In a p2p network nodes share information by sending messages to each other. In the Ethereum p2p network, nodes send blocks, transactions, and many other type of messages. All nodes need to send the data (e.g., blocks) in a format that other nodes can understand. Thus, messages get serialized before being sent over the network. After the data has been serialized, it can be compressed to reduce the network bandwidth consumption and speed up network transfers.

At MigaLabs we are glad to release the report of our latest collaboration with the Obol team. Earlier this year we did a performance study on the Obol Distributed Validator Technology (DVT), running validators in different machines, cloud providers, and geographical locations.

On Tuesday May 30th 2023 a slashing event happened in the Ethereum Prater network. Around 584 validators were slashed during 1008 epochs (179520 -180528). These validators were part of an experiment carried out by the Migalabs team for testing purposes with ObolNetwork about the Charon software. This post explains the events related to this incident.

Our team at Migalabs decided to participate in The Merge Data Challenge organized by the Ethereum Foundation. During that project, we created a website to visualize and compare validators’ rewards one month before and after the merge. We have decided to share all the data that we gathered with the ecosystem so that other researchers and developers can look at the numbers and use them in their own analyzes.

When it comes to running a validator in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially after The Merge, it is important to measure its performance, as this will directly impact how many rewards it obtains. Therefore, we have analyzed how many rewards validators obtain, in order to get some hints of their performance in the network.

Diving into the pools and dark forests of PoS Ethereum

It is not news that the Ethereum ecosystem lacks diversity in terms of both, execution and consensus client usage. Decentralized ecosystems do not have an authorized centralized point which can govern the whole network. Therefore, it is our intention to encourage users to use minority software clients, in order to build a more diverse and robust ecosystem.

Ethereum is moving towards a major upgrade that aims at making the network more sustainable, with the transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake, and more scalable with the introduction of data sharding. This process started with the deployment of the Beacon Chain in December 2020 and the next step called the Merge which is expected to happen later this year. In this article we look at how far the Ethereum 2 ecosystem has progressed in this transition and how ready is to move to the next level.

Resilience is very important for the correct functioning of a system. There is no system 100% reliable in the software and electronic field. Having such complex technology like nowadays’ also implies that there will be many points of failure. From the programming frameworks to human coding errors, critical systems need to take care of this to have the minimum risk possible.