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tags: newineth2
description: The latest update on Ethereum 2.0 development
image: https://benjaminion.xyz/f/favicon-96x96.png
GA: UA-129359374-2
---

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# What's New in Eth2 - 21 Feb 2020

 Ben Edgington ([PegaSys](https://pegasys.tech/), [ConsenSys](https://consensys.net/) — but views expressed are all my own)

Edition 36 at [eth2.news](https://eth2.news/)

## Top picks

Top non-technical pick of the week has to go to Trent Van Epps's [Eth2 Misconceptions: Top 5](https://medium.com/@trenton.v/eth2-misconceptions-top-5-6edafaeccac1). This is a brilliant take down of some of the FUD out there. Trent gets it.

My other top pick is more technical, but repays a careful read. It's the Quilt team's write-up, [A Short History and a Way Forward for Phase 2](https://ethresear.ch/t/a-short-history-and-a-way-forward-for-phase-2/6982?u=benjaminion).

## Phase 0: The beacon chain

No updates to the current version, v0.10.1, but there are some things in the pipeline. For one, [an adjustment](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/1627) to the way that validators' effective balances are updated (the "hysteresis" boundaries), prompted by an [unexpected multi-deposit incentive](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/issues/1609).

There are also some updates to the networking specification: [DoS prevention validation condition](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/1617); [lower bound slot condition on block gossip](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/1616/files); [subnet validations for DoS resistance](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/1615/files) (also affects the beacon chain spec mildly). I'm wondering if these are prompted by the recent security audit - I'm reminded that we haven't seen that yet...

### BLS news

A few weeks ago, Greg the Greek [got burned](https://twitter.com/gregthegreek/status/1222584063443308550) when making a large number of deposits to join the Prysm testnet. Only Goerli Eth was lost on this occasion, but it highlighted the fact that the Eth1 deposit contract does not verify the BLS signature of the deposit. Currently on Eth1, signature verification is likely to be infeasible due to gas costs, but it has been suggested that the next Eth1 fork could include [precompiles to support BLS12-381](https://hackmd.io/@ralexstokes/rJegpNo7I). There's also the pre-existing [EIP-1962](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1962) up for consideration that includes a wider range of curves. Either of these would allow deposits to be fully verified before committing them irreversibly. They would also allow Eth1 to be a light client of the Eth2 system, which has uses. The downside is that timing of the deployment of the deposit contract would then become dependent on the timing of the next Eth1 fork (codename "Berlin").

On another topic, I indicated [last time ](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/wnie2_200207#BLS-signatures) that there might yet be some changes to the proposed BLS [hash to curve standard](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-irtf-cfrg-hash-to-curve-05). I've had some confirmation that this is very likely and should happen in March. After that no further changes are anticipated. Assuming all that is correct, it shouldn't hold us up too much if at all.

### Testnets

The Prysm Eth2 testnet [keeps on](https://beaconcha.in/) [chugging](https://beacon.etherscan.io/). Currently showing 41,686 validators, and over 300k slots processed.

Meanwhile, the Lighthouse team is putting their next [massive testnet](https://twitter.com/paulhauner/status/1226817210057805825) through its paces before making it public. Watch this space!

### Testing

Protolambda's all-singing, all-dancing [REPL test tool](https://github.com/protolambda/rumor) for client and network debugging now has [a name](https://twitter.com/protolambda/status/1227767117098835968)! It's called Rumor (shame to misspell rumour, but whatever :shrug:).

## Phase 1: Shard chains

Just a reminder that the [Phase 1 spec](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/tree/dev/specs/phase1) is RFR.
*[RFR]: Ready for Review

## Phase 2: Execution environments

As noted above, the Quilt team did a superb write-up on the [state of play with Phase&nbsp;2](https://ethresear.ch/t/a-short-history-and-a-way-forward-for-phase-2/6982?u=benjaminion).

The hot news is that this article prompted the beginnings of a draft of what a [specification for Phase&nbsp;2](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/1628) might look like. This is huge progress! Like the other phases, the spec will grow and be rewritten many times, but it's a great step forward to have something concrete to get around. :tada:

Also hot: Jonny Rhea and Matt Garnett [are building](https://twitter.com/matt_garnett/status/1228426160754659328) a [toolsuite](https://github.com/quilt/ease) for constructing execution environments. They've built a [simple EE](https://github.com/quilt/see) as a demo. Here's Jonny with a [walk through](https://twitter.com/JonnyRhea/status/1230195894236086277) of how it's done. Go and SEE what they've got :slightly_smiling_face:

## Regular Calls

### Implementers

There would normally have been a devs call this week, but it's been pushed back to next week due to the [Stanford Blockchain Conference](https://cbr.stanford.edu/sbc20/).

### Eth 1.x

Griffin Ichiba Hotchkiss has published another excellent article in the Eth 1.x series, [The State(lessness) of the Union](https://blog.ethereum.org/2020/02/18/eth1x-files-the-statelessness-of-the-union/). This is important for potential Eth1 transition into Eth2, and is also informing Eth2 statelessness research.

