All eyes on Medalla testnet -- genesis in less than 24 hours 👀

tl;dr

• Medalla testnet launches August 4th at 1pm UTC
• New multi-client attacknet is up with new challenges and larger bounties

Medalla testnet launches tomorrow 🏅

The minimum validator deposits (16k+ of them) required to kick off the Medalla testnet were met on Friday, which means the genesis of this testnet is set to happen at 1596546008 Unix time, or 8 seconds after August 4th at 1pm UTC. If you're curious as to how that time is calculated, check out Ben Edgington's quick genesis explainer.

The launch of Medalla is a huge milestone in the development of eth2 -- if Medalla proves stable, mainnet launch is next -- and represents years of hardwork by countless engineers, researchers, and community members. We hope you are as excited as we are :).

Remember, the vast majority of validators on the Medalla testnet are run by you, the community. We're relying on you to treat this as a dress rehearsal for mainnet launch -- have your nodes running well in advance, keep an eye on your validator's performance, and be on the lookout for any critical updates to your client's software (in other words, treat your testnet validators as if they're securing real ETH).

Client diversity 👯‍♀️

The community will be running five different clients at genesis!

• Teku by ConsenSys (discord)
• Prysm by Prysmatic Labs (discord)
• Nimbus by Status (discord)
• Lodestar by ChainSafe Systems (discord)
• Lighthouse by Sigma Prime (discord)

A huge congratulations goes out to each of these teams. If you are running any of the above clients, make sure to thank the client team and consider dropping some ETH or DAI into their tipjars. They have more than earned it.

Don't forget! Medalla has special POAP NFTs for running each client type at launch. Read up on the details here 🏅

In addition to the extraordinary work carried out by the eth2 client teams, I'd like to highlight ethstaker -- a burgeoning user-driven resource for the fledgling validator community. This community-run effort aims to provide a home to the hobbyist staking community in the form of a subreddit and discord server.

I've spent a little bit of time on the discord this past week, and it's a great place to share information, ask (and answer!) technical questions, and generally just collaborate around the new and exciting eth2 staking technology. If you are staking on Medalla or are interested in getting involved, definitely check it out.

I expect ethstaker, along with the client-specific discords, to be a must for validators looking to keep up to date with all things validator-related.

mc-attack-0 attacknet launch

mc-attack-0, a new multi-client attacknet, launched today!

This new attacknet falls under the beta-1 categorization with updated rules and increased bounties -- up to $15k for critical exploits.

Since the launch of the initial beta-0 attacknets, we've awarded for the following attacks:

• $5000 awarded to Jonny Rhea for performing a simple DoS attack on teku-attack-0, highlighting some missing basic DoS protections in JVM-libp2p
• 🏆💪🐿 awarded to Martin Swende for finding a critical bug in Prysm SSZ decoding, which allowed a remote attacker to crash nodes on prysm-attack-0 (no monetary award due to Martin working on security at the EF)
• $5000 awarded to AlexSSD7 for performing an L4 DDoS on prysm-attack-0, halting finality on the 4-node network and highlighting a clock-skew that prevented nodes from mending themselves after the attack
• $1000 awarded (honorable mention) to Jonny Rhea for taking down the discovery mechanism in lighthouse-attack-0

As always, join us in the Eth R&D discord #attacknet channel for discussions and tips to get started 🚀