The first block in each epoch is a checkpoint. Validators vote for pairs of checkpoints that it considers to be valid. If a pair of checkpoints attracts votes representing at least two-thirds of the total staked ETH, the checkpoints are upgraded. The more recent of the two target becomes "justified". The earlier of the two is already justified because it was the "target" in the previous epoch.
Now it is upgraded to "finalized". To revert a finalized block, an attacker would commit to losing at least one-third of the total supply of staked ETH. The exact reason for this is explained in this Ethereum Foundation blog post. Since finality requires a two-thirds majority, an attacker could prevent the network from reaching finality by voting with one-third of the total stake. There is a mechanism to defend against this: the inactivity leak.
This activates whenever the chain fails to finalize for more than four epochs. The inactivity leak bleeds away the staked ETH from validators voting against the majority, allowing the majority to regain a two-thirds majority and finalize the chain.
Crypto-economic security Running a validator is a commitment. The validator is expected to maintain sufficient hardware and connectivity to participate in block validation and proposal. In return, the validator is paid in ETH their staked balance increases.
On the other hand, participating as a validator also opens new avenues for users to attack the network for personal gain or sabotage. To prevent this, validators miss out on ETH rewards if they fail to participate when called upon, and their existing stake can be destroyed if they behave dishonestly. There are two primary behaviors that can be considered dishonest: proposing multiple blocks in a single slot equivocating and submitting contradictory attestations. The amount of ETH slashed depends on how many validators are also being slashed at around the same time.
It is imposed halfway through a forced exit period that begins with an immediate penalty up to 0. They receive minor attestation penalties every day because they are present on the network but not submitting votes. This all means a coordinated attack would be very costly for the attacker. Fork choice When the network performs optimally and honestly, there is only ever one new block at the head of the chain, and all validators attest to it.
However, it is possible for validators to have different views of the head of the chain due to network latency or because a block proposer has equivocated. Therefore, consensus clients require an algorithm to decide which one to favor. They could then use their own attestations to ensure their preferred fork was the one with the most accumulated attestations. The 'weight' of accumulated attestations is what consensus clients use to determine the correct chain, so this attacker would be able to make their fork the canonical one.
However, a strength of proof-of-stake over proof-of-work is that the community has flexibility in mounting a counter-attack. For example, the honest validators could decide to keep building on the minority chain and ignore the attacker's fork while encouraging apps, exchanges, and pools to do the same. They could also decide to forcibly remove the attacker from the network and destroy their staked ETH.
How Does Ether Staking Work? To be eligible for block rewards after the Ethereum Merge, node validators will need to stake or lock up 32 ETH into a smart contract as collateral. This Ether will be locked up until a future upgrade to the network enables withdrawals. While some PoS blockchains give a greater chance of rewards to users who stake a larger amount of crypto, Ethereum handles rewards with a random lottery to select who will propose a new block to be added to the blockchain.
A staking pool combines the deposits of multiple individuals to stake the required 32 ETH for an Ethereum validator node. The block rewards from that node are then shared with the staking pool in proportion to the deposited ETH per individual account.
Crypto exchanges also offer a version of this, allowing users to stake small amounts in return for a fixed rewards amount. Risks of the Ethereum Merge There are several risks with the upcoming Ethereum Merge, as it is the biggest update to any cryptocurrency blockchain network to date. There are solutions being worked on to make the proposer selection anonymous, but this is currently still a risk.
This could end up concentrating the number of validator nodes under the influence of centralized entities, which introduces the risk of censorship or governance takeover. ETH Price Drop If there are setbacks with the merge, this could cause a drop in Ether price, as well as the prices of many of the top cryptocurrencies that have built their platforms on top of the Ethereum blockchain.
What is Ethereum 2. Ethereum 2. What is the Beacon Chain? It will become fully operational as the updated Ethereum blockchain after the Ethereum Merge is completed. The Beacon Chain is the controller of the Ethereum PoS network, managing the entire process of the PoS protocol and coordinating parallel chains shards.
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Prerequisites To better understand this page, we recommend you first read up on consensus mechanisms. What is proof-of-stake PoS? Proof-of-stake underlies certain consensus mechanisms used by blockchains to achieve distributed consensus. In proof-of-work, miners prove they have capital at risk by expending energy. Ethereum uses proof-of-stake, where validators explicitly stake capital in the form of ETH into a smart contract on Ethereum.
