
BLOX STATS
Mainnet Validators
Active: 284
Deposited: 1
Total: 285
Staked: 9120 ETH
Rate: 99.633%
Effectiveness: 99.349%
BLOX STAKING UPDATES

We are pleased to welcome our new users who imported their validators over the past couple of week 🥂
Since the import function was released, a handful of validators have moved over successfully, and we are welcoming more and more each day.
To join them:
We also have a version coming up next week with a number of new features.
Linux users – the time has finally come, thanks for your patience! Version 1.4.1 will feature support for Ubuntu 🥳.
It will also include general bug fixes and a number of improvements to the Dashboard:
🔥 Toggle between mainnet & testnet validators.
🔥 Improved dashboard calculations.
See you on the other side!
ETH2 PROGRESS REPORT

It looks like the merge is fast approaching as a proposal was published for the executable Beacon Chain which meshes Eth1 with Proof of Stake consensus.
Adding fuel to the pace, a large group of miners who oppose EIP-1559 – the proposal to upgrade Ethereum’s existing fee structure with a fixed price and burn mechanism – have called for a ‘show of force’ in protest of its implementation scheduled for the Eth1 London hard fork in July.
The plan is for miners to direct their hash rate to the mining pool Etheremine for 51 hours on April 1st. If enough miners join in, the pool will garner sufficient power to make unilateral changes to the network.
Though the miners claim that this protest is purely meant for ‘educational purposes’, this has caused an uproar across the larger Ethereum ecosystem and many are calling for the transition to PoS to come as soon as possible.
Vitalik has published a proposal that would enable a swift execution of the merge, while Tim Beiko has published EIP-3368 as a form of compromise. Only time will tell how this will unfold, we will send an update on Twitter when a final decision has been made!
ETHEREUM FOUNDATION GRANT

Following the community call last week, the SSV team is gearing up for the Phase I testnet!
The date has been set for April 14, and will run for 10 days. It will comprise of a 7 node SSV group running a single Pyrmont validator.
If you are interested in running and maintaining an SSV node as part of the testnet, reach out on Discord!
FEATURED ARTICLE

The Technical Evolution of Blox’s Attestation Architecture, Design & Infrastructure - Part 1
Lior Rutenberg - Blox CTO
Different staking setups have emerged in recent months, from DIY configurations all the way to staking pools. What hasn’t changed is the actual infrastructure on which these different services are built. Due to the stringent rules that the Eth2 slashing protocol defines, all staking configurations must run a validator using a single validator client.
The constraint of running just 1 validator instance influences staking pool designs to be more centralized and less secure. The SSV project is developing a technology that enables the splitting of an Eth2 validator key between several operators in a trustless, decentralized and secure way. This reduces the reliance on any single point of failure that might affect a stakers validator performance and ETH rewards and increases network security by focusing on decentralization across the entire network.
MORE FRESH READS
Dankrad Feist – Commit to pre-state instead of post-state on the executable beacon chain
Vitalik Buterin – Quick merge via fork choice change
Ben Edgington – What’s New in Eth2 – 13 March 2021
Superphiz – Stake of the Stake #40