A look at the top ten key figures behind the Ethereum merger

As one of the biggest events in the crypto industry recently, the Ethereum " Merge " has attracted huge attention. In fact, Ethereum community developers and contributors from all over the world have been working on the "Merge" for many years. Data shows that at least 119 Ethereum core developers and thousands of programmers are committed to the "Merge", but 10 of them played an indispensable role in the process. Let's take a look at these "behind-the-scenes heroes".

1. Aidan Hyman, CEO and co-founder of Chainsafe

Who is he? Aidan Hyman is the CEO and co-founder of Chainsafe, a blockchain R&D company that is dedicated to building various cross-chain projects, such as Lodestar, a consensus client that implements the Ethereum Proof of Stake algorithm, which will play a key role in the Ethereum merger.

What did he do? Lodestar aims to enable individual users to self-host a staking validator and verify blockchain data, helping to eliminate reliance on centralized network verification service providers. The project is open source and written in the popular programming language Typescript, which also makes it accessible to the developer community. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin provided ChainSafe with the first funding in 2018 to develop Lodestar. Several members of ChainSafe also participated in the launch of the Goerli testnet, which is the core testing platform before the launch of the Ethereum mainnet.

2. Danny Ryan, researcher at Ethereum Foundation

Who is he? Danny Ryan is a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports Ethereum and its related technologies. Danny Ryan is also the lead coordinator of Ethereum upgrades and frequently contributes to the Ethereum Foundation blog, providing updates on the "merge" and Ethereum's development roadmap.

What did he do? According to a previous interview with a16z Future, Danny Ryan began to participate in the Ethereum Proof of Stake upgrade as early as 2017. He described his role in the Ethereum Foundation as helping to facilitate dialogue to determine the timetable and priorities related to Ethereum scalability, security and sustainability upgrades. He also helped develop review proposal solutions for Ethereum research and development.

3. Paul Hauner, co-founder of Sigma Prime

Who is he? Paul Hauner is the co-founder of information security consultancy Sigma Prime and also founded the Lighthouse project, another proof-of-stake consensus client for Ethereum. Since 2018, the Lighthouse project has received financial support from the Ethereum Foundation, infrastructure company ConsenSys, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

What did he do? Lighthouse is an Ethereum consensus client that implements the proof-of-stake algorithm with high speed and security. Sigma Prime is responsible for client maintenance, helping individual users download the client and become validators of the Ethereum consensus layer. According to Lighthouse's website, the Lighthouse team is also actively involved in the Ethereum proof-of-stake consensus specification and security analysis.

4. Justin Drake, Researcher at Ethereum Foundation

Who is he? Justin Drake is a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, having joined the foundation in 2017 after founding a startup called Duo Money. Justin Drake first got involved in the crypto space in 2013 when he founded the Cambridge Bitcoin Meetup Group, and has recently come to public attention for his views on merged staking rewards.

What does he do? In an interview with CryptoStaker, Justin Drake described his role at the Ethereum Foundation as "responsible for dialogue with insiders and the public community, minute-by-minute updates," while also overseeing the technical coordination and research work of the Ethereum Foundation.

5. Pooja Ranjan, Head of Ethereum Cat Herders

Who is she? Pooja Ranjan is the head of Ethereum Cat Herders. She previously founded Ethereum news site EtherWorld and worked as a senior software engineer at Accenture.

What does she do? The Ethereum Cat Herders describe themselves as a group of people who “support Ethereum’s core developers through communication and coordination for project management and other aspects,” and who are also responsible for putting together educational videos about Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), or design documents related to “merges” and other Ethereum topics.

6. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum

Who is he? Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin is undoubtedly the most high-profile co-founder of Ethereum. He co-founded Bitcoin Magazine in 2011 and published the Ethereum white paper in 2014.

What did he do? Although Vitalik Buterin is no longer an Ethereum core developer, he has played an important role in communicating the transition from proof of work to proof of stake since the design concept of the new consensus mechanism was introduced in 2016, such as attending discussions on the Ethereum roadmap and sharing technical articles, and speaking on a wide range of crypto topics. In December 2021, Vitalik Buterin said in a conversation in Buenos Aires: "I think it's very important for Ethereum to move to proof of stake for environmental reasons and efficiency reasons. It's also an opportunity to make the protocol better, confirm transactions faster, make the network more efficient, and add light client support - but there's a long list of work to do."

7. Tim Beiko, Head of Protocol Support at the Ethereum Foundation

Who is he? Tim Beiko is a core developer of the Ethereum blockchain who joined the Ethereum Foundation in 2021 after transitioning from a product manager position at ConsenSys.

What does he do? Tim Beiko runs the biweekly core developer meetings, which are the glue that holds the ethereum developer community together and focus on all things network upgrade and improvement, including the massive updates needed to prepare for the switch to proof-of-stake.

Tim Beiko was the first to reveal that the “merge” would take place in mid-September, and he also played an important role in helping to launch Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 (EIP-1559), which was part of the London upgrade and introduced a new destruction mechanism for the Ethereum protocol.

8. Preston Van Loon, co-founder of Prysmatic Labs

Who is he? Preston Van Loon co-founded Ethereum infrastructure company Prysmatic Labs with Raul Jordan in 2018, and previously worked at Google.

What did he do? Preston Van Loon’s company has been working on the Prysm client, which is currently the most popular of the major consensus clients that support the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism. Prysmatic began to focus on the sharding expansion solution, which will be a highly anticipated upgrade to Ethereum after the “merge” occurs.

The process of transitioning away from proof-of-work consensus took Ethereum developers several years, and apparently took much longer than expected, but Preston Van Loon explained that Prysmatic has been working hard to get things right. “At Prysmatic Labs, we were one of the first people involved, and the entire codebase was rewritten, I think, at least three times.”

9. Ben Edgington, Head of Product, Teku, ConsenSys

Who is he? Ben Edgington is the founder and product manager of Teku, an open source consensus client.

What did he do? Ben Edgington decided to focus his energy on Ethereum scaling and proof of stake in early 2018. In the same year, he began developing the Teku consensus client. Ben Edgington once said that when he learned about the transition to proof of stake, he "really got hooked" on Ethereum because he was worried that proof of work would have a negative impact on the environment.

“I had no idea that day six years ago that it would take us this long to deliver proof of stake,” Ben Edgington wrote in a blog post. “The journey has been longer and harder than anyone could have imagined. But the merger is finally here.”

10. Mikhail Kalinin, Chief Researcher, ConsenSys R&D

Who is he? Mikhail Kalinin is currently the Chief Researcher at ConsenSys and one of the longest-serving developers working on Ethereum, having started working on the Ethereum client as early as 2015.

What did he do? Mikhail Kalinin made great contributions to several key technical steps to achieve the Ethereum "merge", including the release of executable beacon chain proposals. Tim Beiko said on social media that Danny Ryan and Mikhail Kalinin were the two most critical figures in the merger and said "they really built and drove the ship."