Well, my friends, here we are on the cusp of an historical moment. The long awaited, long anticipated beginning of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. Proof of Stake and everything that goes with it! Well, everything in Phase 0, at least.
Excited is not the right word, somehow. I’m definitely excited for the researchers and the developers, the speculators, and the community who have been waiting oh-so-long for this moment. And yet… well, it’s a bit overwhelming. All of the research, specs, code, bug fixes, the articles, discussions, disagreements…the flood of news hitting my timelines every day. It’s a lot to keep up with.
But we need to keep up to reach our destination. The testnet is the next stop. THE Ethereum 2.0 testnet. The last one (probably, maybe) before the production mainnet is launched. Its name? Medalla. And rumor has it (update — it’s real) that participation boasts a very special reward — a POAP digital medal — recognition à la NFT for validators who participate in the genesis event.
Are you staking? I’m staking. At least I think I’m staking. But I’m not sure how I’m staking. And I know some things about staking. I even wrote an article about it. But without knowing the specs and the code and the client software inside and out, I don’t really know much about it. There will be a Launchpad — a website to help with deposits and to get set up as a validator. I wrote an article about that, too. Client teams are no doubt preparing their own on-boarding experiences, or perhaps will integrate with the Launchpad. Also preparing are the staking pools and institutional stakers. Exchanges are getting in on the act, too: ‘buy ETH from us and stake it for a fee!’ What about tokenized staking? Yep, that’s a thing. Own the tokens, put your feet up, and relax! Sell them to someone else when you’re done with it all!
It’s a bit much, sometimes. I’m so ready, that I’m not ready. At least that’s how I feel. Staking requires that my money is at stake. And of course that makes me nervous. I want to feel safe and secure. I want everything to be just so. I’m a software engineer by trade, and my expectations are that things should be elegantly laid out, clean in their execution, without complexity or redundancy. And if things don’t go well there’s no going back — deposits are generally a one way affair in Phase…
