Deprecate the CALLCODE opcode

Abstract

Deprecate CALLCODE in a somewhat backwards compatible way, by making it always return failure.

Motivation

CALLCODE was part of the Frontier release of Ethereum. In the first few weeks/months it became clear that it cannot accomplish its intended design goal. This was rectified with introducing DELEGATECALL (EIP-7) in the Homestead update (early 2016).

CALLCODE became never utilized, but it still puts a burden on EVM implementations.

Disabling it will not improve the situation for any client whose goal is to sync from genesis, but would help light clients or clients planning to sync from a later point in time.

Specification

If block.number >= FORK_BLOCK, the CALLCODE (0xf2) instruction always returns 0, which signals failure.

Rationale

It would be possible just to remove the opcode and exceptionally abort if it is encountered. However, by returning failure, the contract has a chance to act on it and potentially recover.

Backwards Compatibility

This is a breaking change and has a potential to break contracts. The author expects no contracts of any value should be affected.

TODO: validate this claim.

Security Considerations

TBA

Test Cases

TBA

Implementation

TBA

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.