Backports to beta (#2628)

* v1.3.8

* mitigate refcell conflict in state diffing (#2601)

* mitigate refcell conflict in state diffing

Also uses RefCell::get_mut in a few places.

* Add test case

* Fixed stalled sync

* Fixed tx queue limit for local transactions (#2616)

* Fixed tx queue limit for local tx

* Fixing test

* Increas gas limit to 20x

* Additional logs when transactions is removed from queue (#2617)

* Database performance tweaks (#2619)