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title: What's New in Eth2 - 20 Mar 2020
tags: [newineth2]

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tags: newineth2
description: The latest update on Ethereum 2.0 development
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# What's New in Eth2 - 20 Mar 2020

![My avatar](https://benjaminion.xyz/f/ms-icon-144x144.png =32x32) Ben Edgington ([PegaSys](https://pegasys.tech/), [ConsenSys](https://consensys.net/) — but views expressed are all my own)

Edition 38 at [eth2.news](https://eth2.news/)

## Hey, everybody :wave:

The world may have stopped, but the Eth2 work presses on unabated. Here's a little note of normality for you all in these peculiar times.

First, a quick call to action. If you haven't yet done the [ETH usage survey 2020](https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5478500/b50493a3f344), go and take a look. It's well put together, and just takes a few minutes. The questions cover a lot of interesting ground, including plans for staking on Eth2, and DeFi usage. Why not [hop over there](https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5478500/b50493a3f344) now? I'll wait...

## Top picks

Gitcoin Media's [ETH2.0 - Q & A with key developers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=td750o3xf8k&list=PLvTrX8LNPbPkOOTmVqjljLs2vk5-YZwLG) playlist. Lots of short, easily digestible segments on different Eth2 topics with all your favourite devs. Check out those [Zoom backgrounds](https://twitter.com/owocki/status/1239357890923642886)!

As ever, Danny Ryan's [eth2 quick update no. 9](https://blog.ethereum.org/2020/03/17/eth2-quick-update-no-9/) is the authoritative source for the latest information (Also in [Chinese](https://news.ethereum.cn/eth2-quick-update-no-9/))

## The next ~5-10 years of eth2 and beyond

Vitalik [dropped](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1240365047421054976) a terrific [chart](https://benjaminion.xyz/images/Eth2FlowChart_200318.jpg) of his view on where Ethereum is and where we are going (approximately!), reproduced below. Don't miss [his commentary](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1240365050436689923).

I don't think there are any huge surprises here for anyone who's been paying attention in recent months. At any rate, it corresponds fairly well to my own mental map of the landscape.

Nonetheless, a couple of striking features are the promotion of getting Eth1 into Eth2 as a priority, and the de-emphasising of Phase 2 as being a distinct deliverable: more a collection of things to be implemented as they each become mature. This is not as "neat" the three-phase roadmap we've previously had in mind, but is likely more practical, and will deliver a useful system earlier. That system will initially look more like a souped-up version of the Eth1 we are familiar with than the shiny, sexy, new abstract world of execution environments. But I expect that is likely to be welcomed by the devs who will be building on it.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, this chart does not imply any changes to the delivery of Eth2 Phase&nbsp;0 (the beacon chain) or Phase&nbsp;1 (the shard chains).

Click on the image to see a readable version.

[![Eth2 Flowchart](https://benjaminion.xyz/images/Eth2FlowChart_200318.jpg =698x734)](https://benjaminion.xyz/images/Eth2FlowChart_200318.jpg)

## The Great Explainers

It's wonderful to see more and more quality articles and explainers emerging as Phase&nbsp;0 nears.

[What ETH2 has learned from ETH1](https://medium.com/@0xKiwi/what-eth2-has-learned-from-eth1-d1f7e0830a98) by Ivan Martinez. This very nicely covers issuance, statelessness, and account abstraction among others. All these are definitely easier to deal with on brand new infrastructure (Eth2) rather than doing surgery on the existing (Eth1) chain&mdash;for example, account abstraction for Eth1 was proposed as an EIP [over three years ago](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-86), and still remains largely unimplemented. This highlights a significant reservation I have about the new emphasis on getting Eth1-in-Eth2 done early, as discussed above: if Eth2 inherits all the technical debt of Eth1 _too_ early, it could stall innovation for years.

Want to run your very own beacon chain? [Here's how](https://dev.to/q9/how-to-run-your-own-beacon-chain-e70)! (My colleague, Adrian Sutton, wrote something similar last year, [here](https://www.symphonious.net/2019/08/13/into-eth-2-eth-1-and-the-deposit-contract/) and [here](https://www.symphonious.net/2019/08/14/into-eth-2-adding-artemis/), but it's likely waaay out of date now.)

On the slightly more technical side, Sly Gryphon has written about the [Eth 2.0 state transition](https://sgryphon.wordpress.com/2020/03/17/eth-2-0-state-transition/)

My own efforts at [annotating the Eth2 spec](https://benjaminion.xyz/eth2-annotated-spec/phase0/beacon-chain/introduction/) continue. It's slow work as there are a million and one rabbit holes to chase down, but we'll get there!

## Regular Calls

### Implementers

Call #35 took place on the 12th of March.

