General introduction to running your own instance of an Ethereum client.| ethereum.org
Ethereum's transition to proof of stake -- The Merge -- is near: devnets are being stood up, specifications are being finalized and community outreach has begun in earnest. The Merge is designed to have minimal impact on how Ethereum operates for end users, smart contracts and dapps. That said, there are some minor changes worth highlighting. Before we dive into them, here are a few links to provide context about the overall Merge architecture:| Ethereum Foundation Blog
Expose beacon chain randomness in the EVM by supplanting DIFFICULTY opcode semantics| Ethereum Improvement Proposals
Support validator withdrawals from the beacon chain to the EVM via a new "system-level" operation type.| Ethereum Improvement Proposals
Special thanks to Vitalik Buterin, Hsiao-Wei Wang and Caspar Schwarz-Schilling for feedback and review.| Dankrad Feist
Specification of the consensus mechanism upgrade on Ethereum Mainnet that introduces Proof-of-Stake| Ethereum Improvement Proposals