With the arrival of the beacon chain in 2020, Ethereum now supports two types of customers: execution-layer (Often called eth1) and tools that provide support for proof of stake consensus layer (Aka eth2). As it is clear to those who run validators (because they run two client types), each validator has a specific purpose and powers different parts of an Ethereum.
Recognizing that both customer groups represent the long-term health of Ethereum and the importance of network diversity, our support for our customers’ work in the entire field is vital to our work in the ecosystem.
Table of Contents
Layer-specific client support updates
Executive layer
The Ethereum Foundation plans to allocate at least $4 million to the executive customer team in 2021.
These grants (the first distributed) support the following client teams: Besu, Ge (Go Ethereum), Void Heart, Open Ethereum, with Turbocharged Gas.
Even in the early days of Ethereum, it was clear that greater customer diversity helped strengthen the core of Ethereum. This is why we today reiterate our support for their work as the first step towards sustainable development.
Consensus layer
By 2021, EF will allocate at least $7 million to consensus-tier customers.Compared with our funding in 2020, our funding in 2020 is about 4.5 million US dollars for the client team, as described in the previous articleESP 2020 distribution update, Q1, Season 2, Q3, Q4).In addition, support for Ecosystem Support Plan Updates throughout the year for review, formal verification, testing, bug bounty, tools and other community support.
Today, the consensus layer has four customers, lighthouse, I’m running, phantom with Rain cloud Since the start of the beacon chain in December, this information has been online and has remained stable. At the time of writing, these customers have secured the beacon chain with more than 3.5mm of Ethereum, which is provided by more than 110,000 valid validators. These feats and the achievements of these teams to date cannot be overestimated. 👏
In addition, there is a fifth customer Le Star, Provides high-quality javascript tools (which have been used by various resource managers and other beacon chain tracking tools) and other API standardization, and aims to put the beacon chain light customers into production this year!
Our support in 2021 will be mainly for these five customers, and as the development progresses, we will also provide other opportunities.
Go forward together
As Danny Ryan explained in his recently completed #23 post, “As a beacon chain stakeholder, you need an Ethereum PoW endpoint to successfully perform all the various responsibilities as a validator”. This means that both today and after the merger, two client types are needed to power the network. And because the technology familiar to the executive layer still exists, regardless of changes to the consensus, dapps, developers, or users do not need to perform any actions to continue using Ethereum. In short, both customer types are still necessary, and the long-term strength, health, and decentralization of Ethereum will all succeed with their success.
In the past few months, we have seen new interest and innovation in Ethereum, and there will definitely be more Ethereum. With the increase in network usage and the potential of Ethereum, it seems that the sustainable support of open source software at the two layers is crucial, and we look forward to providing further updates in this area. 🚀
