[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[zasad@]

Allocation Update: Q3 and Q4, 2021
Posted by Ecosystem Support Program Team on February 15, 2022
https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/02/15/esp-q3-q4-allocation-update/

"It's happening.
Devcon 6: 11-14 October, 2022
See you in Bogotá!"
https://twitter.com/EFDevcon/status/1494727493797879810
https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/02/18/colombia-in-2022-redux/

[r_victory]

Ethereum Rio 2022 is a regional event with a global outlook. We are building both a creative hub for regional projects with big ambitions and a gateway for brands to connect with LATAM blockchain communities.

The event is scheduled to take place from 11/03/2022 to 16/03/2022.

Read more details...

[zasad@]

Ethereum shows excellent results

Showing 1 to 10 of 299,887 validators found
https://beaconscan.com/validators-leaderboard

Validators
https://beaconscan.com/stat/validator

Ether
https://beaconscan.com/stat/voted

Devconnect: 18-25 April 2022 in Amsterdam
https://blog.ethereum.org/2022/02/01/devconnect-dates-and-details/

[r_victory]

Announcing Grants Round for Academic Research

We are excited to announce a new wave of grants to fund formal research that aims to create more knowledge about Ethereum, blockchain technology, and related domains. We encourage academics, research centers, Ph.D. Students and all those interested in researching Ethereum to submit their project proposals. This grants round has up to $750,000 in total available funding.

More information can be found here

[zasad@]

The Merge
More excitingly, the Kiln v2 Merge spec is out. This adds a couple of things to what we have running on merge-devnet-4, and makes one breaking change.

Authentication has been added to the EngineAPI.
It provides for an optional heartbeat feature that checks whether the two paired clients (Eth1 and Eth2) are correctly configured.
https://hackmd.io/@benjaminion/eth2_news/https%3A%2F%2Fhackmd.io%2F%40benjaminion%2Fwnie2_220225
https://hackmd.io/@n0ble/kiln-spec

Kiln public testnet
Launch of the public Kiln testnet is expected early or mid next week.

Governments Have Been Seizing Stolen Bitcoin and Ethereum. How?
From Bitfinex to Canada's "Freedom Convoy," governments have been recovering ill-gotten cryptocurrency—usually on a case-by-case basis.
https://decrypt.co/93941/governments-have-been-seizing-stolen-bitcoin-and-ethereum-how

[safar1980]

Nvidia Hackers Are Selling Software to Bypass Ethereum Hashrate Limiter
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/03/01/nvidia-hackers-are-selling-software-to-bypass-ethereum-hash-rate-limiter/
Has anyone seen tests of this software?

[zasad@]

Ethereum Gets Ready For the Final Merge Testnet
https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/03/03/ethereum-gets-ready-for-the-final-merge-testnet
“We’d like the Kiln testnet to be the last public testnet,” says Parit Hosh, who describes himself as Validator Whisperer at the Ethereum Foundation, before adding:
“If all client teams are ready next week, we would like to launch Kiln with the full v2 spec.”
Usually this testnet period lasts for about three months presuming all goes well, so The Merger where ethereum becomes full PoS may go out as soon as this summer.

[BlockchainMentors]

Fascinating! Looking forward to the awesome journey ahead.

[zasad@]

On March 3, Merge-devnet-5 was successfully launched.
https://twitter.com/parithosh_j/status/1499351263728779269
"merge-devnet-5 has been launched. The beaconchain genesis happens at 4PM UTC and the PoW chain has already been launched. The TTD has been set to be really high to allow everyone to join pre-merge.

Tooling can be found here: https://devnet5.themerge.dev"

[onecall123]

Dune Analytics data show that Ethereum's ETH 2.0 staking contract currently has $10 million worth of ETH valued at more than $26 billion ahead of an upcoming upgrade to a proof-of-stake blockchain. In November 2020, ETH 2.0 staking went live. Now, we've passed that milestone nearly 15 months later.

sources: https://dune.xyz/hagaetc/eth2-0-deposits

[zasad@]

Five indicators that the Ethereum merge will occur in June, 2022
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethstaker/comments/tbql1n/five_indicators_that_the_ethereum_merge_will/
"All of these indicators suggest strongly that the merge is on track and will be deployed in June 2022. Here's a funny thing about my prediction: I'd rather steadfastly predict June and be wrong, than lower the community expectation and be right. Lets keep pushing for June."

