consensus-specs

Do you have a source for this? As I understand from the spec[1], any block proposer can submit a slashing report while including their block in the chain, and the protocol (ie: the client software that everybody runs) will reward them automatically if the slashing conditions are satisfied. The majority of validators could perhaps block this by all running forks of the various consensus client software, with some code changed to set the reward to zero, but why would they do that? [1] https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs/blob/dev/specs/p...

You get assigned by a random number generator to create the next block. If you fail to create it your only penalty is the opportunity cost (i.e., you miss on the reward that you would have gotten for creating one). So at any given time only one validator is going to create a block. If you create it, it's going to be included in the blockchain. If you don't create it (or you create but due to network problems fail to communicate it), then the blockchain skips a beat and someone else will create the next one. If you want a user friendly introduction I recommend you Ben Edgington's book (WIP): https://eth2book.info/altair/ Or straight from the source: https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs

If you want more details you can always read the Gasper paper[1], the spec[2], or client code. It is complex to somebody not familiar with consensus and blockchain execution, but you might say that about any modern engineering. PoW is undoubtedly simpler but also exponentially more environmentally destructive. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.03052 [2] https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs/blob/dev/specs/p...

There is a specification of the protocol, which is open source: https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs And there are over 5 interoperable, independent and open source implementations of said specification: - https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/ - https://github.com/ChainSafe/lodestar - https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2 - https://github.com/prysmaticlabs/prysm - https://github.com/ConsenSys/teku - https://github.com/sifraitech/grandine ...

Disclaimer: I work on Ethereum core development. One of the coolest things happening that will be available to everyone over the coming year is something called a light client, which is essentially a very light, validating node that tracks the head of the chain with certainty, and can be used as an alternative to services such as Unfura. In the future, Metamask will probably be a light client that actually tracks the head of the chain and can validate proofs of user account state. Source: https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs/blob/dev/specs/a...

The total ETH created does depend on the amount staked. Here's a table[1] and formula[2]. The total reward doesn't go up linearly with the number of validators, but it does go up. Lowering the incentive for attacks like you mention is a reason for that. And while having fewer validators gives you a somewhat higher reward per validator, it's still that case that all validators get the same reward in any given block. Everyone is equally competitive. Someone who reinvests will get higher absolute rewards than they got before, but they pay the price of locking up more capital. In the same way, a miner could reinvest profits into more mining equipment, but that doesn't make them more competitive, just bigger. Their profit margin will be the same (barring economies of scale that don't exist in staking). [1] https://docs.ethhub.io/ethereum-roadm

As of 01 Dec 2020, there is already another Ethereum mainnet chain (Eth2 Phase 0) running in parallel with and dependent upon the Eth1 mainnet chain: https://beaconcha.in/ https://beaconscan.com/ https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/tree/dev/specs/phas... Vitalik is proposing a role reversal to take place earlier than it was previously planned (not completely accurate in a technical sense re: previous plans, but effectively the same): Eth1 mainnet will hand-off consensus responsibility to Eth2 mainnet (PoW -> PoS), while Eth1 nodes continue to "run the code" that executes smart contracts / processes transactions. If the plan is put into motion, and as long as some miners / mining pools don't yank the plug on their mining nodes in the canonical Eth1 mainnet, then the canonical mainnet — per consensus among the Ethereum Foundation and a

It involves something called the staking deposit contract: https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/staking/ https://launchpad.ethereum.org/overview/ Picking any active validator on the Beacon Chain, we can see that there is an Eth1 deposit and a corresponding Eth2 deposit: https://beaconcha.in/validator/91676#deposits https://beaconscan.com/validator/91676#deposits If you're interested in the technical details, see: https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/tree/dev/specs/phas...

I have to suspect that you are wrong. Can you provide a source? There is no mentioning of difficulty in the spec, instead there are predefined slot times: https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/dev/specs/phas... Here is how they sync: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8946264 Assuming they describe the BeaconBlocks mentioned here: https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/dev/specs/phas... Also, which effect would an increased difficulty have?

Ethereum 2.0 will have a large number of validator nodes even at genesis[+] and the number will grow over time. A deposit of 32 ether will be required to become a validator — not cheap, but also not astronomically expensive. Here's a presentation from Devcon5 earlier this month demonstrating an Eth 2.0 client running on a Raspberry Pi: https://slideslive.com/38920013/eth-20-on-a-pi [+] https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/master/specs/c...

You can take a look at the eth2.0 specification here https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs. They have solved the nothing at stake problem, and they currently have 8 independent client implementations written in different languages that can 'talk' to each other on a multi-client testnet. They are much further along then people may realize.

In most PoS designs, registering a new validator account takes some fixed amount of time, just as a measure to prevent grinding attacks. If registration takes an hour, and I can't predict the random seed an hour in advance, then I can't predict how my account will be scored, so grinding would be futile. Most PoS designs don't otherwise favor old accounts. I know Peercoin does, but that's a very small project, and I'm not aware of any others. Ethereum 2.0 definitely won't have any such mechanism. In the current spec [1], staking is binary; either you have an active validator account or you don't. [1] https://github.com/ethereum/eth2.0-specs/blob/master/specs/c...