Ethereum can be simple enough to understand from a bird’s-eye view: Decentralized applications powered by the same sort of crypto-economic guarantees that underpin Bitcoin. But once you’ve zoomed in to, say, a street-level view, things get complicated rapidly. Even assuming one has a strong grasp on proof-of-work, it’s not immediately clear how that translates to a blockchain doing more than keeping track of everyone’s unspent transaction outputs. Bitcoin uses computational work to decentralize money. Ethereum uses computational work to decentralize...

After months of hard work from the eth2 research team, along with Consensys and DeepWork Studio, we’re happy to announce the release of the eth2 validator launchpad (testnet version). We’re releasing it now so that you can keep track of, and make deposits into, the upcoming Medalla multi-client testnet. But we’ll continue to fine-tune the interface in the run-up to mainnet launch. The idea behind the launchpad is to make the process of becoming an eth2 validator as easy as...

Testnets, testnets, testnets! tl;dr Medalla multi-client testnet launch date set 🚀 Initial beta attacknets are up. Calling all whitehats 👩‍🍳 Exciting progress on the eth1+eth2 merger 👊

eth2 quick update no. 12 As always, a lot continues to happen on the eth2 front. Aside from written updates (check out the State of Eth2 post below) and other public summaries, client teams, contributors, and community members/prospective-validators have been busy! Today, we’ll cover some significant deposit contract news, and big steps toward implementation of spec version v0.12. tl;dr New Solidity deposit contract formally verified and added to the bounty program Altona v0.12 testnet expected to launch in the next...

I’ve been thinking recently about post-apocalyptic wastelands. Specifically, about this scene from Mad Max: Fury Road, when the main characters have just escaped the first wave of pursuit, and are staying ahead of their would-be captors. They need to keep moving, but still need to do maintenance on the centerpiece of the movie: a gigantic “war rig” truck driving them to safety. So Charlize Theron climbs out under the cab to make some repairs en-route: The idea of conducting repairs...

A huge thank you for excellent input and feedback from Sacha Saint-Leger, Joseph Schweitzer, Josh Stark, and protolambda. I spend a lot of my time explaining and answering questions about eth2, and I mean a lot. Some of this on a deep and technical level as I help communicate research and specifications to technical contributors, but more and more these days I’m fielding questions from the community about eth2 progress, direction, motivations, design decisions, delays, and more. I actually really...

Queridos Amigos, In our most recent update, we outlined what Devcon is all about and spoke to our renewed focus on growing the Ethereum ecosystem. Part of that focus is on making sure that, for all types of attendees, the next Devcon is all that we dream for it to be and more. For details on those goals and beyond, please read the full post here! Today, we’re going to tackle our site-selection and timing, along with more on what’s...