Author: Michael Johnson

Oh wow, it’s been a while… over 1.5 years since we’ve released Geth v1.9.0. We did do 26 point releases in that time frame (about one per three weeks), but pushing out a major release is always a bit more special. The adrenaline rush of shipping new features, coupled with the fear of something going horribly wrong. Still unsure if I like it or hate it. Either way, Ethereum is evolving and we need to push the envelope to keep up with it. Without further ado, please welcome Geth v1.10.0 to the Ethereum family. Here be dragons Before diving into…

Ethereum is very much a global community, but within that larger ecosystem lives a vast and vibrant web of local, grassroots communities. These local community nodes are a Schelling point for thousands of Ethereans, often organized around a shared geography, language, or on-the-ground meetup. They’re also a gateway for onboarding thousands of soon-to-be Ethereans, be it through meetups, talks, hackathons, study groups, and the like. Which means they’re home to countless opportunities for growing the ecosystem. As such, the Ethereum Foundation is continuously exploring ways to support and learn from local communities. To this end, the EF has piloted the…

TL;DR Berlin is ready to be deployed!We’re moving fast: the first testnet to upgrade, Ropsten, is scheduled to upgrade on March 10th. Mainnet is scheduled for April 15th.If you are running an Ethereum node, you should upgrade it to a Berlin-compatible version ASAP for testnets and before April 7th for mainnet.See below for the list of Berlin-compatible client versions and details on the EIPs included in the upgrade.The Besu client has reported a bug in their previous Berlin release. Besu users should upgrade to version 21.1.2. Berlin Timing After months and months of planning, Berlin is finally here! The upgrade,…

tl;dr Finalized: rebranding the blogUpgrade your nodes! Finalized, rebranding the blog If you’ve read my recent writings or listened to me speak about Ethereum and this grand upgrade that’s in the works, you’ve perhaps noticed that I’m not only shying away from discussing “phases” (instead, referring to a series of independent upgrades), but that I’ve also been attempting to put the terms “eth1” and “eth2” to rest. I’ve spoken about these being terrible terms and wrote about it again in January’s “The State of Eth2”. What we call “eth2” is a series of major upgrades to Ethereum’s consensus-layer — to…

Community & educationETHTerakoyaEducational initiative by Couger organizing public meetings, workshops, and working groups producing prototypes and standards.Community & educationEthereumCNChinese language resources and community building, including eth2 resources and a program for university students.Community & educationTruffleSponsorship of the TruffleCon 2020 virtual developer conference.Community & educationCreacion de Contratos Inteligentes con EthereumScholarship for 11 independent developers to attend the National University of Bogota smart contract development course “Creacion de Contratos Inteligentes con Ethereum.”Community & educationDescubriendo BlockchainSpanish-language Ethereum education course with each lecture given by a different speaker, primarily featuring experts from LATAM communities.Community & educationIndia Ecosystem Development EventsOrganization of virtual developer events targeting…

With the arrival of the beacon chain in 2020, Ethereum today supports two types of clients: those focusing on the execution-layer (often referred to as eth1) and those powering the proof-of-stake consensus layer (aka eth2). As those running validators are well aware (since they run both client types), each serves a specific purpose, and powers a different part of one Ethereum. Recognizing the importance that both client sets represent to the long term health and network diversity of Ethereum, our work to support the full landscape of clients is fundamental to our work in the ecosystem. Layer-specific client support updates…

tl;dr Altair pre-release is out Over the past week, beacon chain Altair pre-release specs — Stargazer v1.1.0-alpha.1 and Half of ’em just look like dots v1.1.0-alpha.2 — were released. These represent the first feature complete releases of the upcoming Altair upgrade to the beacon chain, and give engineering teams something concrete to dig into. Altair is an upgrade to the beacon chain that brings light client support, minor patches to incentives, per-validator inactivity leak accounting, an increase in slashing severity, and cleanups to validator rewards accounting for simplified state management. In addition to these various features, Altair also represents a…

It’s always fun to hear about new grants as they’re awarded, but what happens after the announcement? In this series, we’ll check in on projects that are well underway – or already at the finish line. Read on to learn about some recent milestones and achievements by grantees! Baseline The Baseline project is defining a protocol that allows businesses to synchronize their systems of record and reduce costly errors in B2B transactions. It uses the Ethereum Mainnet as a common frame of reference, while keeping confidential business logic and data private using zero-knowledge proofs. The project is housed under the…

tl;dr Rayonism☀️, hacking the Merge together This week, protolambda and others released plans for Rayonism, an ambitious month-long hack to create Merge devnets based on current specs with a stretch goal of adding sharding to these devnets along with L2 rollup integrations. The primary motivation is to unite development around a unified Merge spec to onboard all client teams firmly into the Merge design and process so that an informed decision on the Merge roadmap can be agreed upon in the coming months. That, and have a little bit of fun 🙂 In addition to Rayonism, Merge specs and design…

Friends, The year ahead will be filled with upgrades and big ideas from across the Ethereum ecosystem. Since our last Supported Teams post (which followed the launch of the beacon chain), the network has seen 3.8+ million Ether staked, and 120K+ active validators online across multiple clients. In recent days, the launch of the Berlin network upgrade was completed, and since there’s always progress being made by other EF-supported projects, these updates are an opportunity to highlight more efforts to grow and improve Ethereum as a whole. Included in this edition are updates from many teams highlighted in the previous…