I realized I unintentionally got one week behind on updates, apologies for that!

As anticipated, my weeks have been primarily focused on researching different consensus protocols and reading dense research papers. That being said, I’ve really enjoyed the work and am excited to dive into more Ethereum-focused readings this upcoming week!

Up until now, I’ve made myself familiar with the basics of Ethereum consensus and what a potential single slot finality protocol would look like. Then, I looked at other protocols to see how they aimed to achieve near-single slot finality or instant finality. Two of the most well-known are Algorand and Tendermint (Cosmos), both of which employ mechanisms that were praised for their innovations. I also looked at historic mechanisms to understand how we got to the current state of research.

Going forward, I plan to dive deeply into Ethereum and the finality gadget, Casper. I plan to look at both Casper CBC and the proposed FFG upgrade, as well as other proposed alternatives. In theory, this should be the last phase of reading before I begin to write on my findings. By understanding Ethereum at a significantly deeper level, I’ll be able to compare it to what other protocols do, how its goals and implementations differ, and how those differences can be employed to create a fundamentally stronger Ethereum consensus mechanism going forward.

Here’s the current state of my knowledge graph. It’s coming along nicely, and the connections between several different pieces are starting to make themselves clear. I’m glad I chose this app to do notes on, as the connections have proven very useful in staying grounded in this research and not getting lost in all of the different phrasings and proposals.

Additionally, I believe one of my classes got cancelled next week, so I’m hoping I’ll get the opportunity to attend the standup or office hours and present what I’ve been doing!