Ropsten beacon chain

[djrtwo]

We need to launch a Ropsten beacon chain to handle the merge of that testnet.

In our last CL call, it was generally decided that Ropsten should be unpermissioned but for devs to have the majority of validators (similar to prater/goerli).

So this would entail

• deciding on a genesis validator set size and genesis time
• creating a genesis state with well-distributed validators across EL teams, CL teams, EF and launching the chain soon (before end of may)

I suggest we do 100k vals. This is reasonably resistant to disruptions due to external deposits in the near-term, and it seems likely Ropsten is deprecated not too far out after it's merge

[timbeiko]

Another thing to note is that we should have good documentation (and ideally faucets) for stakers who want to launch validators before The Merge on Ropsten to make sure their setup works as expected.

[parithosh]

As discussed on ACD, Ropsten will have a validator set of ~100k. I'd say 10000 validator keys per entity taking part (Assuming that every client team wants to take part) => Validator set of 110012 (9 client teams + EF + Attestant/Vouch + 12 for EF security).

If there are entities outside of client teams that would like to take part, please comment below.

I propose genesis for the ropsten beaconchain on 30th of May (~2.5 weeks from now). That should give us enough time for clients to have releases, blogposts to come out, explorers to be setup. At the same time, it would be an overlap of ~1 week before the proposed merge with Ropsten PoW chain. If we have altair + bellatrix happening in quick succession, the beaconchain would be ready well in advance.

[0xWildhare]

If there are entities outside of client teams that would like to take part, please comment below.

do i count as an entity

[parithosh]

@0xWildhare If you have a reason for wanting to be a validator on ropsten (something to test, represent a significant part of mainnet, significant experience running validators) and so on, then you would count as an entity :)

[vieyang]

Is there documentation on how to run Ropsten beacon chain? Just test, personal.

[timbeiko]

@vieyang we'll have a post at blog.ethereum.org by the end of the week :-)

[vieyang]

@timbeiko ok, thank you. I have 32 rETH ready.

[0xWildhare]

any tips on how to get 32 rETH? wen faucet?

[vacekj]

@0xWildhare if I don't have a validator setup before the merge, I can endow you with 32 rETH

[nalepae]

If there are entities outside of client teams that would like to take part, please comment below.

@parithosh We (https://www.kiln.fi/) would like to take part.

Besides running multiple validators on the mainnet, we run some validators on the Kiln testnet and would really like to have validators running during Ropsten merge.

[parithosh]

@nalepae Unfortunately the ropsten beaconchain genesis has already been created. So at this point to run multiple validators you'd need to make deposits manually. We have another issue for Sepolia, perhaps you can post there?
#526

[nalepae]

Thank you pour your answer, we will try not to be late for Sepolia!

@parithosh, we are currently struggling to find enough rETH (Ropsten ETH) to launch 100 validators (our target).
Do you know somebody which could help us?

Thanks a lot!