[safar1980]

Vitalik Buterin's latest tweets about the war in Ukraine. Is everything really going according to plan in Ethereum, or does Vitalik have nothing to write about Ethereum?

[zasad@]

https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1503751069528207360
"Kiln about to run through The Merge 👀 Probably 2-5 minutes left ⏳!"
https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1503752683701870592
"And it seems to have worked 🎉 Post-merge blocks are being produced by validators, and they contain transactions! "
https://explorer.kiln.themerge.dev/block/55138/transactions#txs

[isukcole]

Hi Vitalik, I'll see you at the Miami conference.  If you could give your thoughts on these questions, it would be much appreciated.  I am very interested in this project.

NECESSITY OF A NEW BLOCKCHAIN
The whitepaper states that colored coins inherit the same limitations as the bitcoin protocol.  Metacoins do not, but they cannot be truly secure without having a copy of the blockchain.  How big of a problem is this?  Hasn't the Electrum model worked for Bitcoin?  Is there a big issue with just querying a bunch of supernodes to see if they all give the same result?  Is it necessary to have absolute security with every contract, or only very high value transactions?  Is it correct that metacoin clients won't need the first 14gb of the blockchain?

BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN SIZE
Bitcoin Magazine's analysis showed that since storage capacity and internet bandwidth follow Moore's law, the blockchain size will not be a problem to store on phones.  How many years from now should we predict that the blockchain size will become irrelevant?  If the blockchain size were irrelevant, would ethereum still be necessary?  How much demand is there for blockchain contracts at this time, and how fast should we expect demand to accelerate?

ETHEREUM BLOCKCHAIN
How fast should we estimate the ethereum blockchain size will grow?  What will be the effects of ethereum blockchain size growth several orders of magnitude greater than Bitcoin?  Will this lead to more mining centralisation?

TURING COMPLETENESS
Is it reasonable to think the client can be sandboxed?  What will be the effects of these, since the protocol is Turing complete:  viruses, malware, adware, keyloggers, scam contracts, wallet stealers

ILLEGAL CONTRACTS
What will be the effects of illegal contracts? An assassination market, for example?  Will the Silk Road be able to run on ethereum?  Will a database of child porn be able to be stored?  If there is child porn stored on the blockchain that is easily accessible, will it be legal to store the blockchain in any country?  What will be the effects of running all the clients over Tor by default?  Can a 60s block time with huge blocks work over Tor?

SATOSHI'S ARGUMENTS
In 2010, satoshi succesfully argued against including Namecoin into bitcoin, suggesting merge-mining instead.

     "Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale.
     Bitcoin and BitDNS can be used separately.  Users shouldn't have to download all of both to use one or the other.  BitDNS users may not want to download everything the next several unrelated networks decide to pile in either.
     The networks need to have separate fates.  BitDNS users might be completely liberal about adding any large data features since relatively few domain registrars are needed, while Bitcoin users might get increasingly tyrannical about limiting the size of the chain so it's easy for lots of users and small devices."  -- Satoshi

You can view the rest of his arguments in the thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0;all

DEVELOPER COMMENTS
I have not seen any core bitcoin developers comment on ethereum.   Is there somewhere besides the reddit and the thread on bitcointalk about it?
I am not very technical, so sorry if some of my questions are invalid or stated incorrectly.  I also posted this on reddit.com/r/ethereum.

Blockchain system will always be the main thing in this world, so blockhain gaming also could live much years just like everything. Hoping also on eth's backup, you know all what is like when you stake some of them, i'm still planning to hold, but we'll see what's going on. For now i keep my head calm, looking at gaming and p2e developments from enjin and engn, as well as keep holding tokens and farm on aqru and refi.

[ZaMRoneY]

Hi Vitalik, I'll see you at the Miami conference.  If you could give your thoughts on these questions, it would be much appreciated.  I am very interested in this project.

