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# What’s New in Eth2 – 20 May 2022
 Ben Edgington (Eth2 at [ConsenSys](https://consensys.net/) — all views expressed are my own)
Edition 93 at [eth2.news](https://eth2.news/)
## Top picks
This week’s highlight is EthStaker’s [Ethereum Staking CLR round](https://qf.ethstaker.cc/).
It’s a quadratic funding round with fifteen projects and a matching pool of over 350k DAI. All the projects are related to improving the experience of Ethereum staking, and this is a chance to give them a serious boost.
There have been almost 2000 contributors already, which is astonishing to me, given the couple of hoops you need to jump through (BrightID verification, getting some value onto Arbitrum). You still have about 4 days to get involved. Don’t be left out!
## The Merge
What’s this Merge thing all about? Check out the [Mega Merge Resource List](https://notes.ethereum.org/@MarioHavel/merge-resources), a fantastic curated round up of Merge-related resources.
### `#TestingTheMerge`
#### You can help; earn NFTs!
Shegen put together a [helpful thread](https://twitter.com/shegenerates/status/1527290682519392258) on getting involved in `#TestingTheMerge`. She mentions that there is a planned [NFT Drop for Merge Testers](https://onlydust.notion.site/NFT-Drop-for-The-Merge-Testers-26db58aeae2b4c54a7de57ecf2d0e0f6), organised by [Only Dust](https://twitter.com/dimahledba/status/1526940225108332544). By my guesstimate you have about 10 days left to get in there.
Here’s the [landing page](https://kiln.themerge.dev/) for the Kiln network to get you started.
#### Mainnet shadow forks 4 and 5
Since we last spoke there have been two further Ethereum mainnet shadow forks. MSF4 (with a distribution of clients similar to mainnet’s) took place on the 12th of May and went [“perfectly”](https://twitter.com/parithosh_j/status/1524767841773363200), though [later analysis](https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1525233216243699712) revealed an issue that should be an easy fix.
MSF5 (with an equal distribution of clients) took place on the 20th of May immediately ahead of the consensus devs’ [call](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/HyzJna7vc). At first, as we met, it looked like it had not gone well at all, with no execution blocks being produced. Happily, this turned out to be a block explorer issue, and the actual chain was perfectly fine. By the end of the meeting we were satisfied that it had all gone beautifully.
As a reminder, these shadow forks are an excellent test – they are effectively exactly the same process as the Merge itself, with the same workload and complexity. That we’ve had three shadow forks in a row with no more than minor issues is incredibly encouraging. It’s actually getting so routine that [@parithosh_j](https://twitter.com/parithosh_j) and [@vdWijden](https://twitter.com/vdWijden) don’t even bother to tweet the successes any more.
#### Ropsten testnet Merge
Upping the stakes now, it’s time to begin Merging the existing Ethereum testnets.
We shall be doing Ropsten, Sepolia, and Goerli in that order over the next weeks. The Ropsten Merge will be open for all to participate in, with a launchpad and deposit CLI for those who want to participate as validators. Sepolia will be a “permissioned” Merge, limiting who can run validators on the beacon chain that will be spun up for it. This allows a degree of control of the variables. Goerli will Merge with the existing Prater beacon chain testnet and will be open for anyone to participate in.
The aim is to do the Ropsten Merge on the 8th of June. Client teams will be making releases with the Ropsten Merge configuration next week. We will start up a beacon chain and then let it all happen. It turns out to be very difficult to estimate terminal total difficulty on Ropsten, so it’s been set quite high for now, the plan being to run some miners to accelerate the Merge to hit the 8th. Please [do not](https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1527393854755729412) run your own miners on Ropsten at least until its beacon chain has gone through the Bellatrix fork – it would be very bad if TTD were hit too early, and in any case just makes estimating things harder.
Here are the [Ropsten beacon chain configs](https://github.com/eth-clients/merge-testnets/tree/main/ropsten-beacon-chain) for the testnet nerds out there. Note that the terminal total difficulty (TTD) is palindromic.
#### Other testing things
The ConsenSys TXRX research team is maintaining a [Testing The Merge](https://github.com/txrx-research/TestingTheMerge)<sup>TM</sup> repo that tracks where we are with all the EngineAPI and Merge Transition tests. Progress looks good.
