Partnered With:

How is the latest Ethereum 2.0 path planned?

Read this article in 10 Minutes

How exactly does Ethereum 2.0 work? What news will it bring? And what are the basic stages of the long-awaited "launch event" on the mainnet?

Original title: "How is the latest Ethereum 2.0 path planned?" "

Original Source: Encryption Valley Live

October 4, ETH 2.0 Deposit Contract Finally released with all the details of the contract. However, this version will only activate the protocol if there are at least 16,384 validators and 524,288 ETH deposited in it at 12:00 UTC on December 1st. Obviously, this does not mean that the final version of Ethereum 2.0 will be launched on this day, but that the smart contracts required for the launch will be in effect. But how exactly does Ethereum 2.0 work? What news will it bring? And what are the basic stages to go through in the long-awaited "launch event" of the mainnet?

Introduction to Eth2

Ethereum 2.0, or Eth2, is a long-planned Ethereum network Update, if all promises are kept, capacity and security will be improved, which will attract more support. The idea behind this update is to drastically reduce energy consumption by converting the PoW (Proof of Work) algorithm to the PoS (Proof of Stake) algorithm, and the network has a larger number of transactions than the current one. In addition to the epoch-making change from PoW to PoS, shard chains will also be introduced, a concept that has existed in the blockchain world for some time and will be tested on the new version of the protocol. Finally, as previously expected, the actual deployment of Ethereum 2.0 will be divided into three distinct phases, which will be analyzed later. are you ready?

How is the latest Ethereum 2.0 path planned?

Why choose Ethereum 2.0?

Since its launch in 2015, Ethereum has become the number one programmable area in terms of the number of DApps (decentralized applications) and the number of smart contracts developed blockchain. Compared with Bitcoin, because Bitcoin's scripting language is relatively rigid, Ethereum allows you to create more free contracts through Turing's complete programming language Solidity. But there are two sides to everything, and being able to create any form of smart contract creates bugs and errors that cost its users millions of dollars. Right now, however, the fundamental problem with Ethereum is the strong need to scale to realize its true potential, as only 15 tps (transactions per second) creates an insurmountable bottleneck. Comparing with known systems, the processing capacity of Visa is around 1500tps, which makes it scalable globally as a payment service. The current consensus algorithm PoW requires high energy costs in the mining process for security reasons, but at the same time it cannot be expanded as needed. Achieving "scalable, secure, decentralized" standards is no small feat, which is why Ethereum 2.0 has taken so long to wait.

How is the latest Ethereum 2.0 path planned?

How to choose between PoW and PoS, and why?

The Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm is based on the concept of miners to ensure the security and synchronization of the network. By investing a lot of computing power, blocks are created, and transactions that have not yet been confirmed are included in the blocks. While theoretically the most secure method for cryptocurrencies, it is very energy-intensive for an application that wants to scale globally, and the rate at which transactions are verified is very low. Proof-of-of-Stake replaces energy consumption: there are no miners, but only validators, who stake their ETH to verify and create new blocks to earn new Ethereum . Validators then run software that confirms transactions and creates new blocks on the chain. The capital investment required to become a single validator is 32 ETH, but in the future, there will likely be opportunities to participate with smaller amounts by joining a staking pool. In order to initiate the various phases of Eth2, there must be at least 16,384 validators with 524,288 ETH deposited in them in the 7 days before December 1, 2020.

What is a shard chain?

Another important update to version 2 of the protocol is the shard chain. These "chains" can be regarded as blockchains parallel to the main chain, and they are always in the Ethereum ecosystem, undertaking a considerable part of the data processing work. Currently, for a node in the network to process a transaction, it must download, compute, archive, and read every transaction in Ethereum's history. This is one of the reasons why Ethereum can only perform 15tps at this stage. With sharding, nodes will be dispersed into a subset of shards, and each transaction in that subset will only need to be downloaded, computed, and archived, rather than the entire network. The task of the "beacon chain" will then be to ensure that all nodes are in sync. This "chain" will be the central blockchain in Ethereum, which will provide consensus for all shard chains. On each shard chain, validators will create blocks of transactions and report them to the beacon chain, which will then make this information available to everyone.

Ethereum 2.0 Roadmap

As stated, an update of this magnitude requires development, It's also no small feat in terms of coordination and security. To this end, the update from 1.0 to 2.0 will be done mainly in 3 phases.

Phase 0: Beacon Chain.

The first thing to be done will be the establishment of the beacon chain. Since shard chains are not supported yet, there will be no real synchronization. Initially, the chain only needs to register validators and coordinate everyone's staked ETH. We are at this stage now, the deposit contract was released yesterday.

How is the latest Ethereum 2.0 path planned?

Phase 1.5: Mainnet becomes sharded.

At this stage, Ethereum will now be a shard and will officially transition to Proof-of-Stake.

Phase 2: Complete Fragmentation

In the second and final stage At one stage, these shards will be fully functional, compatible with smart contracts, and able to "communicate freely". This phase should complete the transition and finally make Ethereum a high-volume project capable of taking on a huge number of users.

How is the latest Ethereum 2.0 path planned?

Consensys.net

Summary

What we are about to see in the Ethereum network is an epochal change, from many perspectives: First, because PoS will finally be tested in a huge project, first for the community behind it, The second is to see whether the parallel operation of the shard chain and the beacon chain will have a good result. We are only at the first steps of change: conditions seem to be favorable, we just have to wait and see if the agreement can deliver on its promise in a shorter period of time.