NECESSITY OF A NEW BLOCKCHAIN
The whitepaper states that colored coins inherit the same limitations as the bitcoin protocol.  Metacoins do not, but they cannot be truly secure without having a copy of the blockchain.  How big of a problem is this?  Hasn't the Electrum model worked for Bitcoin?  Is there a big issue with just querying a bunch of supernodes to see if they all give the same result?  Is it necessary to have absolute security with every contract, or only very high value transactions?  Is it correct that metacoin clients won't need the first 14gb of the blockchain?

BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN SIZE
Bitcoin Magazine's analysis showed that since storage capacity and internet bandwidth follow Moore's law, the blockchain size will not be a problem to store on phones.  How many years from now should we predict that the blockchain size will become irrelevant?  If the blockchain size were irrelevant, would ethereum still be necessary?  How much demand is there for blockchain contracts at this time, and how fast should we expect demand to accelerate?

ETHEREUM BLOCKCHAIN
How fast should we estimate the ethereum blockchain size will grow?  What will be the effects of ethereum blockchain size growth several orders of magnitude greater than Bitcoin?  Will this lead to more mining centralisation?

TURING COMPLETENESS
Is it reasonable to think the client can be sandboxed?  What will be the effects of these, since the protocol is Turing complete:  viruses, malware, adware, keyloggers, scam contracts, wallet stealers

ILLEGAL CONTRACTS
What will be the effects of illegal contracts? An assassination market, for example?  Will the Silk Road be able to run on ethereum?  Will a database of child porn be able to be stored?  If there is child porn stored on the blockchain that is easily accessible, will it be legal to store the blockchain in any country?  What will be the effects of running all the clients over Tor by default?  Can a 60s block time with huge blocks work over Tor?

SATOSHI'S ARGUMENTS
In 2010, satoshi succesfully argued against including Namecoin into bitcoin, suggesting merge-mining instead.

     "Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale.
     Bitcoin and BitDNS can be used separately.  Users shouldn't have to download all of both to use one or the other.  BitDNS users may not want to download everything the next several unrelated networks decide to pile in either.
     The networks need to have separate fates.  BitDNS users might be completely liberal about adding any large data features since relatively few domain registrars are needed, while Bitcoin users might get increasingly tyrannical about limiting the size of the chain so it's easy for lots of users and small devices."  -- Satoshi

You can view the rest of his arguments in the thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0;all

DEVELOPER COMMENTS
I have not seen any core bitcoin developers comment on ethereum.   Is there somewhere besides the reddit and the thread on bitcointalk about it?
I am not very technical, so sorry if some of my questions are invalid or stated incorrectly.  I also posted this on reddit.com/r/ethereum.

Blockchain system will always be the main thing in this world, so blockhain gaming also could live much years just like everything. Hoping also on eth's backup, you know all what is like when you stake some of them, i'm still planning to hold, but we'll see what's going on. For now i keep my head calm, looking at gaming and p2e developments from enjin and engn, as well as keep holding tokens and farm on aqru and refi.

Yeah i really like the gaming niche myself as well. I actually came across #PYR and #ENGN and can't decide which one should i go for, i really like #ENGN's new game that looks like Fortnite on steroids.

[bruntBrunt]

Hi Vitalik, I'll see you at the Miami conference.  If you could give your thoughts on these questions, it would be much appreciated.  I am very interested in this project.

NECESSITY OF A NEW BLOCKCHAIN
The whitepaper states that colored coins inherit the same limitations as the bitcoin protocol.  Metacoins do not, but they cannot be truly secure without having a copy of the blockchain.  How big of a problem is this?  Hasn't the Electrum model worked for Bitcoin?  Is there a big issue with just querying a bunch of supernodes to see if they all give the same result?  Is it necessary to have absolute security with every contract, or only very high value transactions?  Is it correct that metacoin clients won't need the first 14gb of the blockchain?

BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN SIZE
Bitcoin Magazine's analysis showed that since storage capacity and internet bandwidth follow Moore's law, the blockchain size will not be a problem to store on phones.  How many years from now should we predict that the blockchain size will become irrelevant?  If the blockchain size were irrelevant, would ethereum still be necessary?  How much demand is there for blockchain contracts at this time, and how fast should we expect demand to accelerate?

ETHEREUM BLOCKCHAIN
How fast should we estimate the ethereum blockchain size will grow?  What will be the effects of ethereum blockchain size growth several orders of magnitude greater than Bitcoin?  Will this lead to more mining centralisation?