I've heard rumours that the next Stateless Ethereum call will be on Tuesday the 25th of February at 16:00 UTC, but I'm 500 messages behind on the Telegram group, so that may no longer be true.

## Research

Here's a formal study of [GHOST + Casper](https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/papers/ffg%2Bghost/paper.pdf) ("Gasper") that I previously missed. The way that the two mechanisms are combined in Eth2 is novel---it's good to see some careful analysis.

After a bit of a lull recently, [ethresear.ch](https://ethresear.ch/) is :fire: this week:
- From my new PegaSys colleague, Alex Vlasov, [Time as a Public Service in Byzantine context](https://ethresear.ch/t/time-as-a-public-service-in-byzantine-context/6895?u=benjaminion). Not specific to Eth2, but an important consideration for any distributed system relying on the accuracy of time reporting.
- Here's the follow-up article, [Time attacks and security models](https://ethresear.ch/t/time-attacks-and-security-models/6936?u=benjaminion) which considers a security model for the Eth2 beacon chain.
- Vitalik is thinking about [51% attack recovery in blockchains](https://ethresear.ch/t/timeliness-detectors-and-51-attack-recovery-in-blockchains/6925?u=benjaminion)^[I love that two of the posts in this section reference papers by Leslie Lamport from the 1980s. And they _all_ use $\LaTeX$. Lamport is my hero :heart_eyes: - read his back catalogue [here](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/pubs/pubs.html)]
- Dankrad is [Preventing shard state data loss using custody roots](https://ethresear.ch/t/preventing-shard-state-data-loss-using-custody-roots/6952?u=benjaminion) - a nice presentation of proofs of custody and data availability checks in near-stateless Eth2, with cost estimates.
- PegaSys again: Nicolas Liochon sparks a lively discussion with [Trustless validator blackmailing with the blockchain](https://ethresear.ch/t/trustless-validator-blackmailing-with-the-blockchain/6922?u=benjaminion). He identifies a way for an attacker to make money from getting people's private keys, or pretending to. Previously I'd thought that an attacker could only grief a validator by getting them slashed, but not make money. This is sneaky.
- Casey has [A protocol for cross-shard ETH transfers](https://ethresear.ch/t/a-protocol-for-cross-shard-eth-transfers-even-more-simpler-and-transparent/6996?u=benjaminion) that's simpler and more transparent than its predecessors.
- Finally, Sam from the Quilt team has just published his work on [Automated Detection of Dynamic State Access in Solidity](https://ethresear.ch/t/automated-detection-of-dynamic-state-access-in-solidity/7003?u=benjaminion). This is about checking that contracts only do static state access. That is, they only access parts of state knowable in advance, which helps with state witness construction in transactions.

## In other news

- Not directly Eth2 related, but Vitalik [spoke](https://youtu.be/BXLcKQ6fLsU?t=19200) on 51% Attacks at Stanford Blockchain Conference. Well worth a watch.
- [Latest update](https://medium.com/prysmatic-labs/eth-2-0-dev-update-44-more-optimizations-6ab9a4e328c9) from the PryLabs team.
- I'm delighted to see that the recent revival of the EF blog continues. Here's Carl's next Validated, staking on Eth2: [Two ghosts in a trench coat](https://blog.ethereum.org/2020/02/12/validated-staking-on-eth2-2-two-ghosts-in-a-trench-coat/) which reviews how Eth2's consensus mechanisms combine.
- Here are the [Eth2 bounty winners](https://twitter.com/dannyryan/status/1229613927044173824) from EthDenver. Well done teams! :trophy:
- Vitalik [talks Eth2](https://youtu.be/gRBCD5nzBdQ?t=40131) at EthDenver (gets to Eth2 about 5 mins in). Tl;dw: (1) he's optimistic, (2) we'd all survive if he disappeared. (I'm sure there are loads of other great Eth2 talks buried in there, but you'll need to trawl through them yourselves, sorry.)
- A couple of things on validator rewards:
- [Validator Economic Incentive Model for Ethereum 2.0](https://certik.org/blog/technology/validator-economic-incentive-model-ethereum) from CertiK.
- Herman Junge is working on a [Rewards and Penalties Simulator](https://github.com/hermanjunge/eth2-reward-simulation) for Eth2. He has a write-up coming too.

## And finally...

It's time to unveil my (not very) secret project:
:tada: [The Ethereum 2.0 Annotated Specification](https://benjaminion.xyz/eth2-annotated-spec/) :tada:

So far, I've made some inroads into the [Phase 0 Beacon Chain spec](https://benjaminion.xyz/eth2-annotated-spec/phase0/beacon-chain/introduction) - there's a good amount there, but still plenty left to do (finish the beacon chain annotations; do the TODOs; give it a proof-read; get the GitHub up; do something to make it more mobile friendly; move on to the rest of the spec :sweat_smile:).

It's going to take a while, but in the mean time, please take a look and let me know^[[Email](mailto:[e-mail]) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/benjaminion_xyz) work] what you think!

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