From the perspective of the community observing the kickoff of the Hegota upgrade EIP scoping, it may seem as though everything is proceeding normally. However, the client funding crisis I wrote about in June has only deepened. On the current path, it's likely that the EL/CL client landscape will look very different at the new year. To be clear: not all change is bad. Turnover is healthy and necessary in any context. The challenge is in the magnitude produced by overlapping occurrences. Complex techno-political systems like Ethereum which aim to provide certain robust guarantees depend on continuity of deep institutional knowledge and client diversity for network stability. These characteristics are both best maintained via consistent neutral funding. Feature funding, intermittent injections, or abrupt shifts in the political economy without mitigations or succession plans are risky. These can disrupt fork cadence, distract from protocol workstreams, and damage morale. "100% uptime" is a stat that is hard won, far downstream of the incredible behind-the-scenes efforts by core devs. It can only be lost once, and I'm not confident we are doing enough to retain it as the network is still undergoing a significant evolution for the foreseeable future. The ecosystem often responds to my concerns with "the EF/ @BitMNR /large patron should take care of it". Setting aside the free-rider problem: if I were confident any entity had a forthcoming solution, then I wouldn't keep bringing this up. Either they feel like they have done enough, are constrained, or something else. I cannot speak for them on their priorities. The trouble with publicly communicating in advance about a private crisis is that I cannot point to concrete examples until clients choose to disclose. Until then you have to deal with my posts =)(trent.eth)