*   [Agenda](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-pm/issues/132)
*   [Video](https://youtu.be/orVYfqP_YuQ?t=575)
*   [My notes](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/BkW_92PrU), [Mamy's notes](https://gist.github.com/mratsim/b81f488911496e93fbdde16d966468b6), and [Edson's notes](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-pm/blob/master/eth2.0-implementers-calls/call_035.md).

Apart from the usual client updates, a few key points:
 - Spec version [v0.11.0](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/releases/tag/v0.11.0) is out. This is mostly hardening against denial-of-service attacks in the networking, but also a few state-transition changes. This spec is the target version for multi-client testnets.
 - Speaking of which, all being well, we expect to be spinning up some long-lived joint testnets during April. Things are looking favourable: Prysmatic's Sapphire testnet [has been performing well](https://twitter.com/preston_vanloon/status/1241061545037033472); Prysm is syncing with Lighthouse; Teku is syncing with Prysm and Lighthouse, and so on.
 - The Phase&nbsp;1 spec is getting to a point where it will soon be ready to start prototyping in clients, perhaps around the beginning of April.

### Eth1.x / Stateless Ethereum

Honestly speaking, I'm losing track of all the calls and meetings on stateless Ethereum. So I am grateful to Griffin Ichiba Hotchkiss for his great progress reports. Here's his write-up from [the first Stateless Ethereum Summit](https://blog.ethereum.org/2020/03/12/eth1x-files-stateless-summit-summary/) which took place in Paris after EthCC.

## Research

The final version of the Gasper ([Combining GHOST and Casper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03052)) paper has been published. As a reminder, this analyses the unique combination of two consensus protocols that we have bolted together in Eth2.

On ethresear.ch:
 - Vitalik with [Using polynomial commitments to replace state roots](https://ethresear.ch/t/using-polynomial-commitments-to-replace-state-roots/7095?u=benjaminion). Polynomial commitments are the [latest hot crypto](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1237736821200695297). Here's Justin Drake talking about them at the ZK Study Club: [part&nbsp;1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz16BURH_u8); [part&nbsp;2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfV7HBHXfC0); [part&nbsp;3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNauD5wgXM). Tl;dr - PCs may be game-changing for stateless protocols among other things, but there are some practical challenges yet.
 - [Appraisal of Non-sequential Receipt Cross-shard Transactions](https://ethresear.ch/t/appraisal-of-non-sequential-receipt-cross-shard-transactions/7108?u=benjaminion) - Joe Delong of PegaSys examines one of the proposed mechanisms for cross-shard communication. He's got a [cross-shard transaction simulator](https://github.com/dangerousfood/cross-shard-txn-sim).
 - [Atomic Cross Shard Function Calls using System Events, Live Parameter Checking, & Contract Locking](https://ethresear.ch/t/atomic-cross-shard-function-calls-using-system-events-live-parameter-checking-contract-locking/7114?u=benjaminion) - Peter Robinson of PegaSys proposes a mechanism for atomic cross-shard transactions.
 - [Miners vote back](https://ethresear.ch/t/miners-vote-back/7129?u=benjaminion) - Mikhail Kalinin of PegaSys investigates how a two-way bridge between Eth1 and Eth2 can be implemented.
 - [Sensor Fusion for BFT Clock Sync](https://ethresear.ch/t/sensor-fusion-for-bft-clock-sync/7142?u=benjaminion) - Alex Vlasov of PegaSys continues his work on making distributed time protocols byzantine fault tolerant. An important consideration for Eth2 which requires a strong clock sync.

## In other news
 - Development updates from [Nimbus](https://our.status.im/nimbus-status-update-march-6th/), [Lighthouse](https://lighthouse.sigmaprime.io/update-22.html), and [Prysm](https://medium.com/prysmatic-labs/eth-2-0-dev-update-46-slasher-running-integrated-fuzz-testing-6d3647833afc).
 - Piper Merriam is compiling a compendium of [who's working on what](https://ethresear.ch/t/whos-working-on-what/7159?u=benjaminion) across Eth1x and Eth2.

## And finally...

It was learning about Proof of Stake almost exactly four years ago that convinced me that Ethereum was The One :heart_eyes_cat:, and I'm happy to be playing a bit part in its eventual delivery. I still shudder a little every time I think about Proof of Work.

But I'm definitely not against spending some compute resource doing _useful_ work, so I was happy to respond to [Jonny Rhea's call](https://twitter.com/JonnyRhea/status/1238643297184251910) to add some CPU and GPU power to the COVID-19 protein folding effort. Sometimes there's a lot of work available, sometimes none, but it seems like a good cause.

You can join too! It's as easy as,
1. Go to foldingathome.org/start-folding and install the software
2. Open -> Configure Identity
3. Enter Team Number: 237234 (Team Ethereum)
4. Username (optional)

(Oh, and I had to improve my workstation's ventilation :grinning: It's keeping me toasty warm in my study :fire:)

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