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<\/p>\nThe Ethereum Foundation has announced it will be increasing the network\u2019s bug bounty payouts fourfold ahead of the blockchain\u2019s transition to proof-of-stake.<\/p>\n
In a Wednesday blog post, the Ethereum Foundation said between Aug. 24 and Sept. 8, all \u201cMerge-related bounties for vulnerabilities\u201d will be quadrupled for white hats testing the network. According to the foundation, identifying \u201ccritical bugs\u201d \u2014 those that have a high impact or likelihood of a high impact on the blockchain \u2014 will be worth up to $1 million. The bounty program also allows submissions for low, medium and high risk bugs.<\/p>\n
As part of the transition to proof-of-stake, the foundation said the Ethereum Network \u201cmust first be activated on the Beacon Chain with the Bellatrix upgrade,\u201d an event expected to happen on Sept. 6, with the Merge likely following between Sept. 10 and 20. Core developers previously announced a tentative Merge date of Sept. 15 when the Total Terminal Difficulty, or TTD \u2014 the difficulty of the final mined block \u2014 will trigger the end of proof-of-work and the start of proof-of-stake.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe incremental difficulty added per block is dependent on the network hash rate which is volatile,\u201d said the foundation. \u201cIf more hash rate joins the network, TTD will be reached sooner. Similarly, if hash rate leaves the network, TTD will be reached later.”<\/p>\n
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The foundation added that Ether (ETH) holders and users largely did not need to take any action prior to the Merge other than to \u201cbe on the lookout for scams.\u201d Mining will no longer be possible following the transition, while stakers and node operators will both need to run an execution layer client, with the latter doing so with a consensus layer client.<\/p>\n
In July 2020, the Ethereum Foundation announced it had launched public \u201cattack networks\u201d for Ethereum 2.0 for white hats to attempt to exploit potential issues in the clients, offering a $5,000 bounty at the time. However, in August 2021, a vulnerability affecting earlier versions of one of Ethereum’s software clients, Geth,\u00a0caused more than half the network\u2019s nodes to split. The Merge will require the latest version of Geth as an execution client.<\/p>\n