Author: Michael Johnson

We are thrilled to announce the 39 grantees selected for the recent Academic Grants Round. This grants round invited researchers, think-tanks, Ph.D. students, and all those interested in advancing knowledge around the Ethereum ecosystem to submit academic proposals. Thank you to all those who submitted proposals, and congratulations to all the grantees. We are pleased with the number of quality applications that we received, which surpassed our initial expectations. Given the extraordinary potential of many project proposals, we have more than doubled the initial budget from 750,000to750,000 to 750,000to2 million. The granted projects vary broadly in scope and geographic representation…

The Sepolia testnet will undergo a post-merge execution layer (EL) upgrade at block 1735371, expected on August 17, 2022The upgrade will cause EL clients on the network to disconnect from peers which have not transitioned to proof-of-stake. It does not add additional functionality beyond this.Sepolia node operators must upgrade their execution layer client prior to block 1735371.A similar upgrade is expected on Goerli and the Ethereum mainnet once these networks have transitioned to proof-of-stake Background In order to maintain a healthy peer list, nodes on Ethereum’s execution layer will automatically disconnect peers who do not have the same upgrade sequence…

tl;dr Merge sequence engaged 🚀 Mainnet Merge incoming Yesterday on the Consensus Layer call, client engineers agreed on Mainnet parameters for the Merge — a Bellatrix epoch of 144896 and a Paris TTD of 58750000000000000000000 (tentative). The TTD is based on Proof-of-Work difficulty and is thus a bit hard to estimate precisely. The target date is September 15, 2022, but this estimate might have even a week of error. On this coming week’s All Core Dev call estimates will be re-checked, and the TTD will either be confirmed or a final adjustment will be made to better hit the target…

Ethereum is moving to proof-of-stake! The transition, known as The Merge, must first be activated on the Beacon Chain with the Bellatrix upgrade. After this, the proof-of-work chain will migrate to proof-of-stake upon hitting a specific Total Difficulty value.The Bellatrix upgrade is scheduled for epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain — 11:34:47am UTC on Sept 6, 2022.The Terminal Total Difficulty value triggering The Merge is 58750000000000000000000, expected between Sept 10-20, 2022.Note: as announced earlier, the Kiln testnet is being sunset. Operators will shut down on September 6, 2022. Background Following years of hard work, Ethereum’s proof-of-stake upgrade is finally here!…

~20 days until the Merge 🚀 tl;dr Merge Data Challenge 🧪📊 In preparation for the imminent Merge, the Merge Data Challenge is live! The Merge is the most complex upgrade to Ethereum to date and potentially to any public blockchain network ever. And with that comes tons of data to collect, data to visualize, tools to write, and things to explain so that researchers, developers, and community members can better understand the interworkings of the post-Merge network. To kick off data exploration in this new paradigm, the EF is hosting an open competition between now and October 31st, 2022. Get…

Since the first post in December 2013, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) blog has been the primary way teams within the EF communicate. From announcements about events, to grant waves, protocol upgrades, regular updates from specific teams or discussing Ethereum’s vision and roadmap, the blog has been a helpful resource for those looking to stay in the loop. However, there’s been one big problem: despite our global Ethereum community, this information has primarily only been available in English. Accessing this information is a challenge for the billions of non-English speakers around the world. ethereum.org and the Translation Program We’ve already seen…

Do you enjoy solving interesting and challenging problems? Are you interested in getting involved at the most foundational level of the Ethereum protocol? The Protocol Support Team (EF) is excited to announce that applications are now being accepted for the third cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (formerly Core Developer Apprenticeship Program (CDAP))! With the Merge closing in (58750000000000000000000 🥳), Ethereum core developers are looking forward to the next steps in the protocol’s development and there is a need for qualified and committed people to help create an increasingly powerful and robust Ethereum network. Enter the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship. What…

Community & educationBlockchain Pachuca MeetupBlockchain PachucaFirst meetup for a community group based in Pachuca, Mexico that studies Ethereum dApps.Community & educationcity3 Quadratic Funding Experimentscity3Implementation of quadratic funding experiments in Oakland, California.Community & educationCryptistOne-day conference exploring ZK technology and the Ethereum ecosystem, held in Istanbul, Turkey.Community & educationDAO DropsdOrgSupport to execute the first round of DAO Drops, a retroactive public goods funding experiment that leverages on-chain data to empower participants to make fund allocation decisions.Community & educationdApp LearningProject-based learning repo that enables developers with basic skills to learn dApp development using actively used OS contracts, taught in English and Mandarin Chinese.Community…

The Merge is happening soon! This post explains how and when the upgrade will happen, along with the client versions compatible with it.Kiln, an Ethereum merge testnet launched in early 2022, will be shut down during the week of September 12, 2022.Ropsten and Rinkeby are also deprecated and scheduled to be sunset in Q4 2022 and Q3 2023 respectively.Users and developers should migrate to Goerli & Sepolia, which will keep being maintained and upgraded to reflect changes to the Ethereum mainnet for the forseable future. As previously announced, the Kiln, Ropsten and Rinkeby testnets are now deprecated and will be…

Welcome to Devcon! This is your Devcon VI Manual, and it includes everything you need to know about Devcon, the surroundings and more. Read closely as we cover things to be aware of before departure, during transit to the venue from Bogotá’s international airport El Dorado, and information related to pre-registration dates, community efforts at Devcon VI, side/after events, and more! Bookmark this tab if you’re heading to Devcon, and we can’t wait to see you all soon. I. Arriving in Bogotá 🛬 To kick things off, let’s start with the first steps when arriving in Bogotá. Covid requirements 😷…