Introducing 3 Cohort: 😺Ethereum Cat Herders

This interview is a part of our on-going series, where we highlight our epoch 3 participants.

What's Ethereum Cat Herders?

Ethereum Cat Herders aka ECH is a group of contributors to support Ethereum Protocol development & Ecosystem by providing - education, community building, and help on-boarding!

Why should Octant users vote for Ethereum Cat Herders in epoch 3?

Here are important tasks performed by the Ethereum Cat Herders that underscore its importance as a public goods project:

• Ethereum Protocol Education & Application Projects’ Awareness: We create PEEPanEIP, an hour-long podcast dedicated to EIPs and network upgrades where an overview of the proposal is presented by the author. Ecosystem Project Demo is another podcast where application teams demo the working and functionality of different projects.
• EIP editing, coordinating EIP documentation & process improvement: The Ethereum Cat Herders play a key role in documenting, reviewing, and improving the process around Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). EIP process have been improved with addition of EIP editors funded by ECH.
• Hard Fork Coordination: We assist in the coordination of network upgrades or hard forks. This includes organizing discussions, gathering community feedback, and facilitating consensus among developers, ensuring that the improvements to the Ethereum protocol are well-coordinated and effectively implemented. This task is critical for maintaining the network’s integrity and ensuring upgrades are executed smoothly without disrupting the service to users.
• Developer Communication: The group acts as a bridge between core developers and the broader community. We communicate important technical updates, proposals, and changes to the wider audience, helping non-developers understand complex developments and providing developers with feedback from the community.
• Educational Outreach and Community Building: We are involved in organizing educational initiatives like webinars, workshops, and writing documentation. These efforts help increase community engagement, educate new users and developers, and strengthen the community’s understanding of Ethereum’s workings and ongoing projects.

By performing these tasks, the Ethereum Cat Herders contribute significantly to the Ethereum ecosystem, supporting its development and ensuring its operational efficiency, which makes their role extremely valuable as a public goods project.

Support education and community building with Ethereum Cat Herders!

Your project is interesting because:

Over 775 Ethereum Improvement Proposals, 130 episodes on PEEPanEIP,  36 Office Hours dedicated for documenting proposals and many more in reviewing. Multiple client devs meeting facilitation, notes documentation and necessary coordination to support Ethereum Protocol development.

The latest progress:

• Dencun Mainnet Upgrade

Dencun Upgrade Livestream [2024-03-13]

• We are excited to share that Deneb and Cancun (Dencun) improvement proposals were successfully deployed on the Ethereum Mainnet. The Ethereum Cat Herders co-hosted the Dencun Mainnet Livestream with the EthStakesr and The Daily Gwei (Anthony Sassal). The upgrade was successful and the blobs are real now!
• We recorded a total of 13 episodes on Dencun proposals, testing and testnet preparation on PEEPanEIP-Dencun for the community to follow and learn about the upcoming changes over the year.
• We also published Dencun: Deneb-Cancun Upgrade blogpost for fun facts and what to expect with the next Ethereum Upgrade.

Learn2Earn, Dencun NFT & Goerli Livestream

• In addition to the Dencun. page mentioned in the last update, which was created to provide testing and other updates on the Dencun Ethereum Upgrade, our engineering team launched the Learn2Earn app in early January 2024. This is an educational platform that rewards users for learning about Ethereum protocols and application standards.
• Co-organizing the Dencun Goerli Livestream [2024-01-17] with EthStakers, the Learn2Earn app was shared with the community to earn free Dencun NFT. Learn about the protocol, take the quiz, and earn Dencun NFT at Learn2Earn. Learn more in this blogpost.

EIP Process Sharing, Reviews & Office Hours

• Information sharing is a key to inviting community participation. Noting the recent changes in the EIP GitHub structure and proposal submission process, our contributor talked about the Evolving Ethereum With Improvement Proposals at EthDenver and the EIP Day organized by Fellowship of Ethereum Magicians. These in-person meetups not only provided us the opportunity to learn about the gap but also helps us plan for future tasks to be included under the umbrella of Ethereum Cat Herders.
• Since January, we facilitated: 5 EIPIP meetings and 4 Editing Office Hours

Recorded and shared: 8 EVM Implementers Meetings, 1 Meet The Herders

Educational Content & Podcast - PEEPanEIP

• PEEPanEIP is an incredible #Ethereum resource to bridge gap between  research, coredev, community We received kind words from Ethereum developers like Danny Ryan on PEEPanEIP series.
• In this section, we recorded a new episode for a proposal under CFI Prague - Electra Upgrade. The talk on PEEPanEIP-7251:Increase MAX_EFFECTIVE_BALANCE with DappLion and Mike Neuder hopefully will be helpful for the client developers to make informed decisions.
• We recorded a talk with Joachim Lebrun on ERC3643: Token for Regulated EXchanges and ERC-6982: Efficient Default Lockable Tokens with Francesco Sullo. These are the latest additions to application standards on the Ethereum repository.
• The Podcast version can be found here.

Women in Ethereum Protocol (WiEP)

• Extending beyond the immediate tasks at hand, focusing on the long-term sustainability, and growth of the Ethereum ecosystem with diversity, equality & inclusion, we’re working with the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum Protocol Fellowship and formed a new group to onboard Women in Ethereum Protocol. We aim to foster an environment where diverse voices are heard, contributions are valued, and innovation thrives.
• We launched Women in Ethereum Protocol (WiEP) on Feb 29, 2024 at Edgecity, Denver.
• On International Women’s Day 2024, we organized a webinar - Empower and Innovate that received a lot of attention from the women developers’ community.

➡️  Follow on X at @EthCatHerders➡️ Read the Ethereum Cat Herders (ECH) update on our forum 😺 Vote for Ethereum Cat Herders (ECH) this epoch