🎉 Big news, Rocket Pool community! 🥳 The SEC just approved the first Ethereum ETF, and our #trading room on Discord is buzzing with excitement! Imagine Eth, our beloved decentralized hero, getting a shiny new badge of approval from the big leagues. It's like seeing our favorite digital star finally getting its moment in the spotlight! Picture the scene: the Rocket Pool crew, all gathered in the #trading room, decked out in virtual party hats, celebrating with confetti made of smart contracts, and raising glasses of pixelated champagne. 🥂 This ETF approval is more than just a win; it's a milestone worthy of a moonwalk! 🌕✨ Now, investors—whether they're new to the crypto world or seasoned pros—can jump into Ethereum as easily as buying a stock. It's like Eth has rolled out the red carpet, making it simpler than ever to be part of the revolution. And let's not forget the memes—oh, the glorious memes! Get ready for an onslaught of "ETH to the moon" jokes and celebratory GIFs flooding the chat. So, grab your virtual popcorn and join the fun in the #trading room. Eth's future is shining brighter and looking more mainstream than ever. 🚀💫 Here's to new beginnings and even bigger crypto dreams! 🥳🎉

v1.12.1 of Rocket Pool's Smart Node has been released! 🔶 Tons of clients (Lighthouse, Teku, Nimbus, etc) have been updated and a few Smart Node features have been added such as notifications and an updated RPL reward panel. The infamous "smartnode" term has been updated to "Smart Node" Users that updated their Smart Node version within 24 hours and post a screenshot received a POAP!

On March 11, 2024, Rocket Pool launched Smartnode version 1.11.9, a crucial update for all users. It's especially necessary if you haven't upgraded to v1.11.8 or if you're using MEV-Boost v1.6. This release incorporates significant updates from clients. It's recommended for everyone to update, as it ensures compatibility with Dencun and includes various enhancements and bug fixes across all clients. Node operators that upgraded within 24 hours were awarded a POAP.

In February, 2024 darkness had seemingly swept over the Rocket Pool community. The RPL-ETH ratio had fallen to <0.009 and sentiment was at a low point in #trading. But in early March hope arose again following a successful Rocket Pool Denver Lift-Off event at ETH Denver, further tokenomics discussion in the community, and rumors that the upcoming Houston upgrade could bring institutional stakers into the mix. The ratio rose above 0.009 once again on March 5th, 2024. This POAP was distributed to members of the Rocket Pool community that self-identified as "ratio survivors" in early March, 2024.

All clients have been updated to their latest Dencun-ready versions, including Geth (v1.13.11), Besu (v24.1.1), Nethermind (v1.25.3), Nimbus (v24.2.0 with regression fixes from v24.1.2), Lodestar (v1.15.0), Teku (v24.1.1), Prysm (v4.2.1, causing potential failures on certain older CPUs without AVX support on Holeski testnet after Deneb fork, but not affecting Mainnet), and Lighthouse (v4.6.0, a medium-priority release with new features, performance enhancements, and bug fixes for Mainnet users). Smartnode changes include Nimbus pruning mode defaulting to "Prune" for new users, with existing users needing manual configuration via rocketpool service config. The deprecated Prater testnet has been entirely removed from Smartnode, and Nethermind's automatic pruning threshold increased from 250 GB to 300 GB. Rocket Pool node operators that updated their software within 24 hours received this POAP.

In the afternoon of January 9th of 2024, the SEC thought we weren't having enough fun so they tendered us an unbelievable series of events that made life feel like science fiction. Sergito.eth paged Arsonic.eth in the cryptopunks Telegram to make a POAP to celebrate and here we are :) This POAP will be an open edition available to mint for a couple days, and one lucky collector will be awarded a Sgt Pepe masterpiece, created by Arsonic in Late 2022.