Lighthouse Update #32

Paul Hauner | Estimated read time: 5 min Image credits: Photo by Braden Collum

Overview

  • We expect the first Eth2 blocks to be produced on Dec 1st.
  • We expect Lighthouse v1.0.0 to be released between Nov 24th and Dec 1st.
  • We request that stakers be active during the genesis event and in the week leading up to it.
  • All of these dates depend on getting enough staked ETH in the deposit contract.

Mainnet Development Schedule

As detailed in our previous post, the Eth2 deposit contract has been launched. Since then, v1.0.0 of the Eth2 specification has been released which declares MIN_GENESIS_TIME as Tuesday, December 1, 2020 12:00:00 PM GMT. This means that if there are sufficient deposits, we might see the first beacon chain blocks produced on the 1st of December 2020.

If there are sufficient deposits, we might see the first beacon chain blocks produced on the 1st of December 2020.

For Eth2 implementations (like Lighthouse), the clock has started ticking. Genesis has a date and users have started locking up mainnet ETH. This blog post will detail the Lighthouse development roadmap from now through to December 1st.

Understanding the Genesis Date

There are two events when it comes to Eth2 genesis:

  1. When it is possible to know the genesis block.
  2. When it is possible to start building blocks atop the genesis block (a.k.a. "Eth2 genesis").

Knowing the genesis block (event 1) may happen when these two conditions are both satisfied:

  • It is later than Tuesday, November 24, 2020 12:00:00 PM GMT.
  • There is enough ETH in the deposit contract to produce 16,384 active validators.

Eth2 genesis (event 2) always happens one week after we learn the genesis block (event 1).

So, until there are 16,384 active validators it's impossible to know the genesis block and therefore start the Eth2 chain. But, to err on the side of caution, we will assume that there is enough stake by November 24 and Eth2 genesis will therefore happen on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 12:00:00 PM GMT.

... we will assume that there is enough stake by November 24 and Eth2 genesis will therefore happen on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 12:00:00 PM GMT.

If validator deposits are lacking, the launch of Eth2 will be delayed arbitrarily until there are sufficient deposits or the minimum validator count is revised.

Delaying Genesis

All of the dates I've listed are variables that have been agreed upon by the community (Ethereum Foundation, client teams, etc). If there are unforeseen circumstances (e.g., specification bugs, implementation issues) then all of these dates can be revised and the protocol updated.

Lighthouse Mainnet Features

For Lighthouse-v1.0.0, we intend to deliver the following major components:

  • Beacon Node (lighthouse bn).
  • Slasher (lighthouse bn --slasher).
  • Validator Client (lighthouse vc).
  • Remote Signer (lighthouse rs).

This will provide a full suite of components for Eth2 stakers for solo-stakers and enterprise staking services alike. All of these components have been developed in-house by the Lighthouse team at Sigma Prime.

Post-Mainnet Components

The Lighthouse graphical user interface will not be released until early-2021.

Whilst we have made significant progress on this project in the past months, we are not ready to present it as a production-ready system yet.

Until mainnet, the Lighthouse team will be focussed on stability, usability and performance enhancements for our core Rust components (e.g., the beacon node). This is our expertise and where we believe we can provide the most value to the Eth2 ecosystem.

The Release Schedule

The Lighthouse release schedule is concerned with getting us from our current version Lighthouse-v0.3.3 through to our first stable release Lighthouse-v1.0.0. With v1.0.0 we indicate that Lighthouse has entered the "production" phase.

With v1.0.0 we indicate that Lighthouse has entered the "production" phase.

The path to v1.0.0 is sketched out below:

  1. v0.3.4: Merging #1862 in the next few days to provide the --testnet mainnet flag for developers/researchers to start experimenting.
  2. An arbitrary number of v0.x.x releases, which will include:
    • Slasher.
    • Remote signer.
    • Stability improvements.
    • Resource usage improvements.
    • Documentation improvements.
  3. A v1.0.0 release after the deposit contract has reached 16,384 active validators and it's later than midday 24/11/2020 UTC.

Time Window for v1.0.0 Release

We have made the decision to only release v1.0.0 after the genesis block has been determined (nominally November 24th).

The upside of this decision is that it allows us to ship you a complete client that doesn't need to spend several minutes syncing the Eth1 chain before it starts.

The downside of this decision means that we expect users to be ready to update their clients in the 7-day window before Eth2 genesis, whenever that may be. Whilst releases after v0.3.4 should be ready to start now and roll through to genesis, we strongly encourage users to update to v1.0.0 and be active during Eth2 genesis and the week(s) leading up to it. As we've seen in previous testnet launches, engagement from stakers is key to a smooth launch.

... we strongly encourage users to update to v1.0.0 and be active during Eth2 genesis and the week(s) leading up to it

Next Steps

Whilst we work towards the v1.0.0 release, please keep doing your research and testing your staking skills (and our staking software) on Medalla.

Follow the #announcements channel on our Discord for updates.