How do you want to get involved?
The Ethereum community will always benefit from more folks running clients, staking, and bug hunting.
Run a client
Running a client means you'll be an active participant in Ethereum. Your client will help keep track of transactions and check new blocks.
Stake your ETH
If you have ETH, you can stake it to become a validator and help secure the network. As a validator you can earn ETH rewards.
Find bugs
Join the community testing effort! Help test Ethereum upgrades before they're shipped, find bugs, and earn rewards.
Run a client pair
A 'client' is software that runs the blockchain, and in the case of Ethereum, a full node requires running a pair of these clients: an execution layer client and a consensus layer client. A full node can check transactions and, if also staking ETH, can create new blocks. Each client has its own features but performs the same function overall, so we encourage you to choose a minority client whenever possible to keep the client pool diverse and secure. More on client diversity.
Execution layer clients
These clients were formerly referred to as 'Eth1' clients, but this term is being deprecated in favor of 'execution layer' clients.
Consensus layer clients
These clients were formerly referred to as 'Eth2' clients, but this term is being deprecated in favor of 'consensus layer' clients.
Go bug hunting
Find and report bugs in consensus layer upgrade specifications or the clients themselves. You can earn up to $50,000 USD and earn a place on the leaderboard.
A bug might be:
- specification non-compliance issues
- finality breaking bugs
- denial of service (DOS) vectors
- and more...
Join the research
Like most things with Ethereum, a lot of the research is public. This means you can take part in the discussions or just read through what the Ethereum researchers have to say. ethresear.ch covers a number of topics including consensus upgrades, sharding, rollups and more.