Locate Buried Deployments in BIP 90 and apply it to one transaction or call.
• Then check the failure the class of rule always has: a node that did not upgrade, a reverted call, a replayed signature, or a peer that does not speak the message.

What this page does not treat as proven

• A gas or opcode change is not a throughput benchmark. It is a relative price and a validity rule.
• Constants in the text can be superseded by a later fork. Cite the EIP number and the fork you mean.
• The source marks this deployed. That is a statement about the text, not a promise that every wallet or node has shipped it.

Why a venture studio still reads it

Use BIP 90 when a pitch says 'Buried Deployments' without saying whether the rule is consensus, policy, or an interface. The number is the citation. The pitch is not.