### `#WenMerge`
[Huge](https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1527365988198428674) [excitement](https://twitter.com/benjicohen421/status/1527366876501684235) [on](https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1527404390729953280) [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CoinMarketCap/status/1527658500368769025) arising from the Merge panel at the [Permissionless](https://blockworks.co/events/permissionless/) conference. Apparently Preston said that, if everything goes to plan, we should Merge in August, and Justin Drake backed him up stating a “strong desire” to get it done in August without delaying the difficulty bomb. Remember, friends, you [heard it here first](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/wnie2_220506#Plans-A-and-B).
Ob-disclaimer: don’t get too excited yet. That “if everything goes to plan” clause is carrying a lot of weight.
I don’t think video is available from the panel yet, but I’ll post it when I find it. The relevant clip of Preston is [here](https://twitter.com/benjicohen421/status/1527366876501684235).
## Client diversity
We know that client diversity (the distribution of stake between the mainnet beacon chain clients) has dramatically improved. Justin Drake published a [nice timeline](https://twitter.com/drakefjustin/status/1526896423584907264) showing the recent flows from Prysm to the other clients.
Meanwhile Michael Sproul has been working on making his blockprint analysis (on which this chart is based) [ever more accurate](https://twitter.com/sproulM_/status/1526703018745376768). He has a [fascinating graph](https://twitter.com/sproulM_/status/1526044290593349632) illustrating the different approaches the consensus clients are taking to block packing and how they can be distinguished.
To help continue the battle of client diversity, Somer Esat has published the first of his client migration guides, [Migrating from Prysm to Nimbus](https://someresat.medium.com/ethereum-staker-migration-guide-migrating-from-prysm-to-nimbus-b802a7dcb31e). And if you want to truly help increase diversity, here’s a video tutorial from EthStaker and Chainsafe on [setting up Lodestar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PaLNrXf_vk).
Also, let’s not get complacent, the [next battle](https://twitter.com/trent_vanepps/status/1526943186035388416) will be bringing Geth below a supermajority on the execution side.
## Staking
Client diversity is far from being the only kind of diversity we care about. Rather, for the sake of the protocol we care about diversity in [all things](https://ethsunshine.com/). Superphiz gave a [super talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IspFJa81AAs) at the Toronto EDM on “Why I Fight for Decentralization” exploring the various axes and aspects of what it means to be decentralised.
In particular, we are troubled when any one entity gains too high a network share.
Lido is now [approaching](https://ethsta.com/) 33% of value at stake, which starts to look like a systemic risk, prompting an uncharacteristically direct [statement](https://twitter.com/dannyryan/status/1524044527828303872) from Danny Ryan,
> Lido passing 1/3 is a centralization attack on PoS.
[Vitalik](https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1525301234516652032) suggests that we normalise the expectation that pools self-throttle if they acquire more than 15% of the stake. [Superphiz](https://twitter.com/superphiz/status/1525479305077309442) presents a summary model for what we ought to require as a community:
> 15% – pools throttle/ stop accepting deposits (à la Vitalik)
22% – the community will take action (à la Superphiz)
33% – is an attack and protocol devs engage (à la Danny)
On our last [chat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhyTMEk29BI&list=PLOB9GGXGcc30i4lARcf9xSN3SvgaUf0O8&index=6) Phiz explained where he gets [the 22%](https://twitter.com/superphiz/status/1525218193756807169) number from. You’re going to have to watch it to find out `:P` (Oh, ok, you can find it [here](https://twitter.com/superphiz/status/1525224461380747268?s=20&t=XBhidQ2ylutMFw5UZVHATw) as well.)
As noted [last time](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/wnie2_220506#Staking), Lido is doing a lot of work to convince everybody that they are good actors. But in the face of the centralising forces that only goes so far. In response to the challenges above they are planning to establish a [governance discussion](https://twitter.com/LidoFinance/status/1525950357825781760) to explore these issues in greater depth.
## Tooling
Sam Calder-Mason has made an [Ethereum Metrics Exporter](https://github.com/samcm/ethereum-metrics-exporter) that implements a “client-agnostic set of metrics that operators can run without any additional configuration to dashboards or alerting”.