This staked ETH then acts as collateral that can be destroyed if the validator behaves dishonestly or lazily. The validator is then responsible for checking that new blocks propagated over the network are valid and occasionally creating and propagating new blocks themselves.
Validators To participate as a validator, a user must deposit 32 ETH into the deposit contract and run three separate pieces of software: an execution client, a consensus client, and a validator. On depositing their ETH, the user joins an activation queue that limits the rate of new validators joining the network. Once activated, validators receive new blocks from peers on the Ethereum network. The transactions delivered in the block are re-executed, and the block signature is checked to ensure the block is valid.
The validator then sends a vote called an attestation in favor of that block across the network. Whereas under proof-of-work, the timing of blocks is determined by the mining difficulty, in proof-of-stake, the tempo is fixed. Time in proof-of-stake Ethereum is divided into slots 12 seconds and epochs 32 slots.
One validator is randomly selected to be a block proposer in every slot. This validator is responsible for creating a new block and sending it out to other nodes on the network. Also in every slot, a committee of validators is randomly chosen, whose votes are used to determine the validity of the block being proposed. Finality A transaction has "finality" in distributed networks when it's part of a block that can't change without a significant amount of ETH getting burned.
On proof-of-stake Ethereum, this is managed using "checkpoint" blocks. The first block in each epoch is a checkpoint. Validators vote for pairs of checkpoints that it considers to be valid. If a pair of checkpoints attracts votes representing at least two-thirds of the total staked ETH, the checkpoints are upgraded. The more recent of the two target becomes "justified". The earlier of the two is already justified because it was the "target" in the previous epoch. Now it is upgraded to "finalized".
To revert a finalized block, an attacker would commit to losing at least one-third of the total supply of staked ETH. The exact reason for this is explained in this Ethereum Foundation blog post. Since finality requires a two-thirds majority, an attacker could prevent the network from reaching finality by voting with one-third of the total stake. There is a mechanism to defend against this: the inactivity leak.
This activates whenever the chain fails to finalize for more than four epochs. These headers only contain summary information about the contents of the blocks. Any other information required by the light node gets requested from a full node. The light node can then independently verify the data they receive against the state roots in the block headers. Light nodes enable users to participate in the Ethereum network without the powerful hardware or high bandwidth required to run full nodes.
Eventually, light nodes might run on mobile phones or embedded devices. The light nodes do not participate in consensus i. The execution client Geth includes a light sync option. However, a light Geth node relies upon full nodes serving light node data. Few full nodes opt to serve light node data, meaning light nodes often fail to find peers.
There are currently no production-ready light clients on the consensus layer; however, several are in development. There are also potential routes to providing light client data over the gossip network. This is advantageous because the gossip network could support a network of light nodes without requiring full nodes to serve requests.
Ethereum does not support a large population of light nodes yet, but light node support is an area expected to develop rapidly in the near future. Archive node Stores everything kept in the full node and builds an archive of historical states.
It is needed if you want to query something like an account balance at block 4,,, or simply and reliably test your own transactions set without mining them using tracing. This data represents units of terabytes, which makes archive nodes less attractive for average users but can be handy for services like block explorers, wallet vendors, and chain analytics. Syncing clients in any mode other than archive will result in pruned blockchain data.
This means, there is no archive of all historical states but the full node is able to build them on demand. Why should I run an Ethereum node? Running a node allows you to directly, trustlessly and privately use Ethereum while supporting the network by keeping it more robust and decentralized.
Benefits to you Running your own node enables you to use Ethereum in a private, self-sufficient and trustless manner. You don't need to trust the network because you can verify the data yourself with your client. Your node verifies all the transactions and blocks against consensus rules by itself.
You can use an Ethereum wallet with your own node. You can use dapps more securely and privately because you won't have to leak your addresses and balances to random nodes. Everything can be checked with your own client. You can run and self-host other services which depend on data from Ethereum. For example, this might be a Beacon Chain validator, software like layer 2, infrastructure, block explorers, payment processors, etc. You can provide your own custom RPC endpoints.
Publicly for the community or even privately hosted Ethereum endpoint enables people to use your node and avoid big centralized providers. You can connect to your node using Inter-process Communications IPC or rewrite the node to load your program as a plugin.
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