Minimal Merge roadmap

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M0 through M5 milestones defined at https://hackmd.io/@tvanepps/amphora-milestones

• [x] guide https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/pull/2858 into unstable, creating base from which multiple people can work
• [x] implement other beacon chain merge functions, largely back-end computational logic (including upgrade_to_merge)
• [x] add tests as they pass to the tested part of the EF test suite, taking advantage of support for running with/without execution client to do so without devops changes initially
• [x] audit all ALTAIR_FORK_EPOCH references to ensure they behave properly with respect to MERGE_FORK_EPOCH
• [x] add merge block/state database support, including immutable-state support, along with tests
• [x] add merge hardfork usage to block_sim
• [x] implement modified BeaconBlocksByRange v2 / BeaconBlocksByRoot v2
• [x] subscribe/unsubscribe to/from merge topics
• [x] recreate or port over https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/pull/2477 from quick-merge-v1 branch the RPC mechanisms such that they target current (similar, but tweaked) protocol
• [x] M0 milestone
• [x] M1 milestone
• [x] create working launch_local_testnet support for at least post-merge world and ideally merge itself
• [x] document, along the lines of https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/blob/stable/docs/rayonism_merge.md, how to run this testnet with geth or other execution client- [ ] implement modified beacon_block gossip validation (https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs/blob/v1.1.0/specs/merge/p2p-interface.md#beacon_block)- [ ] M2 milestone
• [x] M2 milestone
• [x] M3 milestone
• [x] M4 milestone
• [ ] M5 milestone

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M5 is effectively separate -- it's a whole-ecosystem effort more intrinsically.