tl; dr
- Finalized: rebranding of the blog
- Upgrade your nodes!
Finished, renaming the blog
If you’ve read my recent writings or heard me talk about Ethereum and this big upgrade that’s in the works, you may have noticed that I’m not just shying away from talking about “phases” (instead, I’m referring to a series of standalone upgrades), but that I’ve also been trying to drop the terms “eth1” and “eth2”. I have spoken about these terrible terms and wrote about it again in January “The State of Eth2”.
What we call “eth2” is a series of major Ethereum upgrades. consensus layer — to ensure the protocol is secure, sustainable, and scalable — while “eth2 clients” are implementations of this proof-of-stake consensus.
And, what we call “eth1” in this context is the wealth of Ethereum application layer, and similarly the “eth1 clients” (after the upgrade to proof-of-stake) are the software that does the heavy lifting at this layer. The Ethereum application layer is currently powered by a proof-of-work consensus algorithm, but will soon be powered by the beacon chain, the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that is currently in production and secured by ~3.5M ETH.
Now, to continue my campaign, I am changing the name of this blog series. From now on, this series will be known as “Finished: The Ethereum Consensus Layer”, where the name is an homage to the most critical function of the proof-of-stake consensus layer: purpose.
Stakers: upgrade your nodes
To stay connected, you must be compatible with Berlin
The Ethereum PoW chain is undergoing a mainnet upgrade, called Berlin, on April 14, 2021. This is a backwards-incompatible fork and therefore requires updating your software to continue with the mainnet. You can read more about this in the EF Ethereum Berlin Update Announcement.
As a beacon chain participant, you need an Ethereum PoW endpoint to successfully perform all of your various roles as a validator. This functionality serves as a one-way link between system components to allow new validator repositories.
It follows that, to successfully maintain this link, strikers need to upgrade your Ethereum PoW nodes! If you run the Pyrmont testnet, you should update your Goerli nodes before March 172021, and if you validate on the mainnet, you need to update your mainnet PoW nodes before April 142021.
Also, it’s a good time to upgrade your beacon node.
In addition to upgrading your PoW nodes, I recommend that you also upgrade your beacon nodes. Has been Many juicy optimizations recently for all mainnet clients. To make sure your validators are running at optimal performance (and cost-effectiveness), download the latest version and give it a try.
Upgrade your nodes! 🚀
