Can’t venture out these days Missing the individuals, not the aircraft Spadina, not Spain
tl;dr
Spadina “dress rehearsal” imminent
We recognize that both the developers and the community might benefit from an additional public testnet launch prior to mainnet to practice the procedures. Simultaneously, we seek to maintain Medalla’s momentum. Consequently, we have chosen a brief dress rehearsal that will run concurrently with Medalla later this month. Welcome Spadina!
Spadina will be a (mainly) mainnet configuration testnet with a 3-day end-of-life (EOL). The primary goal is to provide us all another opportunity to navigate through one of the more complex and risky stages of the process — deposits and genesis — before we reach mainnet. If everything proceeds smoothly, it should afford us greater confidence before we dive into the main event later this year.
Should you engage in Spadina?
If you aim to experience the latest version of the Lauchpad, get involved with key generation and management, and see if you can configure your preferred client from scratch again, then yes! You should definitely take part.
If you’ve previously participated in various testnets, are adept at managing keys and multiple clients via the command line, and frequently compose custom systemd configurations and monitoring tools in your sleep, then I’ll leave that decision to you 🙂
Please note that Spadina has a 3-day end-of-life. Even though the testnet may stay operational for some time beyond this, client teams, block explorers, and other vital infrastructure providers will not offer support for Spadina beyond the 3 days.
Medalla Data Competition
Last week, the EF announced the Medalla Data Challenge to encourage more individuals to engage in eth2 analysis and tools while simultaneously broadening the information base, educational materials, and general insight into eth2 and its networks.
Take a look at the announcement here and begin processing some data for a chance to win up to $15k!
RFP for auditing the blst BLS12-381 signature library
The Ethereum Foundation and Protocol Labs are financing an audit for the ultra quick blst BLS12-381 signature library.
Due to significant performance improvements, the blst library (pronounced “blast”), developed by Supranational, is swiftly becoming the standard signature library for eth2 clients. To ascertain the library meets the required standards for mainnet, we are looking for an auditor to conduct a thorough audit of the low-level, optimized code as well as the various language bindings.
Explore the RFP here. Proposals are required by September 18th.
In addition to this audit, formal verification of blst‘s field, curve, and bulk signature functions is underway. This task is anticipated to be finalized by early 2021 🚀