## The Great Explainers
The great Mikhail Kalinin himself [explains the Merge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy4QgwdTb7o) at the Ethereum Engineering Group (virtual) meetup.
bartek.eth has rounded off his great series of tweet explainers on data availability with [a thread](https://twitter.com/bkiepuszewski/status/1524008982431641600) on how rollups will be able to make use of all that lovely data.
Adrian Sutton explains why he believes that [Weak Subjectivity Checkpoints Have Failed](https://www.symphonious.net/2022/05/17/weak-subjectivity-checkpoints-have-failed/). Check out his EthStaker [DevConnect talk](https://www.symphonious.net/2022/05/07/ethstaker-checkpoint-sync/) for more background.
Justin Drake and some old dude explore [How Proof of Stake Will Make ETH Ultra-Sound Money](https://consensys.net/blog/news/how-proof-of-stake-will-make-eth-ultra-sound-money/) in the second of the interviews that ConsenSys put together at DevConnect.
And if you want to [Dive into Danksharding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5p0TB77flM), Vitalik, Dankrad, and Protolambda appeared on Bankless, moderated by the one and only Tim Beiko. (19,000 views and counting… :exploding_head:)
## Media and stuff
Hasu [discussed the Merge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvODqTUAPN0) with Danny Ryan and Tim Beiko on the Uncommon Core podcast. Part 1 was great – looking forward to Part 2!
Cloudflare has long been crypto-friendly. Now they are planning to [stake some ETH](https://blog.cloudflare.com/next-gen-web3-network/).
## Research
The Ethereum Foundation has launched an RFP for research projects on [networking for data availability sampling](https://github.com/ethereum/requests-for-proposals/blob/master/open-rfps/das.md). This is a demanding problem, and will be hugely impactful on the future design of Ethereum.
I’ve mentioned a fair bit the Condrieu Verkle testnet that Guillaume Ballet is putting together. Now it’s ready for all to try: here’s how to [give it a spin](https://twitter.com/gballet/status/1526488286386069505). These are the early steps towards making Ethereum stateless, which will solve a whole host of long-term issues.
## Regular Calls
### Implementers
Consensus implementers’ call #87 took place on the 19th of May.
* [Agenda](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/527)
* [Video](https://youtu.be/-6dZVes6aWc?t=240)
* My [quick notes](https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/HyzJna7vc) made during the call, and from Christine Kim both a [quick summary](https://twitter.com/christine_dkim/status/1527380857324859393) and a [longer-form write-up](https://docsend.com/view/zye63j53qxwrvbje). We’re documenting history here, people.
We kept an eye on mainnet shadow fork 5 as it progressed during the meeting. We discussed how to get the Ropsten Merge to happen on time, and client readiness for it. Then, after regular client updates, we covered three spec-related topics. (1) removing the `step` parameter from the Req/Resp API. This is uncontroversial. (2) how we might take advantage of the Merge to simplify and improve the deposit workflow in protocol and the associated user experience. (3) allowing withdrawal keys to initiate validator exits. Currently that can be done only with the signing keys.
### All Core Devs
ACD call #138 took place on the 13th of May.
* [Agenda](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/518)
* [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFxkGdPv4F8)
* Excellent tweet-form notes from [Tim](https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1525232290321690624) and [Christine](https://twitter.com/christine_dkim/status/1525178255002677248).
Lots of good stuff in the notes – I recommend taking a scan through them.
## Upcoming events
– Friday, June the 3rd at 14:00 UTC – [Merge Community Call #4](https://github.com/ethereum/pm/issues/532).
– Wednesday, June the 8th or then-abouts – the Ropsten testnet Merge.
## In other news
– [Finalized no. 35](https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/05/19/finalized-no-35/) from Danny Ryan covers the EthStaker CLR round and the data availability sampling RFP (see above).
## And finally…
I wonder if I will get to edition #100 or not before the Merge :thinking_face:
All being well, the 100th edition of What’s New in Eth2 is due on the 26th of August. Wouldn’t it be a fabulous coincidence if that were to be the first post-Merge celebratory edition?
* * *
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