tl;dr
- Merge progress — minor spec updates, engineering full steam forward
- No progress in consumer variety. Be egocentric, run a minority consumer!
Merge replace
To start with — unbelievable work to all the engineering groups on the Kintsugi dash, which culminated within the launch of the Kintsugi Merge testnet. It’s unimaginable to see 3 execution purchasers and 5 consensus purchasers for a complete of 15 completely different pairings working on a unified entrance.
Kintsugi
, the primary long-standing Merge testnet, was not with out pleasure. The #TestingTheMerge effort hammered the testnet with transactions, unhealthy blocks, and a lot of different chaotic inputs, effervescent up some bugs in state transition, sync, and extra. We look forward to finding such bugs in early testnets, however with every iteration, purchasers develop into increasingly more secure.
Kiln reboot 
Groups recognized an essential subject a number of weeks in the past. This was a mismatch within the engine API (how the PoS consensus-layer drives the execution-layer) semantics associated to how execution-layer purchasers really operate in apply. The tl;dr is that, in some contexts, the consensus-layer was by chance inducing surprising load on the execution-layer.
Engineers then realized that if the engine API semantics have been barely extra versatile, the 2 layers may work extra harmoniously. This led to a delicate, but crucial, modification of the engine API and a associated breaking spec launch.
In the present day, the Kiln spec was launched, and engineers are busy knocking out the modifications. On the finish of this dash, groups purpose to convey production-ready implementations to a brand new testnet for public consumption. Preserve your eyes peeled for how one can take part.
From there, groups will transition public testnets to proof-of-stake earlier than making mainnet preparations.
Consumer variety metrics
Michael Sproul launched a brand new wave of consumer variety metrics utilizing his novel fingerprinting mechanism. Sadly, the consumer distribution of validating nodes has not budged up to now 6 months.
The variety of consensus-layer consumer implementations allows Ethereum and its customers to have a novel and sturdy resilience to software program failures and assaults. Customers obtain some resiliance by utilizing a minority consumer whatever the community make-up, however the community itself positive aspects resiliance at a number of key validator distribution thresholds.
If a single consumer:
- Doesn’t exceed 66.6%, a fault/bug in a single consumer can’t be finalized
- Doesn’t exceed 50%, a fault/bug in a single consumer’s forkchoice can not dominate the pinnacle of the chain
- Doesn’t exceed 33.3%, a fault/bug in a single consumer can not disrupt finality
From the appears to be like of the fingerprinting mechanism, Prysm nonetheless sits above the 66.6% mark.
I wish to give an enormous shoutout to the groups, people, and communities taking consumer variety critically (exhibit A, exhibit B). Working a minority consumer just isn’t solely wholesome for the community however can be safer for the person person’s funds.
Be egocentric (rational)! Run a minority consumer 
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