TURING COMPLETENESS
Is it reasonable to think the client can be sandboxed?  What will be the effects of these, since the protocol is Turing complete:  viruses, malware, adware, keyloggers, scam contracts, wallet stealers

ILLEGAL CONTRACTS
What will be the effects of illegal contracts? An assassination market, for example?  Will the Silk Road be able to run on ethereum?  Will a database of child porn be able to be stored?  If there is child porn stored on the blockchain that is easily accessible, will it be legal to store the blockchain in any country?  What will be the effects of running all the clients over Tor by default?  Can a 60s block time with huge blocks work over Tor?

SATOSHI'S ARGUMENTS
In 2010, satoshi succesfully argued against including Namecoin into bitcoin, suggesting merge-mining instead.

     "Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale.
     Bitcoin and BitDNS can be used separately.  Users shouldn't have to download all of both to use one or the other.  BitDNS users may not want to download everything the next several unrelated networks decide to pile in either.
     The networks need to have separate fates.  BitDNS users might be completely liberal about adding any large data features since relatively few domain registrars are needed, while Bitcoin users might get increasingly tyrannical about limiting the size of the chain so it's easy for lots of users and small devices."  -- Satoshi

You can view the rest of his arguments in the thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.0;all

DEVELOPER COMMENTS
I have not seen any core bitcoin developers comment on ethereum.   Is there somewhere besides the reddit and the thread on bitcointalk about it?
I am not very technical, so sorry if some of my questions are invalid or stated incorrectly.  I also posted this on reddit.com/r/ethereum.

Blockchain system will always be the main thing in this world, so blockhain gaming also could live much years just like everything. Hoping also on eth's backup, you know all what is like when you stake some of them, i'm still planning to hold, but we'll see what's going on. For now i keep my head calm, looking at gaming and p2e developments from enjin and engn, as well as keep holding tokens and farm on aqru and refi.

Blockchain gaming definitely has a lot of potential and p2e is one of my faves. Especially Engine which you mentioned!

[zasad@]

https://medium.com/electric-capital/electric-capital-developer-report-2021-f37874efea6d

"Executive Summary
Web3 developers are at an all-time high and growing faster than ever.
18,000+ monthly active developers commit code in open source crypto and Web3 projects
34,000+ new developers committed code in 2021 — the highest in history
4,000+ monthly active open-source developers work on Ethereum, 680+ open-source developers work on Bitcoin
20%+ of new Web3 developers join the Ethereum ecosystem
65% of active developers in Web3 joined in 2021; 45% of full-time developers in Web3 joined in 2021
There are several vibrant ecosystems emerging beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The largest ecosystems are Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polkadot, Cosmos, Solana, BSC, NEAR, Avalanche, Tezos, Polygon, and Cardano, each with 250+ monthly active developers
Polkadot, Solana, NEAR, BSC, Avalanche, and Terra are growing faster than Ethereum did at similar points in its history
2,500+ developers are working on DeFi projects. Less than 1,000 full-time developers are responsible for over $100 billion in total value locked in smart contracts"


61 page report
https://github.com/electric-capital/developer-reports/blob/master/dev_report_2021_updated_012622.pdf

[wavessurfing]

ETH 2.0 merge is imminent according to zerohedge.com

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/ethereum-20-merge-imminent-after-successful-test-will-lay-rest-energy-concerns

what do you think zasad ?

[zasad@]

ETH 2.0 merge is imminent according to zerohedge.com

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/ethereum-20-merge-imminent-after-successful-test-will-lay-rest-energy-concerns

what do you think zasad ?

Excellent pajamas from Vitalik
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=428589.msg59305521#msg59305521

A good article that collects the latest important news about Ethereum
https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-march-12-2022/
I think that the Merge should definitely happen this year if no errors are found in the last Kiln testnet.

[estenity]

ETH 2.0 merge is imminent according to zerohedge.com

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/ethereum-20-merge-imminent-after-successful-test-will-lay-rest-energy-concerns

what do you think zasad ?

Excellent pajamas from Vitalik
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=428589.msg59305521#msg59305521
.................

so do you mean that pajamas are imminent ?