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title: What's New in Eth2 - 18 June 2021
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 - 18 June 2021

![My avatar](https://benjaminion.xyz/f/ms-icon-144x144.png =32x32) Ben Edgington (Eth2 at [ConsenSys](https://consensys.net/) — all views expressed are my own)

Edition 71 at [eth2.news](https://eth2.news/)

## Top picks

The [PEEPanEIP session](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaAEGs1DMgQ) with Danny Ryan and Vitalik is a terrific primer on the upcoming changes in Altair. Vitalik's section on [light client sync](https://youtu.be/iaAEGs1DMgQ?t=2172) was an "aha" moment for me - I finally twigged how it all fits together; it's less complicated than I'd imagined.

[As a bonus, Danny mints two new words: "punitivity" and "attestatings".]

Oh, and [this](https://twitter.com/Freddmannen/status/1405819270639099907) - sound on! :musical_note:  :exploding_head: 

## The Beacon Chain

The beacon chain continues to chug along nicely - really not much to say about it. New deposits to the beacon chain were at [a record high](https://www.coindesk.com/deposits-ethereum-2-0-reach-record-high-may-iss-space) in May.

Fail of the week: one hundred validators got staked with [64 ETH each](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethstaker/comments/o19fkz/there_is_a_huge_spike_of_double_deposit_64_eth/). Everyone knows that a stake is 32 ETH. Anything above that is unproductive (does not earn rewards), and is locked up until withdrawals are enabled in, perhaps, a year's time. The validators were first staked with [32 ETH each](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x5f40ae6038f7875946f199893c008c6ab5317fe5cadc95656fd7f7f4b88f4323), and then, in the very same Eth1 block, the same validators each had another [32 ETH added](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xbf6d219d87520541ffe93ff383bf944c122f8c2353c2f68fc31f58b32572d7c4) to their existing stakes. These transactions were both done through [Stakefish's](https://etherscan.io/address/0x0194512e77d798e4871973d9cb9d7ddfc0ffd801) batch deposit contract, and the double deposits are due to the two calls having the same input data. Looks like simple user error. Weirdly, the second transaction had a gas price of zero, yet still managed to get mined. They may have been submitted directly to a mining pool - according to Etherscan, they originated from an F2Pool address.

:mega: **Action required** Anyone using the Prater or Pyrmont testnets currently, be sure to [upgrade your Eth1 node](https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/06/18/london-testnets-announcement/) before the London fork scheduled at block 5062605 on the Goerli testnet, which is currently expected to occur on June 30th.

## Altair

Altair is a planned upgrade to the beacon chain, happening in a couple of months.

As reported on the [regular call](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/ry7yjxcs_#Implementers), client teams are getting there with implementing the "final" alpha 7 specification for the Altair upgrade. The Teku team has put up a [series of devnets](https://github.com/eth2-clients/eth2-networks/tree/master/teku) that other teams are experimenting with syncing up. This has been a good learning exercise all round, and surfaced a few issues.

We discussed one of those issues at some length on the call, which is about the timing of when members of sync committees ought to be publishing their messages (formerly called signatures). The issue is that, if another node receives the message before it receives the associated block, it treats the message as invalid and drops it. Therefore we either need to cache messages on the receiving side for a short time, or delay gossipping messages on the sending side.

As for Altair planning, we expect to set a fork slot for one of the beacon chain test networks (Pyrmont or Prater) during our next call on July 1st, with a view to upgrading Mainnet in August.

:mega: **Action required** Those using the beacon chain testnets, please pay attention to your client team's communications during July and be ready to upgrade your client when requested.

## The Merge

The Merge is the bringing together of the Eth1 and Eth2 chains so we can turn off proof of work.

Justin Drake has been through the Eth2/consensus side of [the Merge Spec](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/tree/dev/specs/merge) and thoroughly [tidied it up](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/2472).

At the regular [Merge call](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/ry7yjxcs_#Regular-Calls) We discussed the mechanics of replacing the soon to be obsolete `DIFFICULTY` opcode on the Eth1 side with the contents of the beacon chain's RANDAO, since smart contracts are known to sometimes use `DIFFICULTY` as a source of randomness.

We also discussed processes for documenting the Eth1 side of the changes required for The Merge. Basically, the standard EIP process will apply to consensus-affecting Eth1 changes.

Don't expect too much exciting news on The Merge until the London (Eth1) and Altair (Eth2) upgrades are behind us. Work continues in the background for now, but will really accelerate once dev teams can focus on it fully.

## Staking

There is a [new version](https://twitter.com/etherchain_org/status/1402909186913153024) of the excellent beaconcha.in [mobile app](https://beaconcha.in/mobile) available. This has a very cool new feature that allows remote monitoring of your staking rig: CPU, memory, network, etc. Currently Prysm and Lighthouse are able to provide compatible metrics.

## The Great Explainers

[Liberosist](https://www.reddit.com/user/Liberosist/) on Reddit published an insightful post on [Understanding Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap](https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/nte1h2/understanding_ethereums_rollupcentric_roadmap/). It's about the updates and changes to what we call Ethereum 2.0 over the last year or so. I wrote about [this evolving roadmap](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/wnie2_210213#Editorial) a few months ago.

