Breaking: Ethereum Developer Issues A Caution Notice Before The Merge

As the Ethereum Merge date nears Ethereum, clients and developers prepare for the merger of Mainnet (execution layer) with the Beacon Chain (consensus layer). Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Wijden issued a caution notice on Tuesday and contended that running multiple consensus layer nodes on one execution layer node such as Geth is wrought with danger and will cause execution issues.

Users can execute multiple validators on a single consensus layer node and execution layer node. However, running numerous consensus layer nodes on one execution layer will lead to faults. The combination will ultimately precipitate a crash.

Ethereum Developer Warns Of Bugs Before The Merge

Detailing the cause of this, the developer said that various consensus layer nodes would share the dissimilar state of details with execution layer nodes, ensuing in execution conflicts. It is crucial to have a 1:1 relationship between the execution layer and consensus layer nodes.

The developer said, “The CL sets the head of the EL. If you have two nodes telling it their (differing) world views, it will flip-flop and re-execute a lot of blocks while doing so. You can see what happens in the picture, the node switches between the head and head -2k.”

The Ethereum clients have started updates for the consensus layer and execution layer. The consensus layer clients are Lighthouse, Lodestar, Nimbus, Prysm, and Teku, and the execution layer clients are Besu, Erigon, Go Ethereum and Nethermind.

The successful implementation of the Merge will only happen when the nodes update both the consensus and execution layers. The Bellatrix update will happen first in the Runup to the Merge and will be concluded at 11:34 am UTC on September 6, and the Paris upgrade will be complete on the execution layer on September 15. After merging the execution layer or Ethereum Mainnet with the consensus layer or Beacon Chain.