## Proposed Changes
Cache the total active balance for the current epoch in the `BeaconState`. Computing this value takes around 1ms, and this was negatively impacting block processing times on Prater, particularly when reconstructing states.
With a large number of attestations in each block, I saw the `process_attestations` function taking 150ms, which means that reconstructing hot states can take up to 4.65s (31 * 150ms), and reconstructing freezer states can take up to 307s (2047 * 150ms).
I opted to add the cache to the beacon state rather than computing the total active balance at the start of state processing and threading it through. Although this would be simpler in a way, it would waste time, particularly during block replay, as the total active balance doesn't change for the duration of an epoch. So we save ~32ms for hot states, and up to 8.1s for freezer states (using `--slots-per-restore-point 8192`).
## Proposed Changes
Add the `sync_aggregate` from `BeaconBlock` to the bulk signature verifier for blocks. This necessitates a new signature set constructor for the sync aggregate, which is different from the others due to the use of [`eth2_fast_aggregate_verify`](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/v1.1.0-alpha.7/specs/altair/bls.md#eth2_fast_aggregate_verify) for sync aggregates, per [`process_sync_aggregate`](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/v1.1.0-alpha.7/specs/altair/beacon-chain.md#sync-aggregate-processing). I made the choice to return an optional signature set, with `None` representing the case where the signature is valid on account of being the point at infinity (requires no further checking).
To "dogfood" the changes and prevent duplication, the consensus logic now uses the signature set approach as well whenever it is required to verify signatures (which should only be in testing AFAIK). The EF tests pass with the code as it exists currently, but failed before I adapted the `eth2_fast_aggregate_verify` changes (which is good).
As a result of this change Altair block processing should be a little faster, and importantly, we will no longer accidentally verify signatures when replaying blocks, e.g. when replaying blocks from the database.
## Proposed Changes
Implement the consensus changes necessary for the upcoming Altair hard fork.
## Additional Info
This is quite a heavy refactor, with pivotal types like the `BeaconState` and `BeaconBlock` changing from structs to enums. This ripples through the whole codebase with field accesses changing to methods, e.g. `state.slot` => `state.slot()`.
Co-authored-by: realbigsean <seananderson33@gmail.com>