We're always pushing for more client diversity, so how about [Nimbus + Hyperledger Besu](https://etherworld.co/2021/06/03/how-to-become-an-eth2-validator-on-nimbus-hyperledger-besu/)? Here's a bit more on [running Besu](https://www.quicknode.com/guides/infrastructure/how-to-run-a-hyperledger-besu-node) from QuickNode.

Avado have written about the [Dangers of Staking on Exchange](https://medium.com/avado-node/dangers-of-staking-on-exchange-vs-benefits-of-staking-on-avado-21e961ef03d4) vs. Benefits of Staking on Avado, which is good stuff. I could be mistaken, but it looks like the Avado device currently only runs Prysm. I'll just observe here that each of their arguments against staking on exchanges applies equally to staking in a single-client dominated ecosystem.

## Media and stuff

Look out for [Beacon Book giveaways](https://stateful.mirror.xyz/vIxmsyBIm--ZFs_xQFLIrjpfi4hAfuBfWTjQbivWMzI)! The Beacon Book contains perspectives from a broad range of devs and others on the development of the beacon chain, along with some gorgeous artwork. Looks like the [EthStaker raffle](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethstaker/comments/o1g0n9/enter_to_win_a_physical_copy_of_beacon_book/) is open for another day or so.

Christine Kim's latest Valid Points newsletters: [June 2nd](https://www.coindesk.com/staking-eth-2-0-lucrative-for-exchanges-web-3-hackathon), and [June 9th](https://www.coindesk.com/deposits-ethereum-2-0-reach-record-high-may-iss-space) - Ethereum in spaaaace! :rocket:

As for our joint podcast: for [June 10th](https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/mapping-out-eth-2-0/ethereum-wallet-mew-staking-through-phone) we spoke to Kosala Hemachandra from MyEtherWallet about staking directly from the MEW wallet, and for [June 17th](https://www.coindesk.com/podcasts/mapping-out-eth-2-0/eth2-0-validator-decentralization) we discussed a minor [Twitter drama](https://twitter.com/kevinsekniqi/status/1402990295017431041) prompted by the Avalanche blockchain team about the meaning of the word "validator" in Ethereum&nbsp;2.0. We seem to have [achieved peace](https://twitter.com/kevinsekniqi/status/1405535077803560972) of a sort.

## Research

MEV (miner/maximal extractable value) is a really hot topic right now. The Flashbots team has done some analysis of [MEV in Eth2](https://hackmd.io/@flashbots/mev-in-eth2) (i.e. post-Merge MEV). As a reminder, Vitalik's proposal on forming a [market for block-builders](https://ethresear.ch/t/proposer-block-builder-separation-friendly-fee-market-designs/9725?u=benjaminion) is continuing to attract conversation.

In fact, on this week's Implementers' call, Protolambda explained that there could be significant advantages if our sharding design adopts a similar market place between specialist shard block builders and shard block proposers. He's posted a [draft PR](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/pull/2486) describing this. Note that these proposals do not "solve" MEV; they simply make it equally available to all, which helps to prevent centralising tendencies. I suppose that centralisation of block builders is easier to deal with.

It's worth noting that this builder/proposer split is not a new idea. In my one and only [Ethresear.ch post](https://ethresear.ch/t/exploring-the-proposer-collator-split/1632?u=benjaminion), co-written three years ago with Nicolas Liochon, we deconstruct an early version of this model. I need to think about it some more, but the logic of that post probably doesn't apply in an MEV world, in which extracting value is a much more specialised process than merely validating transactions.

## Regular Calls

### Implementers

Call #66 took place on the 17th of June. This one was not livestreamed due to some bandwidth issues at Danny's end. 

*   [Agenda](https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-pm/issues/222)
*   [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSMrxG1LAck) (uploaded after the event)
*   My [notes](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/SJoLSp_s_).

### The Merge

Merge call #6 also took place on the 17th of June, just ahead of the Implementers' call.

 - [Agenda](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/340)
 - [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5gh0Mw2oPU)
 - [Notes](https://notes.ethereum.org/@protolambda/Sy54x0_iO) from Protolambda

A short one this time, only 30 minutes.

## In other news

  - Lodestar has had a [branding exercise](https://twitter.com/ChainSafeth/status/1405569976161947655) done on it. Read [all about it](https://medium.com/chainsafe-systems/lodestars-brand-new-brand-6417d5014aa2).

## And finally...

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of The DAO hack - a pivotal and defining moment in the history of the young Ethereum blockchain. Literally entire books have been written about this; I very much enjoyed Matt Leising's [Out of the Ether](https://www.amazon.com/Out-Ether-Amazing-Ethereum-Destroyed-ebook/dp/B08HSRLSCB/). To put the magnitude of the incident in perspective, the DAO hacker made off with 3.6 million Ether, worth more than $8 billion in today's money. Not your average DeFi rug-pull.

At the time, I'd been interested in Ethereum for a few months, though I hadn't really thrown myself into the deep end. But the drama and fascination of the hack&mdash;the technical issues, the community response, the white-hat group, the failed soft-fork design, the eventual hard-fork&mdash;all of that made it inevitable. I was totally and utterly hooked.

For a brief primer on the whole incident, check out Emin Gün Sirer's [short thread](https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/1405597832237797380). (Famously, Gün and Phil Daian had [seen](https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/1405597845735022601) the flaw in the code, but dismissed it as unexploitable.)

What extraordinary times they were.

* * *

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