The "Altair Mainnet Announcement" by Danny Ryan invites all node operators of Ethereum 2.0 to upgrade their software to avoid the validator downtime penalty.
Altair will be activated on Oct. 27, 2021
According to the official blog post by Mr. Ryan, the Altair beacon chain (ETH2 initial phase) upgrade will go live in mainnet at epoch 74240. This epoch is expected to come at 10:56 a.m. UTC on Oct. 27, 2021.
Altair Mainnet launch at epoch 74240 (Oct 27, 2021, 10:56:23am UTC)!https://t.co/fTxZBLQqJ5
Upgrade your nodes!
Now, onward to the Merge ?— dannyryan ? (@dannyryan) October 5, 2021Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction 2026Morning Crypto Report: XRP Kicks Off 2026 With 2,198% Liquidation Imbalance, Tether (USDT) Stuns With $780 Million Bitcoin Purchase, Meme Coin on Binance Loses 88% After Hacker AttackRipple Kicks Off 2026 With 1 Billion XRP UnlockCrypto Market Prediction: Two Big Bitcoin (BTC) Barriers, Best XRP Price Timeframe at the Start of 2026, Shiba Inu (SHIB) Having a Calm New Year
To keep their nodes synchronized with post-Altair consensus, node operators should upgrade their clients. Software builds for all clients—Lighthouse, Lodestar, Prysm, Nimbus and Teku—are available via the links in the announcement.
As with Ethereum 1.0 hardforks, end users, ETH holders, contracts and the state of the PoW network are not affected by the updates.
Ethereum 2.0's upgrade Altair is designed to advance the economic logics of network validating and to introduce "light client" support for its core consensus.
"Onward to the Merge"
EF launches a massive bug bounty campaign to ensure the security and performance of the post-Altair network. Before Nov. 27, 2021, Ethereum enthusiasts can disclose bugs and receive up to $100,000 in bounty bonuses.
As such, the Ethereum 2.0 network comes one step closer to the ETH1-ETH2 transition. By press time, more than 7.8 million Ethers are locked in the ETH2 deposit contract.
Amid the latest crypto capitalization spike, this sum exceeds $27 billion in equivalent. To provide context, Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract "capitalization" is higher than that of Yandex, Kia, Deutsche Bank, Panasonic and Societe Generale.

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