It is expected that the network will make another push towards Ethereum 2.0 by Oct. 27, at epoch 742240, when it receives Altair’s upgrade to Beacon Chain.

An Ethereum Foundation blog post states that the Altair update was the first planned upgrade to the Beacon Chain. The update includes support for light client, pre-validator-inactivity leak accounting and a rise of severity. There are also clean-ups regarding validator rewards.

Interestingly, the Foundation has described Altair as a “warm-up upgrade” for the Beacon Chain and its associated clients. The main feature of the Ethereum 2.0 network will be brought by it.

Sync committees are light client functions that will allow light clients to seamlessly sync up the header sequence with low data and computational costs. The second is an incentive accounting reform, which offers three major changes.

A third update will bring about changes to penalty parameters. This makes inactivity leaks more accountable and slashing less responsible than it was in the Pre-Altair age. These parameters will be subject to three significant changes. Inactivity penalties will now be reduced by 25%. This will reduce the average time for balances leakage by almost 13.4%. In addition, the minimum slashing quotient (from 128 to 64) will be decreased. The minimum slashing penality is now 0.5 ETH. This penalty doubles the 0.25 ETH.

Also, the proportional multiplier for slashing penalties will decrease from one to 2. This will mean that the slashing penal will now double any percentage of other validators that were cut within 18 days.

This can affect security and the incentive structure. Higher levels of contribution are recognized and rewarded. This upgrade will only affect the Beacon Chain and not users or decentralized apps (DApps), so it won’t directly impact them. However, Ethereum users will be affected once Eth 2.0 is implemented.

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