Oh you, Spadina, At last, conclusion Greetings and goodbye
tl;dr
- A brief Spadina post-analysis
- New testnet: Zinken. Launchpad is operational; Genesis deposits required within one week!
Spadina Postmortem
The Spadina testnet rehearsal commenced this past Tuesday. While Spadina is now functioning well and reaching a conclusion, the launch was not as seamless as it could have been. Validator engagement began very low, and it took approximately 70 epochs (nearly 8 hours) to attain the 2/3 participation benchmark essential for the chain to finalize. Since that moment, however, the chain has proven to be notably stable.
Initially, we believed this early finality deficiency was attributed to validators only staking testnet ETH, which means there were no significant disincentives for not enabling your node in time for genesis. However, it soon became evident that, although this was a contributing factor, there were several errors near the edges of the stack concerning client release and configuration.
A side note on client diversity — Spadina had a significant bias towards the Prysm client which faced a critical peering issue at genesis. At this juncture, there are numerous strong eth2 clients. If we can attain a better distribution for mainnet, singular client issues, such as those observed on Spadina, will exert a considerably lesser overall impact on network health.
If the issue was merely low initial engagement, there wouldn’t be a need for another dress rehearsal, but since numerous users encountered critical problems activating their nodes, we are choosing to attempt it again before the deposit contract is triggered and a mainnet genesis date is established. Introducing Zinken.
Introducing Zinken
Zinken is another eth2 testnet launch designed to provide client teams the opportunity to refine their release processes and offer validators an opportunity to experience a more seamless genesis prior to mainnet.
Ideally, Zinken is stable and finalizes right from the start. Nevertheless, the primary indicator we’re looking for is for users to face minimal difficulties configuring their nodes and joining the network. A significant portion of this depends on client teams delivering solid releases, but we also urge users to approach this genesis with seriousness.
This entails only making deposits for validators you plan to operate, and if possible, keeping watch on the ethstaker and client team discords in the 24 hours leading up to genesis; there exists always a minimal possibility you may need to execute a last-minute configuration change or node upgrade.
The key details:
- The Zinken Launchpad is operational today.
- Genesis deposits should be made by Thursday, October 8th at 12 UTC.
- Genesis timing is anticipated to be around Monday, October 12th at 12 UTC.
Please note that Genesis deposits are required 4 days prior to launch. If you deposit afterward, your validator will not be activated immediately. Instead, you will be added to a queue and gradually included in the validator set once the chain begins finalizing.
Similar to Spadina, the main aim of Zinken is to rehearse the genesis procedure. This means that, although the testnet may last longer, client teams and ecosystem tools will only extend support for a limited duration.
If this is your initial eth2 testnet, be sure to join the EthStaker Discord for insights and discussions. From there, you should be able to select a client and navigate into the client-specific Discords.
Wishing you a successful testnet 🚀
