Lighthouse Update #31 (Deposit Contract Launch)

Category Update

Deposit Contract Launch

The Ethereum Foundation has launched the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract:

This represents a major step forward in the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap. I'd like to personally congratulate the team at the Ethereum Foundation for their committed and fastidious work. They have produced a world-class specification via an open and transparent design process. It has been a pleasure to work alongside them.

The Deposit Contract

At Sigma Prime, we recognise the following address as the canonical Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract:

0x00000000219ab540356cBB839Cbe05303d7705Fa

When submitting a deposit to become an Ethereum 2.0 validator, we recommend checking this address against a few other sources to mitigate the risk of website/account hijacking. We suggest:

  • The Ethereum Foundation website.
  • Other Eth2 clients (Teku, Prsym, Nimbus, etc.).
  • A trusted Twitter account.

Lighthouse & Mainnet: Not yet!

🚨🚨🚨 Lighthouse is not yet ready to interact with the mainnet deposit contract! 🚨🚨🚨

Since the specification has only just been released, our developers haven't been able to include the mainnet specification and test it. So, don't use Lighthouse to submit mainnet validator deposits, yet!

If you use lighthouse account validator create to create a validator, the deposit transaction will be malformed (since it is intended for Medalla) and this will result in lost ETH. The Eth1 deposit contract will accept the deposit (and your precious ETH), however it will be rejected at Eth2 genesis. The ETH will not be refunded.

If you'd like to become a validator, use the Eth2 Launch Pad. The keys generated with the launch pad are designed to be fully compatible with Lighthouse, come genesis time.

Use the Ethereum 2.0 Launch Pad to create validators, until Lighthouse is ready.

Whilst Lighthouse is not going to be compatible with mainnet immediately after the deposit contract is announced, the team will be working hard to publish a Lighthouse release with mainnet support. Follow the #announcements channel on our Discord for updates.